On the breaking out of the troubles in 1638, he took part with the King against the Covenanters, and was engaged in an obscure skirmish, in which he saw the first blood shed that flowed in the protracted quarrel, which it took half a century and two great revolutions to settle. In a subsequent skirmish, he succeeded, with eight hundred others, many of them “brave gentlemen,” in surprising a body of about twelve hundred strong, encamped at Turriff, and broke up their array. And then marching with his friends upon Aberdeen, which was held by the Covenanters, he assisted in ejecting them, and in taking possession of the place. Less gifted with conduct than courage, however, the cavaliers suffered their troops to disperse, and were cooped up within the town by the “Earl Marischal of Scotland,” who, hastily levying a few hundred men, came upon them, when, according to Spalding, they “were looking for nothing less;” and the “young laird of Cromartie,” with a few others, were compelled to take refuge “aboard of Andrew Finlay’s ship, then lying in the road,” and “hastily hoisted sail for England.” Urquhart had undertaken to be the bearer of despatches to Charles, containing the signatures of his associates and neighbours the leading anti-covenanters; and in the audience which he obtained of the monarch, he was very graciously received, and favoured with an answer, “which gave,” he says, “great contentment to all the gentlemen of the north that stood for the king.” In the spring of 1641 he was knighted by Charles at Whitehall, and his father dying soon after, he succeeded to the lands of Cromarty.