I'm getting married in the morning...

Actually, my brother Thomas is getting married in Corrimony, Scotland on Wednesday.  He's wearing an Urquhart kilt and will be marrying a longtime friend with a piper and witnesses and a celebrant. I bought this tartan tie once in the "Blink Bonnie Enterprise" in Moultonboro, New Hampshire.  I've read in some places the Urquhart tartan is one or the oldest in Scotland.  Attached to the tie was a wee slip of paper which unfolded reads "The History of Urquhart" by Rodlinoch. (100% Pure New Wool Made in Scotland):

The Urquharts do not take their name, as is often supposed, from Castle Urquhart on Loch Ness but from the District of Urquhart near Cromarty.  Of this province of Cromarty they became Hereditary Sheriffs.

   In 1449, a Thomas Urquhart was Bishop of Ross.  Seven sons of Sir Thomas of Urquhart fell in the slaughter at Pinkie.  In 1585, the last Dean of Ross was an Urquhart.

   Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty was one of the cavaliers who almost destroyed Inverness Castle.  He was a scholar, translated Rabelais and traced the line of the Family back to Adam and Eve.  One ancestor, he averred, had been born in The Ark. Getting into financial troubles, he sold the estates, which passed to the MacKenzies.

   The Headship of the Family went at one time to Urquhart of Muldrum and Byth in Aberdeenshire.

For a small charge to cover research, information on your Tartan connection and/or Highland dress may be obtained from The Scottish Tartans Society, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland (Registered Charity) July, 1975.

Once outlawed in the 18th century by royal decree, today there is celebrated a "Tartan Day" in New York City to celebrate Scottish heritage and contributions to America.

The Sir Thomas Urquhart, who sided with the crown during the English Civil War was in the Tower of London under Oliver Cromwell and may be where he started writing and translating Francois Rabelais, the French Renaissance writer. Currently there is a debate in London, England as to whether the uncontrolled "skyscraper" building near the Tower will detract from its historical significance and pedestrian view.  I submitted his imprisonment and translation as a reason to keep it on the skyline rather than big glass boxes.  I've read elsewhere that he also wrote in physics and linguistics (an artificial language, like modern Esperanto proposed) and was thought responsible for blowing up the castle at Loch Ness where Christian missionaries first recorded the sighting of the "monster".  He apparently traveled in Europe and Italy.  He died, consumed with laughter on hearing Charles II was restored to the throne the legend states perhaps in Italy.