Thomas Urquhart
Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611 – 1660) was an idiosyncratic Scottish polymath and author, best known for his original and vivid translation of the works of Francois Rabelais into English. His own writings included original work on a new system of trigonometry, which he revolutionized, mathematics, family histories, epigrams, and the invention of a universal language long before the fad for Esperanto.
A royalist, Urquhart fought for King Charles I against the Scottish Covenanters in 1639 and was knighted by the king for his support in 1641. The following year, his father died, leaving him an estate heavily encumbered with debts, and Urquhart spent most of the 1640s dealing with and avoiding creditors, even leaving for the continent for a time, before returning in 1645 to publish a mathematical treatise.
In 1648, he joined a failed royalist uprising at Inverness and was declared a traitor by Parliament. In 1651, he joined Charles II’s long-shot attempt at regaining the throne but grew increasingly disgusted with the incompetence and mismanagement of the affair, which culminated in a decisive royalist defeat at the Battle of Worcester. Urquhart was captured and imprisoned for two years, first in the Tower of London, then at Windsor.
He lost all his manuscripts and had to forfeit all his properties, before he was finally paroled and freed from prison on the orders of Oliver Cromwell in 1653, on condition that he leave for the continent. He reportedly died in 1660 in a fit of maniacal laughter, upon hearing that Charles II, whose incompetence in the 1651 attempt to gain the throne had ended in disaster and cost Urquhart so much, had been restored and welcomed back into the Three Kingdoms as their crowned king.
