Robert Crichton, 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar

Robert Crichton, 8th Lord Crichton of Sanquhar, (d. 1612) was a Scottish peer executed for the murder of a fencing teacher. He was the son of Edward, Lord Sanquhar. Robert is often styled "6th Lord Sanquhar."

Career

Robert Crichton was rumoured to have been in Rome in the company of Jesuits and to have spoken with the Pope in 1593. The Jesuit missionary to Scotland, William Crichton, was his kinsman.[1]

Crichton was a noted swordsman. In June 1596 he challenged Patrick, Earl of Orkney to a duel. James VI of Scotland forbade him to issue the challenge, called a "cartel." However, they arranged to fight, but the King was able to prevent their combat. The English diplomat Robert Bowes heard that Sanquhar alleged the quarrel was Sanquhar's loss of a court appointment, but according to rumour Sanquhar had been encouraged to fight the Earl by another powerful figure.[2]

As a diplomat, Crichton took the letters of James VI of Scotland to Henry IV of France and Henri, Duke of Rohan at the siege of Amiens in 1597, and then travelled to Italy.[3]

On 27 May 1602 he returned from his travels and was welcomed by James VI at Dunfermline Palace, and attended the christening of Robert Stuart, Duke of Kintyre. Robert had met Elizabeth I of England at the insistence of the French diplomats in London. According to one who spoke to him there, Robert had resolved to serve the Spanish king. In June 1602 Robert, who was a friend of Anne of Denmark's favourite, Barbara Ruthven, was granted the Gowrie House lodging in Perth, which the Ruthven family had forfeited in 1600, with the offices of Constable and Keeper of the town.[4]

Accident and murder

Lord Sanquhar followed King James to England after the Union of Crowns. On 10 August 1604, while staying with Lord Norreys, he went to practice swordsmanship with a fencing master called John Turner at Rycote. By accident, Sanquhar was hurt in the eye. After some years, and following teasing for his disfigurement by the King of France, Sanquhar's followers murdered the fencing master.

Turner was killed by a pistol shot on 11 May 1612, while he was drinking with some of Lord Sanquhar's followers. One called Carlisle fired the fatal shot. After four days Lord Sanquhar went to the Archbishop of Canterbury and declared that he was innocent of the murder. King James issued a proclamation of a reward of £500 for Sanquhar alive, and £300 dead. For Carlisle, the reward was £100 alive and £50 dead. Soon afterwards, another of Sanquhar's servants, a Scotsman called Gray, was arrested at Harwich where he was embarking on a ship for Denmark. Gray confessed that Lord Sanquhar had previously asked him to kill Turner.

Lord Sanquhar was brought before the justices of the King's Bench. Francis Bacon delivered the charges against him. Bacon suggested his offence was caused by Italian manners he had picked up on his travels, rather than English or Scottish custom.[5] His wife Anne Fermor divorced him. He was executed by hanging on 29 June 1612 in Westminster Palace yard, confessing that he had offended England and Scotland, and declared he was a Roman Catholic. His body was taken by Lord Dingwall and Robert Kerr, Lord Roxburgh to be sent to Scotland.[6]

From DNB

In 1605, he engaged in a fencing match with a fencing-master called Turner, when he accidentally lost one of his eyes, and for some time was in danger of his life. Seven years afterwards he hired two men to assassinate Turner, one of whom, Robert Carlyle, shot him with a pistol 11 May 1612, for which he and his accomplice were executed. Lord Sanquhar absconded, and a reward of £1,000 having been offered for his apprehension, he was taken and brought to trial in the king's bench, Westminster Hall, 27 June of the same year. Not being a peer of England, he was tried under the name of Robert Crichton, although a baron of three hundred years' standing.

In an eloquent speech he confessed his crime, and being convicted on his own confession was hanged on a gibbet with a silken halter in Great Palace Yard, before the gate of Westminster Hall, on 29 June. Great interest was made to save his life, but James was inexorable, because it is said Crichton had on one occasion failed to resent an insult offered to his majesty in Paris. Crichton died penitent professing the Roman Catholic religion. By his marriage at St. Anne's, Blackfriars, 10 April 1608, to Anne, daughter of Sir George Fermor of Easton, he had no issue. Anne remarried the Irish nobleman Barnabas O'Brien, 6th Earl of Thomond.

All his property was left to his natural son, Robert Crichton, but the heir male, William, seventh lord Sanquhar, disputed the succession, and on the matter being referred to James VI Robert Crichton was served heir of entail to him in the estate of Sanquhar 15 July 1619.

References

  1. ↑ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol.11, (1936), p.261
  2. ↑ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol.12, (1952), pp.248-9 no.206
  3. ↑ Letters and Papers Reign of James Sixth from the collection of James Balfour of Denmylne, Bannatyne Club (1838), pp.36-37
  4. ↑ Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol.13 (1969), part 2, pp.982, 1003, 1012.
  5. ↑ Montagu, Basil, ed., Works of Francis Bacon, vol.2, Carey & Hart, Philadelphia (1841), pp. 311-312
  6. ↑ Birch, Thomas, & Williams, Folkestone, ed., The Court and Times of James I, vol.1, London (1848), pp.33, 167-8, 179-180
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