Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, Knight

ΧΑΝΟΝ, or

by mere chance, and who had thought himself bound in duty to the public to see it safely through the press. According to the statements of this disinterested philanthropist, the work in question was but one of a large number of papers of very great importance, forming part of the author's baggage, which he had to abandon after the battle of Worcester. It is the hab

to the Royal party at Worcester"; indeed, but for "a surpassing honest and civil officer of Colonel Pride's regiment," the

ht be, it is set at rest by the terms in which he pleads for favourable conditions being granted to the prisoner. "It is humbly desired," he says, "and, as I believe, from the hearts of all that are acquainted with him, that the greatest State in the world stain not their glory by being the Atropos to cut the thred of that which Saturne's sithe hath not been able to mow in the

ate. "Considering," it says, "how formerly he hath been a M?cenas to the scholar, a patron to the souldier, a favourer of the marchant, a protector of the artificer, and upholder of the yeoman, it were a thousand pities that by the auster

the Sethite and not the Cainite branch of the human race, and, among the sons of Noah, it passes through Japhet. The story is told of a marginal note being found in the history of some ancient Highland family, to the effect that "about this time the Flood to

e regions of Europe"; Japhet's grandson Penuel was "a most intimate friend of Nimrod, the mighty hunter and builder of Babel"; while his great-grandson Tychero

υροχαρτο?, that is [to] say, fortunate well-beloved. After which time, his posterity ever since hath acknowledged him the father of all that carry the name of Urquhart.[181] He had for his arms, three banners, three ships, and three ladies, in a field d'or, with a picture of a young lady above the waste, holding in her right hand a b

ouse of the Patriarch Abraham at the time of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha." At a later period, another, named Hypsegoras Urquhart, married a daughter of Herculus Lybius; while a desc

ed Molinea, by cunning and valour together he killed in one morning three lions;[183] the heads whereof, when in a basket, presented to his lady Panthea, so terrified her, that (being quick with childe) for putting her right hand to her left side, with this sudden exclamati

r, as every schoolboy knows, the fifty daughters of Danaus were married to their cousins, the fifty sons of ?gyptus, and all of them, but one, at the bidding of their father, murdered their husbands on the evening of the marriage-day. Hypermnestra, howev

told, "took to wife Thymelica, the daughter of Bacchus, in recompense of his having accompanied him in the conquest of the Indies." Further interesting particulars, which are not elsewhere recorded, are related of this ancestor of Sir Thomas. On his return from the expedition in which he assisted Bacchus

much applause and good success"-the one solitary instance of the kind, we suppose, which is to be found in the history of that "most distressful country." "From him," it i

isdom of Solomon, and by many[187] is supposed to have been the Queen of Sheba." Her husband, however, must have considered that, though she loved wisdom, she had not acquired much of it, or, at any rate, of the kind which is ne

author's time, the ladies who figure in the genealogy are of comparatively lowly birth-seldom, indeed, do they reach the rank of an earl's daughter. Either the supply of princesses was by this time somewhat exhausted, or the demands of the Urquharts were less exorbitant. The high-spirited character of the most remarkable scion of the family wh

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eing induced to exchange, by the instigation of King Solvatius, his arms of three lions' heads, for the three bears' heads, razed, because of the great exploit, in presence of the King, done by him and his two brother

and his house garrisoned and victualed with three yeers provision of all necessaries for one hundred men, he by a stratagem gained the castle, and with the matter of fourty men, keept it out against the forces of Edward for the space of seven yeers and a half, during which time all his lands there were totally wasted, and his woods burnt; so that, having nothing then he could properly call his own but the mote-hill onely of Cromartie, which he fiercely maintained against the enemies,

-struck, and left six hundred dead on the field of battle. The survivors were unacquainted with the country, and were under the impression that there was continuous land between them and their countrymen on the opposite shore. "They were only undeceived," we are told, "when, on climbing the southern Sutor, where it rises behind the town, they saw an arm of the sea more than a mile in width, and skirted by abru

tor in the fifteenth century, Thomas Urquhart, had by his wife Helen Abernethie, daughter of Lord Salton, five-and-twenty sons, who grew up to manhood, and eleven daughters, all of whom found

ook in store for mankind is so attractive to him that he cannot help dilating upon it. "In the great chronicle of the House of Urquhart," he continues, "the aforesaid Sir Thomas purposeth, by God's assistance, to make mention of the illustrious families from thence descended, which as yet are in esteem in the countries of Germany,

of his extraction from the Ionian race of the Prince of Achaia, and in the deduction of all the considerable particulars of the whole story, [the author] is resolved to produce testimonies of Arabick, Greek, Latin, and other writers of such authentick approbation, that we may boldly from thence infer consequences of no less infallible verity then [than] any that is not grounded on fait

, and other authors on whose testimony our belief in the authenticity of the narrative was to have been firmly based. In the absence of this our judgment is left in suspense, unless, indeed, we conclude that, as the genealogy begins and ends with the

Thomas Urquhart's "ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ" certainly justifies its existence according to this standard of judging literature; for if it does not s

of his favourite author, Rabelais, the genealogy of the giant Pantagruel is carried up to a period far beyond

ory of Scotland was published in 1526, had been accepted by the public, and were regarded as genuine facts even by such literary personages as Erasmus and Paulus Jovius. Perhaps Sir Thomas thought that a credulity which had

people came west and founded Portugal (i.e. Port of Gathelus), and then journeyed north to Scotland, bringing with them, as part of their baggage, the coronation-stone yet to be seen in Westminster Abbey. Their descenda

the book in question were not an elaborate joke, it can only have been intended to impose upon the English people by convincing them of the extraordinary dignity and grandeur of their captive

d in the particulars investigated, and "might have had good information from old men and writs, which in the course of time and through accidents had long disappeared." The advocate for the defenders replied that the "Chancellor of the Inquest" had been Sir Thomas Urquhart, who might have traced the pursuer's descent from Noah, as he had deduced his own genealogy from Adam, and that the decision arrived at was of no more value than "his fanciful derivation of his own pedigree. For the members of the Inquest seemed to have sworn rashly upon matters of greater antiquity than they could certainly know." "It is true," was the pursuer's reply, "the defender in his gaiety objects against Sir Thomas Urquhart as an ill genealogist; and it is owned that h

ct Directory for all particular Chronologies in what Family soever: And that by deducing the true Pedigree and Lineal descent of the most ancient and honourable name of the VRQVHARTS, in the ho

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Ibid.

plast" was made. The late Charles Darwin carried back the pedigree of man a prodigious length, though he lowered its quality. There can be little doubt that our author

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nd asked him his opinion of it. The reply was that it contained a considerable amount of bad spelling! The name Urquhart, as thus written, occurs here in Sir Thomas's "Pedigree," and is, dou

our vali

challenges

irs, and who gives us the name in the form of Wrqhward! This, one would think, was as far as it was possible to get in the way of bad spelling, without altogether

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which she told Lynceus of his dang

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artie, or Ireland, or Portugal, or Africa, or wherever it was that the head of the Urquhart family was then reigning. Instead of Lynce

the bishop." They are probably the Irish ancestors of the Macmillans of Knapdale in Argyleshire. The word "maol," "a tonsured servant," occurs in Malise (m

having been Rory or Roderick, one of the two sons of Reginald, whose father in almost prehistoric times wa

se-"by many"-is

Two Sirens playing on harps occupy the lower. In the centre are the arms-the charge on the shield three bears' heads, the supporters two greyhounds leashed and collared, the crest a naked woman holding a dagger and palm, the helmet that of a knight, with the beaver partially raised, and so profusely mantled that the drapery occupies more space than the shield and supporters, and the motto Meane Weil, Speak Weil, and Do Weil. Sir Thomas's initials, S. T. V. C., are placed separately, one letter at the outer side of each supporter, one in the centre of the crest, and one beneath the label; while the names of the more celebrated heroes of his genealogy, and the eras in which they flourished, occupy in the following inscription the space between the figures:-Anno Astioremonis, 2226; Anno Vocompotis, 3892; Anno Molini, 3199; Anno Rodrici, 2958; Anno Chari, 2219; Anno Lutorci, 2000; Anno Esormonis, 3804. It is melancholy enough that this singular exhibition of family pride should have been made in the same year in which the family received its deathblow-the year of Worcester battle" (Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland, chap. vii.). The arms of the Urquhart family in their later form, as associated with those of the Meldrum and Seton families, are given in the 1774 edition of the ΠΑΝΤΟΧΡΟΝΟΧΑΝΟΝ, and are as follows:-"Arms, Or, three Bears-h

ee p. 4

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8. This battle is supposed to be mentioned by Blind Harry, who has c

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1084

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nd, which go back as far as the reign of Alexander II. (A.D. 1214-1249), and had found it strictly correct from that period. In Appendix I., which contains the li

fs, that the second generation would have their doubts about it, but that the third generation would be heavily inclined to believe it

The True Pedigree, etc. In this work it is almost incredible what a number of falsities he has invented, both with respect to names and facts. Perhaps a more flagrant instance of imposture and fiction was never exhibited; and the absurdity of the whole pedigree is beyo

s of Gaul; and certainly Famongomadan, Cartadaque, Madanfabul, Arcalaus, and Basagante remind one of chiefs and heroes of the Cromartie line. In the

i. 265 and 315; Morrison, Dictio

houses, both were attached to prelacy rather than to Presbyterianism, and both were wasteful and slovenly in money matters. If the above conjecture be well founded, they had a further point