[133] There is said to have been some tragedy in connection with the death of this Sir John Urquhart. According to Wodrow, as quoted by Hugh Miller, after having posed as an ultra-Presbyterian, he became the friend and counsellor of the Earl of Middleton, Charles II.'s Commissioner for Scotland, under whom Presbyterianism was overturned and Episcopacy set up in its place (1661). Tradition says that "about eleven years after the passing of the Act, he fell into a deep melancholy, and destroyed himself with his own sword in one of the apartments of the old castle. The sword, it is said, was flung into a neighbouring draw-well by one of the domestics, and the stain left by his blood on the walls and floor of the apartment was distinctly visible at the time the building was pulled down" (_Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland_, p. 111). Tradition is wrong, however, in saying eleven years after 1661; for on August 7th, 1677, Sir John, along with others, received a commission "for putting the laws against conventicles and other disorders into execution" (_Wodrow_, ii. p. 366). [134] On the death of Jonathan's son, Colonel James Urquhart, in 1741, the shadowy honour of the headship of the family passed to the Urquharts of Meldrum, who were descended from the Tutor of Cromartie by a third marriage with Elizabeth Seton, only daughter of Alexander Seton of Meldrum, and ultimately heiress of that estate. The last male representative of this line was Major Beauchamp Colclough Urquhart, who closed a promising career by a heroic death at the battle of Atbara, in the Sudan, on 8th April, 1898. His sister, Isabel Annie, is wife of Garden Alexander Duff, Esq., Hatton Castle, Turriff. [135] See p. 58. [136] Pococke, in his _Tour through Scotland_ (1761), says of the castle of Cromartie: "It has fallen into the hands of one Mr Urquhart, who had commanded a Spanish Gally, and died a Convert to Popery; which slip his son, now eighteen years old, has in some degree recovered, by conforming to the Church of England" (p. 176; _Scottish History Society_). [137] In the old Statistical Account of Cromartie, and in the preface to the Maitland Club edition of Urquhart's Works, the estate is said to have passed into the hands of Sir William Pulteney. [138] Mr Ross is mentioned in the _Letters_ of Junius (see those of 29th November and 12th December, 1769). He was succeeded by his nephew, from whom the present proprietor of Cromartie, Major Walter Charteris Ross, is descended.