Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight

by John Willcock

His old enemy, Lesley of Findrassie, endeavoured in vain to persuade the officers of the English garrison, then stationed in Urquhart's house at Cromartie, to arrest him as a prisoner of war, and keep him in confinement "till he [Lesley] were contented in all his demands."[125] An attempt was also made to apprehend him at Elgin; but he escaped all these machinations, and, after travelling in safety through many of the principal towns of Scotland, returned to London within the specified time, and gave himself up to the Council of State.

In the course of the year 1653 Sir Thomas Urquhart published the last of his original works—his Logopandecteision, and the translation of the first two books of Rabelais, in connection with which his name is best known. The object of the former of these was to suggest a wonderful scheme for a universal language, with the idea of being restored by the Government to the full possession of his liberty, and of being reinstated in the position of power and wealth, which he maintained was his by hereditary right, in order to carry out the scheme. His hopes and anticipations of success in this appeal to the English Government were not daunted by the fact that to do what he required would need several legislative changes, a reversal of proceedings in Scottish courts of law, and a substantial grant from the Treasury. This, after all, he considered, was a very small price to pay for the benefits he would thereby confer upon the world. That the appeal was not successful needs scarcely be told. Probably in no country in the world, and at no period in history, could any be found more likely to turn a deaf ear to such requests, than such men as Cromwell, Fleetwood, and Overton. Men like these were too practical, and of too hard a nature, to be impressed by any such visionary schemes as those which their prisoner delighted in constructing.

A veil of obscurity hangs over the closing years of our author's life. His last appearance before the public was in the issuing of the books above mentioned. The only further record of him is in the continuation of the Pedigree of the Urquharts, which is contained in the Edinburgh edition of his Tracts. In this we read that "he was confined for several years in the Tower of London; from whence he made his escape, and went beyond seas, where he died suddenly in a fit of excessive laughter, on being informed by his servant that the King was restored."[126] If this account of matters be true, it would seem that Sir Thomas had forfeited some of those privileges which he had won so soon after he had become a State prisoner. It is quite possible that this was in consequence of having joined in some Royalist plot against the Commonwealth and for the restoration of Charles II.

In the preface to the second book of Rabelais, Sir Thomas promises very speedily to translate the three remaining books of that author, so that the whole "Pentateuch of Rabelais," as he calls it, might be in the hands of English readers. But this design was never completed. The translation of the third book was found among his papers, and was published in 1693 by Pierre Antoine Motteux, but it is probable that the editor himself had some share in the work as issued to the public.

Sir Theodore Martin considers that there is a strong presumption against the truth of the above account of Sir Thomas's death, in his entire silence during the long period which elapsed between the publication of his last work and 1660, the date of the Restoration of Charles II. "Men," he says, "so deeply smitten with the cacoëthes scribendi as Urquhart was, do not thus readily cast the pen aside; nor was the lack of a publisher likely to have stood in the way of his literary career. His writings, if for no other cause but the number of his friends, must always have been a safe speculation for a printer, at a time when printing was cheap and readers numerous. But the imperfect state of his translation of Rabelais is perhaps the best evidence of the inaccuracy of the current belief.... Motteux says that Urquhart's version 'was too kindly received not to encourage him to English the three remaining books, or at least the third, the fourth and fifth being in a manner distinct, as being Pantagruel's voyage. Accordingly he translated the third book, and would have finished the whole, had not death prevented him.' This bears hard against the supposition of that event having occurred upwards of six years after the two first books had been given to the world. It is probable that he died much sooner, a victim in all likelihood to that fiery restlessness of spirit,

'Which o'er-informs its tenement of clay,
And frets the pigmy body to decay.'"[127]

This conjecture is, however, improbable. A petition from our author's brother, Sir Alexander Urquhart, is still in existence, in which he asks for a new commission of hereditary Sheriffship of Cromartie to be made out for him, on the ground of his being the eldest surviving son of the Sir Thomas Urquhart who died in 1642.[128] Though this document is undated, it is assigned by the editor of the volume of State Papers in which it is to be found, to August of 1660. If this date be trustworthy, we may be almost sure that the traditional statement as to the year of our author's death is correct.

The cause of his giving up his literary labours, and of omitting to carry through the work of translation on which he had entered, is, of course, unknown to us. His health, physical or mental, may have become seriously impaired, or his spirits may have been too much depressed by the misfortunes that crowded upon him, to allow him to engage in literary work. Indeed, the alleged cause of death from violent agitation of feeling caused by hearing of the Restoration of Charles II., argues in itself a previous condition of great physical weakness.

There seems at first, a certain grotesqueness in such a fatal exuberance of joy in connexion with such an event as Charles II. regaining the crown which his father had lost, and of which in another generation all of his blood were to be deprived. But we have to keep in mind that Sir Thomas was not alone in his folly, if folly it were; for a great wave of exultation swept over the three kingdoms at that time. Our author had, like many of his fellow-Royalists, staked and lost everything he possessed in the defence of the House of Stuart, and one can have little difficulty in understanding how the announcement of the triumph of the cause, which was so dear to him, should have agitated him profoundly.[129]