CRABBE, Henry

Henry Crabbe was a saddler. It is possible that he was a relative of Edmund Crabbe, who served in the retinue of Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor, in the 1417 campaign.2 E101/51/2. However this may be, his infrequent appearances in the records suggests that he did not number among the leading townsmen of Derby. He is first recorded in 1421 when James Tuchet, Lord Audley, sued him and another townsman, Thomas Swerd, for hunting without licence in his park at Markeaton. He was probably a young man when elected to Parliament in 1426. In April 1430 he was named on the panel of a petty jury to try Robert Eyre of Padley for murder before Peter de la Pole† and Gerard Meynell* at Derby, but did not serve on the jury.3 CP40/644, rot. 183d; C219/13/4; JUST3/13/2/3. Although he was not among the townsman indicted before commissioners of oyer and terminer in April 1434 for their involvement in the violent confederacy headed by Nicholas Meysham*, it is likely that he was sympathetic to the confederates. In Michaelmas term 1433 he was one of seven townsmen sued by Meysham’s opponent, Roger Wolley*, for conspiracy two years earlier to have him indicted for receiving the lollard leader, Jack Sharp, and for disseminating lollard opinions. Wolley had been Crabbe’s fellow MP for the borough in 1426: evidently their mutual service had failed to form a bond of friendship between them.4 CP40/691, rot. 213.

In 1434 Crabbe was among the 101 townsmen of Derby who took the general oath to keep the peace. Later, in Easter term 1447, he was one of 44 each fined 20s. for unspecified trespasses and rescues whereof they were impeached by the return into the court of King’s bench of the county sheriff, Sir Thomas Blount†.5 CPR, 1429-36, p. 410; KB27/744, fines rot. 1d. Thereafter his career had a brief late flowering. He served a term as bailiff and attested three parliamentary elections between 1449 and 1453. No reference to him has been traced after this latter date. Alice Crabbe, who paid alnage on three dozens of cloth between 1465 and 1467, may have been his widow.6 C219/15/6, 7, 16/2; E101/343/21.