CREW, Thomas (c. 1624-97)

Like his father, Thomas Crew was an active supporter of the readmission of the secluded members to Parliament in 1660 for which he was rewarded with a knighthood. Pepys Diary, i. 73. Likewise, he was also soon disillusioned by the political realities of the Restoration and by the decadence of Charles II’s court. Ibid. i. 136-7. In the Commons he was probably a follower of John Swinfen^‡. In 1673 his father told Swinfen that his son had heard Swinfen speak in Parliament, and that he hoped his son would turn to Swinfen for advice after Crew’s death. Beds. Archives L30/20/12. Crew’s various conversations with Pepys whilst still a member of the Commons leave little doubt of his country sympathies, and in 1677 he was marked thrice worthy by Shaftesbury. Not surprisingly, given his Presbyterian upbringing, he had strong anti-Catholic prejudices and believed it to be ‘a thing certain’ that the fire of London resulted from a Catholic conspiracy. Pepys Diary, ii. 213; vii. 355-7.

His writ of summons was issued on 24 Jan. 1680, just over a month after his father’s death, and he took his seat in the House of Lords at a prorogation three months later in the midst of the political crisis caused by attempts to exclude James, duke of York, from the succession. His subsequent attendance suggests that he took a considerable interest in the activities of the House, but in the absence of surviving family papers it is difficult to do justice to his political career.

Crew attended the House on over 90 per cent of the sitting days in 1680, and with the exception of 1689 when his attendance dipped to just over 60 per cent, he maintained his attendance at this sort of level until 1692. He was regularly named to the sessional committees. He had voted in favour of the Exclusion bill in the Commons and voted for a first reading of the bill in the Lords, signing a protest at its rejection on 15 Nov. 1680. Later that month he was named to the committee to inspect laws against papists and favoured the appointment of a committee to consider the state of the nation. On 7 Dec. he voted in favour of the attainder of William Howard, Viscount Stafford, and on 18 Dec. he dissented to the rejection of the Commons proviso for regulating trials of peers. On 20 Dec. he was named to the committee for the bill to encourage protestant strangers to come to England. On 7 Jan. 1681 he supported the impeachment of Sir William Scroggs, entering two protests at the failure to impeach or suspend him from office. During the following session, on 26 Mar. 1681, he protested against the decision to try Fitzharris in the common law courts rather than by impeachment in the Lords.

During the long interval that followed the end of the 1681 session, Crew appears to have spent some time abroad. He was granted a pass to travel to France in 1683 together with his wife, three children and 11 menservants. CSP Dom. 1683-4, p. 193. He was back in England for the opening of the first session of James II’s Parliament in May 1685 and attended every day. He was named to several committees for bills whose subject matter ranged from murder at sea, the rebuilding of the London house of William Herbert, earl (later marquess) of Powis, and Yarmouth pier to Deeping Fen.

With the deepening of the political crisis of James II’s regime he attended the two prorogation days on 15 Feb. and 28 Apr. 1687. Throughout that and the following year, Crew was said, unsurprisingly, to be opposed to the repeal of the Test Act and to be an opponent of the policies of James II. In June 1688 just before the trial of the seven bishops he was put forward by Henry Compton, bishop of London, as a possible bail for Thomas Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells. Bodl. Tanner, 28, f. 76. At the Revolution of 1688 he signed the declaration to the Prince of Orange and was one of the lords temporal who met at the Guildhall to direct affairs in the absence of the king. Bodl. ms Eng. hist. d. 307 f. 6; HMC Dartmouth, i. 229. During the first session of the Convention he was present on 63 per cent of sitting days. Despite his undoubted opposition to James II, he nevertheless found it difficult to reconcile his conscience with the reality of deposing a king. In January 1689 he voted in support of the motion for a regency and on 4 Feb. voted to substitute the word ‘deserted’ for ‘abdicated’ in the Commons resolution. Timberland, i. 339. He again opposed the word ‘abdicated’ on 6 Feb., even though a variety of gestures had placated much of the opposition to William III’s assumption of the crown. Nevertheless, he took the oaths to the new regime on 2 Mar. 1689.

Quibbles about the constitutionality of the revolution do not seem to have affected Crew’s naturally whiggish tendencies or his desire to rake over the misdeeds of the Stuart brothers. On 2 Feb. 1689 Crew was named to the committee to enquire into the death of Arthur Capell, earl of Essex. On 8 Mar. he was named to the committee for the bill to reverse the attainder of William Russell^‡, Lord Russell, and on 14 Mar., together with everyone else in the chamber, to that for the bill for uniting protestants. On 24 Apr. he was named to the committee for reversing the attainder of Algernon Sydney^‡ and the following day to the bill to make it treason to correspond with the exiled king. Over the course of the session he was also named to some 14 other committees, including that to amend the bill to remove papists from London and Westminster and the additional poll bill. On 30 July he voted in support of the terms set out by the Commons for the reversal of the conviction of Titus Oates. His low attendance over this session was probably caused by illness rather than reluctance to participate in the Convention, for when the House was called early in the following (1689-90) session, on 28 Oct. 1689, he was excused attendance.

During the 1689-90 session, Crew was present on just over 69 per cent of sitting days. His intense distrust of Thomas Osborne, formerly earl of Danby and now marquess of Carmarthen (later duke of Leeds), was underlined by his insistence on 23 Nov. 1689 that no pardon issued by the Crown should be valid unless agreed by both Houses of Parliament. He was named to ten select committees including that for the act of indemnity. Carmarthen marked him as an opponent of the court in a list compiled between October 1689 and February 1690. During the following (1690) session he missed only three sitting days and was named to nine committees, including that for the bill to prevent irregularities in the courts of law and equity.

Crew missed the first two weeks of the 1690-1 session and his overall attendance dropped to 75 per cent. This session saw him again attacking Carmarthen when on 30 Oct. 1690 he opposed the bill to clarify the powers of the Admiralty commissioners. He was also appointed to numerous other committees to consider bills including that for annulling the marriage of Mary Wharton and James Campbell.

For the 1691-2 session Crew’s attendance was 77 per cent. On 23 Feb. 1692 Crew entered dissents both against the poll bill and about the ‘unparliamentary’ tacking of a clause renewing the commission of accounts to it. The 1692-3 session saw a marked drop in his attendance – to just under 57 per cent. On 7 Dec. 1692 he protested against the government’s blocking of a joint committee of both Houses to consider the state of the nation. He voted for the place bill in December 1692 and protested against its rejection on 3 Jan. 1693. On 17 Jan. 1693 he protested against the decision that Charles Knollys had no claim to the earldom of Banbury, and on 19 Jan. he supported the Lords’ amendments to the land tax bill. In February 1693 he found Charles Mohun, 4th Baron Mohon, not guilty of murder. In February of the following year he voted to reverse the order of the court of chancery in Montagu v. Bath (the Albemarle inheritance case).

From 1693 Crew’s attendance rapidly declined: he attended on only a third of the sitting days in 1693 and 1694, and in 1695 and 1696 he hardly attended at all. When he made his will in July 1696, he described himself as ‘somewhat weak in body’ and despite the heavy pressure exerted to compel attendance during the debates over the attainder of Sir John Fenwick^‡ was given leave to be absent on 1 Dec. 1696. In March 1697 he gave his proxy to Anthony Grey, 11th earl of Kent, father-in-law of his daughter Jemima. At his death in November 1697 he left generous bequests to his servants and to the poor of Northamptonshire. He requested a private funeral but left £200 for the erection of a monument at Steane. Crew’s finances, like those of his father, remain obscure. He inherited estates worth £4,000 p.a. from his father and his self assessment in October 1689 stated that he had £1,000 in money and was owed a further £2,000 on a mortgage. These were substantial sums given that the responses of most of his fellow peers indicated no liquid assets and a high level of indebtedness. Chatsworth, Halifax Collection B.93. A family settlement made in 1680 provided for portions of £4,000 for each of his six daughters, but Crew changed his mind about the disposition of his estate after the death in July 1694 of his nephew Waldgrave Crew. This ensured that the succession to his title and properties would pass to his childless brother, Nathaniel Crew, bishop of Durham, who had been closely associated with the policies of James II. Accordingly, early in 1695 the 2nd Baron Crew conveyed a substantial part of his estate to the use of his daughters, which Nathaniel Crew later tried to regain. TNA, C6/318/54, answer of Lady Crew and others, 16 May 1701. Jemima, his eldest daughter, received a portion of £20,000 on her marriage to Henry Grey, the future duke of Kent, in 1695. Beds. Archives, L22/28. Crew’s widow was said to be worth £30,000 at her subsequent marriage to Arthur Herbert, earl of Torrington. Add. 70075, newsletter, 1 Aug. 1704. Whether she was entitled to this sum is another matter. She was deeply distrusted by her stepdaughter, Anne Joliffe, who expected ‘very hard usage and foul dealings’ after Crew’s death, suspecting her of diverting funds to her own use that had formed part of her mother’s settlement and rightfully belonged to herself and her sister Temperance, wife of Sir Rowland Alston. Add. 70120, A. Jolliffe to Sir E. Harley, 7 Dec. 1697 and 11 Mar. [1698]. It seems unlikely that large sums were available for the portions of Crew’s daughters by his second wife. They made respectable rather than brilliant marriages and despite their father’s Whig allegiances, moved decisively into the Tory camp. Catherine married Sir John Harpur, Armine married Thomas Cartwright^‡, whilst Elizabeth married Charles Butler, Baron Butler of Weston, more usually known by his Irish title as the earl of Arran [I] (duke of Arran in the Jacobite peerage).