Clan Urquhart

The name Urquhart is derived from a place name, Airchart, which is first recorded in an early life of the great Celtic saint, Columba. Today there is a Castle Urquhart on the banks of Loch Ness, and parishes of the same name in Elgin and the Black Isle.

The meaning of the word itself has been variously translated from the Gaelic, including woodside, or by a rowan wood, or fort on a knoll. Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty is said to have sired twenty-five sons, seven of whom were killed at the Battle of Pinkie in 1547. The eldest son was Alexander, one of whose younger sons, John Urquhart, commonly known as the Tutor of Cromarty, was guardian of his famous grand-nephew, Sir Thomas Urquhart, who was himself born on the day of the day of the Battle of Pinkie. Thomas Urquhart was knighted by James VI. His son, Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromartie, was a student at Kings College in Aberdeen at the age of eleven. By the age of thirty he had become a scholar, writer of note and a soldier, and was knighted by Charles I in 1641. He fought at the Battle of Worcester in 1651 where he was taken prisoner. When released, he returned to the Continent, where he died in 1660, allegedly from laughter while celebrating the Restoration. Captain John Urquhart of Craigston, born in 1696, was ultimately a man of great wealth, but the origins of his fortune were shrouded in mystery. He was, however, called ?the pirate? by his family. In 1959, a descendent of the Urquharts of Braelangswell, whose family had emigrated to America in the eighteenth century, established his right to be chief of Clan Urquhart. The title of ?Urquhart of Urquhart? is now held by Wilkins Urquhart?s son, Kenneth Trist Urquhart, recognised as the twenty-sixth chief of the clan. His seat in Scotland is now established at the ancient Urquhart stronghold of Castle Craig on the southern coast of the Cromarty.