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Clan Crichton (Tartans, Crest) and The Story Behind

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Crichton

Clan Crest: A dragon spouting out fire, Proper

Clan Motto: God Send Grace

Origin of Name: Placename Midlothian

Region: Lowlands

Seat: Monzie Castle, Crieff

Clan Chief: David Crichton of That Ilk

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Crichton Clan History

John de Crichton built Crichton Castle in Midlothian in the 1300s. >The surname Crichton derives from the lands of Kreitton, an ancient barony near Edinburgh. The name appears for the first time around 1128, when Thurstan de Crechtune witnessed David I's foundation of the Abbey of Holyrood House. Thursdan's son, Thomas de Crichton, is listed on the Ragman Roll of nobles swearing allegiance to Edward I in 1296.

John de Crichton built Crichton Castle in Midlothian in the 1300s.

Thomas' family prospered, especially after his son William married Isabel de Ross, heiress to the Dumfriesshire barony of Sanquhar. In 1464, Sir Robert Crichton of Sanquhar was appointed Sheriff of Dumfries County and later Coroner of Nithsdale. James III made Sir Robert's eldest son, also named Robert, Lord Crichton of Sanquhar' in 1487.

Unfortunately for the Crichtons, the title seemed to bring nothing but bad luck; William the third Lord was murdered by Lord Semple around 1552. Lord Sanquhar, the sixth Lord, was accused of murdering a fencing master who had previously blinded him in one eye, and he died in disgrace. The title was eventually passed down to the Crichton-Stuart family, who are the current Marquesses of Bute.

Sir William Crichton made the error of becoming embroiled in a feud with the Douglases. Sir William arranged the notorious 'Black Dinner' in 1439 while serving as Chancellor of Scotland and governor of Edinburgh Castle during James II's minority. His great rival, the Earl of Douglas, had recently died, and he invited the new Earl and his brother to a Royal Banquet at the castle. With the young King in attendance, the Douglass' after-dinner entertainment was a letdown, as they were both dragged from the banqueting hall and executed at nearby Castle Hill.

The Douglases were a powerful clan who besieged the castle until Crichton surrendered. Despite this, he was elevated to the peerage and given the title Lord Crichton. The 2nd Lord Crichton obtained the barony of Frendraught in Banfshire through marriage.

In an attempt to seize the throne, the third Lord joined forces with the Duke of Albany, James III's brother, but lost his estates, and Crichton Castle was taken and passed to, among others, the Earl of Bothwell, Mary, Queen of Scots' third husband.

James Crichton was the Lord Advocate of Scotland's son. He is better known as 'the Admirable Crichton' because of his incredible mental and physical agility. He was an expert in almost every field and spoke ten languages by the age of twenty. Not only that, but he was also known for his horsemanship and sword skills. With such impressive skills, the young man naturally moved to Paris, where he could put his charm to good use, running intellectual rings around the city's professors and winning a jousting competition the next day. During a trip to Rome, he impressed both the Pope and the Duke of Mantua. So much so that the Duke asked him to be Vincenzo's tutor.

Unfortunately, such showmanship does not impress Italian youths as much as it does Popes and Parisian professors. Crichton was ambushed by a gang in 1582 while attending a carnival. He quickly dispatched five of them and was about to finish the sixth when he revealed himself as Vincenzo, a young man. James was caught off guard by the discovery and was promptly stabbed by Vincenzo.

In 1650, James Crichton, Viscount Frendraught, fought alongside the Marquis of Montrose. According to legend, he gave his horse to Montrose during a battle at Invercarron in order to avoid capture. Crichton was imprisoned, but considering Montrose's fate, he was probably fortunate that he died of his wounds before a similar fate.

The current line descends from the Crichtons of Frendraught, and the seat is at Castle of Monzie near Crieff.

Clan Crichton Places & People

Crichton Clan Members

James Crichton, the Admirable Crichton, (1560 – 1582)

James Crichton was a Scottish polymath known for his exceptional achievements in languages, arts, and sciences.

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

James was taught by the celebrated Scottish politician and poet George Buchanan (1506-1582) at St. Andrews University from the age of ten to fourteen, during which time he completed requirements for both his bachelor's and master's degrees. James was an unusually gifted prodigy from his earliest days, which could have been due to a gift for perfect recall. He was not only fluent in, but could converse in (both prose and verse) twelve languages by the age of twenty, in addition to being an accomplished horseman, fencer, singer, musician, orator, and debater. Some consider him to be the closest to the ideal of the complete man, owing to his good looks as well as his refined social graces.

Crichton left Scotland for Paris, where he continued his education at the Collège de Navarre. He rose to prominence in Paris by challenging French professors to ask him any question about science or liberal arts in Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Flemish, or Slavic. It is said that over the course of one extremely long day, French scholars were unable to stump Crichton on any question, no matter how obscure.

Following that, he served in the French army for two years before returning to Italy in 1579, where he won acclaim in Genoa, Venice, and Padua by repeating his exploit of challenging Italian scholars to intellectual discourse and debate. In a brutal fencing match, he is said to have defeated a professional gladiator.

Crichton met the printer Aldus Manutius in Venice in 1580, who introduced him to the Venetian intellectual community, where the young Scot made an enormous impression on humanist scholars. He clashed with a number of scholars in Padua in 1581 over their interpretation of Aristotle while demonstrating that their mathematics were flawed.

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

What is undeniable is that while working for the Duke, Vincenzo Gonzaga became envious of Crichton, most likely due to his father's high regard for the young prodigy, as well as Crichton replacing Vincenzo as the lover of the prince's former mistress.

Crichton was attacked in the street by a gang of masked ruffians on the night of July 3, 1582, after leaving this lady's residence. With his sword, he defeated all but one until the last man removed his mask, revealing the group's ringleader, Vincenzo Gonzaga. According to legend, when Crichton saw Vincenzo, he immediately dropped to one knee and presented his sword, hilt first, to the prince, his master's son. Vincenzo took the blade and stabbed Crichton through the heart, instantly killing him. James Crichton of Cluny was twenty-two years old at the time.

Sir Thomas Urquhart (1611-1660) wrote a romantic 1652 account of Crichton's life, which contributed significantly to his posthumous reputation. Many of the stories about him have little or no contemporary evidence. Nonetheless, his existence is supported by a few letters, and his actual abilities were most likely impressive. In 1836, the English writer William Harrison Ainsworth published Crichton, a historical novel. Sir James Barrie, a fellow Scot, used James Crichton's sobriquet "the Admirable Crichton" as the title of his 1902 satirical play about a butler whose savoir-faire far exceeds that of his aristocratic employers. He is remembered in the church of St Bride's in Sanquhar and the church of San Simone in Mantua.

Iain Crichton Smith (Iain Mac a'Ghobhainn) - bust main image (1928 - 1998)

Scottish literary figure who wrote in both English and Scottish Gaelic and was a prolific author in both languages. He is well-known for his poems, short stories, and novels.

He was born in Glasgow but moved to the Isle of Lewis when he was two, where his widowed mother raised him and his two brothers in the small crofting town of Bayble. Crichton Smith studied English at the University of Aberdeen and went on to become a teacher after serving in the National Service Army Education Corps. From 1952 to 1977, he taught in Clydebank, Dumbarton, and Oban before retiring to become a full-time writer, despite having many novels and poems published. In 1980, he received an OBE.

Crichton Smith was raised in a Scottish Gaelic-speaking community and learned English as a second language after starting school. Friend and poet Edwin Morgan observes that, unlike his contemporaries (such as Sorley Maclean and Derick Thomson), Crichton Smith was more prolific in English than in Gaelic, possibly because he saw his writing in what he saw as an imposed non-native language as a challenge to English and American poets. However, Crichton Smith also wrote a lot of Gaelic poetry and prose, as well as translating some of Sorley Maclean's work from Gaelic to English and writing some of his own poems in Gaelic.

Crichton Smith's work also reflects his dislike of dogma and authority (he was an atheist), as well as his political and emotional thoughts and views of Scotland and the Scottish Highlands, influenced by his upbringing in a close-knit, island presbyterian community. Several of his poems deal with the Highland Clearances, and his best-known novel, Consider the Lilies (1968), is about the eviction of an elderly woman during these times.

Crichton Clan Tartans

Because there is no registered Crichton clan tartan, people with the name can wear the Edinburgh District tartan, which reflects the area where the Crichton name was traditionally found.

District of Edinburgh

Clan Crichton Crest & Coats of Arms

Clan Crichton Coat of Arms

Worn by everyone with the same name and ancestry

Description of the Crest:

Proper is a dragon spouting fire.

Coat of Arms of Clan Crichton

A word about Coats of Arms:

A coat of arms is granted to an individual under Scottish heraldic law (with the exception of civic or corporate arms). A 'family coat of arms' does not exist. With the exceptions noted above, the arms depicted below are personal arms. Only the person who has been granted these weapons has the right to use them.