Sir Thomas Dreams - Cromarty Courthouse Museum

Sir Thomas Dreams…

In this series of ten mini-soundscape monologues, we meet Sir Thomas Urquhart,
eccentric genius, laird of Cromarty and owner of the castle which preceded Cromarty
House.
Imprisoned in 1650 after he supported King Charles I at the disastrous Battle of
Worcester, Sir Thomas now sits far away in London, thinking back to his thwarted
ambitions for ‘his little town of Cromarty’ from his bleak cell in Windsor Castle. A
lifelong monarchist, he was eventually released from prison in 1652, allowed only a
brief visit home to his beloved Cromarty before permanent exile. By 1655 he was
living abroad and, probably to improve his chances of returning home, had accepted
the patronage of Oliver Cromwell, writing government propaganda.
Sir Thomas had the last laugh: although he never returned home, it is said that he
died in Holland around 1660, in a fit of laughter on hearing of the restoration of the
monarchy.
These ten monologue recordings cover Sir Thomas’s main achievements and
obsessions.
Track 1: On Inverness Magistrates
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas’ ambition for Cromarty and how it was thwarted by
the magistrates of Inverness
I suspect from the slope of your shoulders and the narrowing of your eyes, Sir, that
you may be one of those base magistrates from Inverness. Your intention has ever
been to rob my little town of Cromarty of its liberties and privileges in trade, has it
not? Had your ambition not triumphed, foul Invernessian, I should have installed here
men exceeding rich and of various nations; shipmasters and merchant adventurers,
all of whom had promised to sail to trade with Cromarty in their best vessels.
Why, are not the harbour and bay of Cromarty equal to the very best in the world? Is
their very capaciousness not sufficient to shelter tens of thousands of ships from the
greatest of tempests? But for you and your inferior and ill-situated little town,
Cromarty should have become the richest within three score miles.
Begone and quit my sight, dishonourable wretch! I would turn my thoughts in
captivity here to more pleasant matters than you, the burgesses of the dismal town
of Inverness…

Track 2: On Idling and Industry
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas’ patrician views of ‘his’ native townsfolk and set out
how he hoped to see them occupy their time
What! An idler, here before me?! Idling is a base vice which I would, ere now, have
banished from my little town of Cromarty, had my fortunes in life not dictated

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otherwise. Why, I should have found employment and instruction for thousands of
my common natives here, from the smallest infant to those, like yourself, who are
sunk into decrepitude.
I would have erected manufacturies and brought hither the most skilful of craftsmen,
with ready coin for whatever they could make to sell. I would have put idlers to work
in digging for metals on my land, or in quarrying stone. I should have taught all such
as you to become masters of farming: to till, to ditch, to hedge and to dung; to sow,
to harrow, to grub, to reap, to thresh; to kill, to mill, to bake, to brew, to battle wild
moorland into good pasture, to mow; to feed flocks, horses and cattle and put their
excrescence to good use. I should have improved and installed grassland, dairies,
hives for honey, orchards, as well as farming equipment: wains, carts and sleds and
suchlike; which would have eased the toil of a weakling such as yourself.
Alas, all my plans have come to naught upon my unjust sequestration in this great
fortress of Windsor…

Track 3 – On Learning and Accomplishment
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas’ appreciation for learning
Conversation with dull yet honest natives of Cromarty, such as yourself, have left me
convinced of a need to civilise those who dwell in my country. By virtue of this, I once
cherished here professors of all sciences, liberal disciplines, arts and mechanic
trades; for choosing to fix their abode in Cromarty. Bodily accomplishment being
equal to that of the mind, I invited men in the peak of fitness to demonstrate
exercises whereof you yourself clearly stand in direst need: by now you should have
learned to ride, to fence and to dance; the military arts such as mustering,
embattling, handling the pike and musket, gunnery and fortification; noble pursuits
such as vaulting, swimming, running, leaping, throwing the bar, playing of tennis,
singing and fingering of all manner of musical instruments.
Have you any such accomplishments? Can you hawk or hunt? Can you catch wild
fowl, angle or shoot? No? Alas then, you must continue to languish in utter poverty.
What fortunes might have been your own, what honours might have been bestowed
upon you, had I, Sir Thomas Urquhart, your munificent Laird, not been sentenced to
reside here, within my grim chamber at Windsor Castle…

Track 4: On London Bankers
Aim: to demonstrate Sir Thomas’ loathing of Scots bankers in London
I see you have that brutish visage that doth denote a banker. Are you then from
London, perchance?
There, for many years together, a group of Scottish moneychangers has sought to
thwart my purposes. Why, you dull collybists; you cunquising clusterfists; you
rapacious varlets! Now that you have feathered your own nests, must you hug all

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your wealth to yourselves? Not a single penny to spare for a virtuous, honourable,
kindred compatriot: as though I, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty, a wretched
prisoner, first in the grim Tower of London, and lately in this great Castle at Windsor,
were tainted with your own leprosy of wretched peevishness.
Go now and fish for every tawdry penny you can catch in your own villainous nets!
Away, away and quit my sight, foul joltheid!

Collybist is from the Greek for money-changer
Cunquising (-qui- rhymes with why, pronounced coo-kwhy-zing) is all-conquering
Clusterfists means a niggard or a close-fisted person
Joltheid is a dolt, a thick-head

Track 5: On Master Gilbert Anderson, Minister of Religion
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas ongoing feud with a local minister
Hmm. Do I spy a sourness about your lips? A meanness in your eyes? Are you
perchance of the family of one Master Gilbert Anderson, from my little town of
Cromarty? No? Tis fortunate for you, then: Master Anderson has so railed against
me and my family from the pulpit that he is become more tripeseller’s wife than
minister of religion.
The cause of his scandalous and reproachful words? Why, but a slight and petty
matter: that I would not authorise the standing of a certain pew, or desk, in the very
church of which I am his patron and benefactor! He now so calumniates and reviles
me, his Master, that his words seem like clusters of hemlock; or wormwood dipped in
vinegar. He spews them out of his mouth in rude indigestive lumps; like so many
toads and vipers that have burst their gall.
If this ingrate, this disspiteful man should cross your path in Cromarty, take care that
he does not squirt his poison of abominable falsehood into your own ear… for I can
do nothing in the matter, trapped as I am here; within this dismal chamber, in the
Castle at Windsor…

Track 6: On the Joys of Science and Mathematics
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas’ love of mathematics and learning
Ah! You have a noble brow! Does a fellow lover of the art of mathematics now stand
before me? Let me entertain you, but for a moment, with a relative tale from my little
town of Cromarty.
A good gentleman once stayed awhile at my house who wanted nothing more than
to shoot some wildfowl. He took excessive pains in quest of his game and killed five

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or six moorfowls and partridges, which he brought back to my house. Some other
‘gentlemen’ had gathered therein. Men such as these are ever unable to praise one
acquaintance without dispraising another. I soon found myself the butt of their coarse
humour for not accompanying my guest and returning with an equally commendable
bag.
I answered them thus: that I was employed with a diversion of a most different
nature; the investigation of optical secrets; the mysteries of natural philosophy; the
reasons for diverse colours in nature. The finding out of longitude; the squaring of
the circle; and ways to accomplish all the trigonometrical calculations by sines,
without tangents, must surely (in the estimation of those as learned as yourselves)
be accounted worth six hundred thousand partridges – and as many moorfowls?
Alack, it is so cold in my dismal chamber, here in Windsor Castle. I find my thoughts
often turn on such pleasant matters as mathematics, and my fair lands in distant
Cromarty.

Track 7: On His Universal Language
Aim: to demonstrate Sir Thomas’ ability with languages
Though I have few callers, such as yourself, in my isolation here within the great
Castle of Windsor, you can see from my scatter of papers and my pens that my time
of sequestration is far from wasted. I have created the most exquisite Jewel – my
universal language. It has eleven genders, seven moods, ten cases (besides the
nominative) and twelve parts of speech. It is so compact a style that a single syllable
will express the year, month, day, hour and partition of the hour; and every word may
serve just as well used backwards, as forwards!
I have sought to enlarge my own discourse with an inundation of excellence; and a
choice variety of phrase which may overflow the field of your own humble
understanding. I aim to adorn my speech with the most especial and chief flowers of
the garden of rhetoric: where a point is obscure, I will elucidate; for sweetness of
phrase, I will embellish with fine wit and epithet; for vehemence, why! I will use
exclamation at the front and epiphonimas at the rear… but for now, Sir, your
presence becomes a distraction. I find it expedient to stop the current flow of my
words and dismiss you; with a simple ‘good day’.

Epiphonimas is an exclamation which summarises what has just been said
[Ehp-uh-foe-knee-mas]

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Track 8: On his Love for Rabelais and Humour
Aim: to illustrate Sir Thomas’ passion for wit and for Rabelais.
Your fine paunch and ruby nose tell me, Sir, that you are a noble and illustrious
drinker. I pray therefore that you will take up and read my translation of the first book
of Rabelais; a work wrongly dismissed as naught but jests, mockeries, lascivious
discourse and recreative lies.
In my dismal confinement here within the castle of Windsor, I have found that mirth
and laughter have a value hitherto unremarked.
Pray let me read from my introduction:
‘Good friends, my readers, who peruse this book,
Be not offended, whilst on it you look:
Denude yourselves of all depraved affection,
For it contains no badness nor infection:
Tis true that it brings forth to you no birth
Of any value; but in point of mirth;
Thinking therefore how sorrow might your mind
Consume; I could no apter subject find;
One inch of joy surmounts of grief a span;
Because to laugh is proper to the man.’

One day, perhaps, we shall all gather in Cromarty to rejoice at the news that the right
and proper monarchy has been restored to the throne of our fair land? Until such
time as this, I needs must comfort my solitude with my translating; of Rabelais…

TRACK 9: On Genealogy and Heraldry
Aim: to enthuse visitors for Sir T’s own love of genealogy and heraldry and to use
and explain one of his long Greek names for his work
Why, Sir, you have the look of a gentleman who has travelled far. Have you
perchance ventured hither in search of some ancient line of ancestry? Pray describe
for me your own heraldic device? Silence? Ah weel, but another commoner, then…
There is no more honourable pursuit in life, than genealogy and heraldry. Our
Urquhart motto is ‘mean well, speak well and do well’, and thus I attempt daily, even
here. The fine Urquhart blazon is surmounted by the heads of three fierce bears, to
bring me courage in my present dismal sequestration.
The tale of my great Pantochronocanon (which someone from stock as humble as
your own might call my family lineage or tree) takes root from God the Father, who
did, in time of nothing create’ red earth; of that red earth He framed Adam; and of
Adam’s rib did He fashion him a wife. My forefathers are thus sprung from the very
womb of Eve. I would to God that you had as certain a knowledge as I do myself of
my genealogy, since the time of the Ark of Noah right down to this present age.

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Alas! My precious Pantochronocanon was almost lost; fallen as it was into the
regardless fingers of promiscuous soldiery! After my capture at Worcester, a civil
officer did tear into strips the paper thereof and give it unto a file of musketeers. Thus
did he serve his amusement and the inexorable rage of fiery Vulcan, in affording
them smoke to their pipes of tobacco.
There are some that think me mad for this great work, when I am but most curious of
intellect. I trust my fine Pantochronochanon shall persuade them, soon, to release
me from this grim Chamber in the ancient Castle of Windsor. [sighs] I would fain see
my little town of Cromarty once more…

blazon is pronounced as in French – blah not blay
Pantochronocanon is pronounced Pantokronokanon – short o not long oh

Track 10: On the Hunting of Witches
Aim: to communicate Sir Thomas’ enlightened and modern views on witchcraft
An unsmiling countenance such as your own, Sir, can oft denote a witchfinder. A
questionable profession! In hands such as your own, a harmless tradition, such as
the honouring of an antient well at a particular time of the year, can all too easily be
twisted into an unjust accusation of witchcraft.
No, you say? Then I am sadly mistook, in my confinement here at Windsor!
Pray allow me to make amends with a tale of ‘witchcraft’. Once, in Cromarty, while
acting as Sheriff for my father, a witchfinder brought before me two people and told
me they had – entirely separately – ‘consorted with demons’. I could see that this
pair’s mad admission of sin was like to lead them to a swift and fiery doom. Instead I
spoke with them mildly and reasonably and gained their trust, then bid them spend a
night at my castle, in separate chambers. Close to midnight, once I had seen them
drink an aphrodisiac, I sent in a willing footboy and a fair chambermaid to dally with
the sorry pair before they slept. Sure enough, in the morning the ‘foul spirits’ they
described resembled none other than my footboy and my chambermaid: for in sleep,
the imagination of two had multiplied into a fornication* of four.
I saved their young lives thereby: and thereafter I can also assure you that all
nocturnal visitations by demons ceased; for the woman did then marry my footboy;
the man, my chambermaid…

* Taken from Sir Thomas’ writings verbatim!

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