 Sir Arthur was said by Scott's acquaintance Allan Cunningham to have been modelled on Sir John Whitefoord, 3rd Bt., though it has also been claimed that he was based on Sir John Sinclair, 1st Bt., a Caithness landowner who was taken in by a fraudulent geologist, Rudolf Erich Raspe.According to one commentator, “Scott detested Sir John Sinclair, and probably got some pleasure from representing him as Sir Arthur Wardour”.Similarities have also been noted between Sir Arthur and the fictional Sir Epicure Mammon, the gullible nobleman in Ben Jonson’s play "The Alchemist".