In consequence of this achievement, and also of the brilliant reputation acquired by Crichton, he was appointed by the Duke of Mantua, companion and tutor to his son, Vincenzio de Gonzaga, a young man of some literary culture, but of furious temper and dissolute morals. Very soon after, Crichton met his death in a tragical manner. He was walking home one evening in the streets of Mantua, from a visit to his mistress, and was playing a guitar, when suddenly he was attacked by a riotous party of men in masks, whom, however, he speedily put to flight. He seized the leader of the party, overpowered him, and tore off his mask, and found to his horror that it was his own pupil, the son of the Duke of Mantua. He instantly dropped upon one knee, and, in a spirit of romantic devotion, took his sword by the blade, and presented its hilt to the prince. Vincenzio, heated with wine, irritated at his discomfiture, and also, it is said by some, inspired by jealousy, took the sword and plunged it into Crichton's heart. The brilliant young Scotsman was but twenty-two years of age when he thus met his fate.
The narrative which Sir Thomas Urquhart gives of the death of his hero is marked by the same richness of description as is to be found in the account of his exploits as a scholar, a swordsman, and an actor. In language of astonishing luxuriance and frequent happiness of phrase, he enlarges upon the incidents of the last evening of Crichton's life, and depicts the tender intercourse of the lovers before the sudden and bloodly close of their courtship. With a minuteness which, as Tytler remarks, reminds one of the multitude of particulars by the enumeration of which Mrs Quickly sought to bring to Falstaff's remembrance his promise to marry her,[212] Sir Thomas Urquhart depicts the lovers in the "alcoranal paradise" in which they were embowered on that evening. "Nothing," he says, "tending to the pleasure of all the senses was wanting; the weather being a little chil and coldish, they on a blue velvet couch sate by one another towards a char-coale fire burning in a silver brasero, whilst in the next room adjacent thereto a pretty little round table of cedar wood was a covering for the supping of them two together; the cates prepared for them, and a week before that time bespoke, were of the choisest dainties and most delicious junkets that all the territories of Italy were able to afford, and that deservedly, for all the Romane Empire could not produce a completer paire to taste them."[213]