For James Crichton, the recipient of the Victoria Cross

Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....

, see James Crichton (VC)

James Crichton (VC)

James Crichton VC was a soldier in the New Zealand Expeditionary Force, and recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award of the British Commonwealth for gallantry "in the face of the enemy", during the First World War...

James Crichton, known as the Admirable Crichton (19 August 1560 – 3 July 1582), was a Scottish

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

 polymath

Polymath

A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...

 noted for his extraordinary accomplishments in language

Language

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...

s, the art

Art

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....

s, and science

Science

Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

s before his killing when aged 21.

Life

One of the most gifted individuals of the 16th century, James Crichton of Clunie

Clunie

Clunie is a small settlement in Perthshire, Scotland, 7 km west of Blairgowrie. It lies on the western shore of the Loch of Clunie. Near the village are the foundations of what is believed to have been be a castle used by Kenneth MacAlpin, the first king of Scotland, as a base for hunting in the...

 (Perthshire

Perthshire

Perthshire, officially the County of Perth , is a registration county in central Scotland. It extends from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south...

; although some sources maintain his birthplace was Dumfries

Dumfries

Dumfries is a market town and former royal burgh within the Dumfries and Galloway council area of Scotland. It is near the mouth of the River Nith into the Solway Firth. Dumfries was the county town of the former county of Dumfriesshire. Dumfries is nicknamed Queen of the South...

), was the son of Robert Crichton, Lord Advocate

Lord Advocate

Her Majesty's Advocate , known as the Lord Advocate , is the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland for both civil and criminal matters that fall within the devolved powers of the Scottish Parliament...

 of Scotland, and Elizabeth Stewart, from whose line James could claim Royal descent.

Educated at St. Andrews University from the ages of ten to fourteen, during which time he completed requirements for both his bachelor's and master's degrees, James was taught by the celebrated Scottish politician and poet George Buchanan

George Buchanan (humanist)

George Buchanan was a Scottish historian and humanist scholar. He was part of the Monarchomach movement.-Early life:...

 (1506–1582). It was apparent from his earliest days that James was an unusually gifted prodigy

Child prodigy

A child prodigy is someone who, at an early age, masters one or more skills far beyond his or her level of maturity. One criterion for classifying prodigies is: a prodigy is a child, typically younger than 18 years old, who is performing at the level of a highly trained adult in a very demanding...

, which may have been due to a gift for perfect recall. By the age of twenty, he was not only fluent in, but could discourse in (both prose and verse) no fewer than twelve languages, as well as being an accomplished horseman, fencer, singer, musician

Musician

A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....

, orator and debate

Debate

Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...

r. Noted for his good looks as well as his refined social graces, some consider him to have come closest to the ideal of the complete man.

Leaving Scotland, Crichton travelled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, where he continued his education at the Collège de Navarre

Collège de Navarre

The College of Navarre was one of the colleges of the historic University of Paris, rivaling the Sorbonne and renowned for its library. It was founded by Queen Joan I of Navarre in 1305, who provided for three departments, the arts with 20 students, philosophy with 30 and theology with 20...

. It was in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 capital that he first came to prominence by challenging French professors to ask him any question on any science or liberal arts

Liberal arts

The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

 subject in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, or Slavonic

Slavic languages

The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...

. It is said that throughout the course of one extremely long day, French scholars failed to stump Crichton on any question they threw at him, no matter how abstruse.

Thereafter he spent two years as a soldier in the French army before travelling to Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 in 1579, winning acclaim in Genoa

Genoa

Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....

, Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

, and Padua

Padua

Padua is a city and comune in the Veneto, northern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Padua and the economic and communications hub of the area. Padua's population is 212,500 . The city is sometimes included, with Venice and Treviso, in the Padua-Treviso-Venice Metropolitan Area, having...

 by repeating his exploit of challenging Italian scholars to intellectual discourse and debate. Once, he is alleged to have bested a professional gladiator in a brutal fencing match.

In Venice in 1580, Crichton befriended the printer Aldus Manutius

Aldus Manutius

Aldus Pius Manutius , the Latinised name of Aldo Manuzio —sometimes called Aldus Manutius, the Elder to distinguish him from his grandson, Aldus Manutius, the Younger—was an Italian humanist who became a printer and publisher when he founded the Aldine Press at Venice.His publishing legacy includes...

, who introduced him to the Venetian intellectual community, where the young Scot made an enormous impression on humanist

Humanism

Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....

 scholars. In Padua in 1581, he clashed with a number of scholars over their interpretation of Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

 while demonstrating that their mathematics

Mathematics

Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...

 were flawed.

Perhaps tiring of intellectual duels, the following year Crichton entered the service of the Duke of Mantua, and may have become tutor to the Duke's headstrong son Vincenzo Gonzaga (although some sources suggest that Crichton served only as a member of the ducal council, and did not actually teach the prince).

What is beyond dispute is that while in the Duke's employ, Vincenzo Gonzaga became hugely jealous of Crichton, probably from a combination of his father's strong regard for the young prodigy as well as Crichton replacing Vincenzo as the lover of the prince's former mistress.

On the night of 3 July 1582, after leaving this lady's dwelling in Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

, Crichton was attacked in the street by a gang of masked ruffians. He bested all but one with his sword until the last man removed his mask to reveal the group's ringleader, Vincenzo Gonzaga. Tradition holds that, on seeing Vincenzo, Crichton instantly dropped to one knee and presented his sword, hilt first, to the prince, his master's son. Vincenzo took the blade and with it stabbed Crichton cruelly through the heart, killing him instantly. James Crichton of Cluny was then in his twenty-second year.

Reputation

Much of Crichton's posthumous reputation comes from a romantic 1652 account of his life written by Sir Thomas Urquhart

Thomas Urquhart

Sir Thomas Urquhart of Cromarty was a Scottish writer and translator, most famous for his translation of Rabelais.-Life:...

 (1611–1660), contained within a unclassifiable work (The Jewel) that is characterized by exaggeration and hyperbole. There is little or no contemporary evidence for many of the stories surrounding him. That said, his existence is supported by a few letters and his actual abilities were probably impressive. A historical novel entitled Crichton was published by the English writer William Harrison Ainsworth

William Harrison Ainsworth

William Harrison Ainsworth was an English historical novelist born in Manchester. He trained as a lawyer, but the legal profession held no attraction for him. While completing his legal studies in London he met the publisher John Ebers, at that time manager of the King's Theatre, Haymarket...

 in 1836. The 'Admirable Crichton' was mentioned as an exemplar in W. M. Thackeray's Vanity Fair [1847]. James Crichton's sobriquet was later employed by fellow Scot Sir James Barrie

J. M. Barrie

Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...

 as the title of his 1902 satirical play, "The Admirable Crichton

The Admirable Crichton

The Admirable Crichton is a comic stage play written in 1902 by J. M. Barrie. It was produced by Charles Frohman and opened at the Duke of York's Theatre in London on 4 November 1902, running for an extremely successful 828 performances. It starred H. B. Irving and Irene Vanbrugh...

", about a butler whose savoir-faire

Savoir-Faire

Savoir-Faire is a piece of interactive fiction written by Emily Short, about a magician in 18th-century France searching his aristocratic adoptive father's house...

far exceeds that of his aristocratic employers. A memorial to him can be found in the church of St Bride's in Sanquhar

Sanquhar

Sanquhar is a town on the River Nith in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It lies north of Thornhill and west of Moffat. It is a Royal Burgh.Sanquhar is notable for its tiny post office , claimed to be the oldest working post office in the world...

 and in the church of San Simone in Mantua

Mantua

Mantua is a city and comune in Lombardy, Italy and capital of the province of the same name. Mantua's historic power and influence under the Gonzaga family, made it one of the main artistic, cultural and notably musical hubs of Northern Italy and the country as a whole...

.

He is also the namesake of the James Crichton Society  at St Andrews University which publishes a monthly academic journal.