James Crichton

James Crichton, known as the Admirable Crichton (19 August 1560 – 3 July 1582), was a Scottish polymath noted for his extraordinary accomplishments in languages, the arts, and sciences before he was killed at the age of 21.

One of the most gifted individuals of the 16th century, James Crichton of Clunie (Perthshire; although some sources maintain his birthplace was Dumfries), was the son of Robert Crichton of Eliok, Lord Advocate of Scotland, and Elizabeth Stewart, from whose line James could claim Royal descent.

Educated at St Andrews University between 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 scholar, politician and poet George Buchanan (1506–1582). It was apparent from his earliest days that James was an unusually gifted prodigy, which may have been associated with 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, orator, and debater. Noted for his good looks as well as his refined social graces, he was considered to have come closest to the ideal of the complete man.

Leaving Scotland, Crichton travelled to Paris, where he continued his education at the Collège de Navarre. It was in the French capital that he first came to prominence by challenging French professors to ask him any question on any science or liberal arts subject in Arabic, Dutch, English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Latin, Slavonic, Spanish, or Syriac. 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.

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