CROFT, John

A John Croft lived at Over to the north-west of Cambridge in the 1380s but it is impossible to tell whether he was from the same family as the MP.5 CCR, 1381-5, p. 305; 1385-9, p. 445; CAD, vi. C6170. By the late 1440s, the MP, a resident and burgess of Cambridge, was leasing a parlour near ‘Pylateslane’ from the local nunnery of St. Radegund. He was supposed to pay the nuns 6d. p.a. for the property but by Michaelmas 1451 his rent was two years in arrears.6 A. Gray, Priory of St. Radegund, 160, 175. Croft was embroiled in another dispute in the early 1460s, when John Langwith sued him, John Belton*, Richard Bole† of Winchester and others in the court of common pleas, for forcibly taking from him in London cloths to the value of 100 marks. Croft, described as ‘of Cambridge, yeoman’ in the plea roll, and his co-defendants responded to Langwith’s plea by obtaining licence to treat with him out of court, although with what result is not known.7 CP40/803, rot. 108 Having enjoyed a long career as an office-holder, Croft was certainly dead by early 1486, when his widow Alice’s executors, John Wode, town clerk of Cambridge, and William Crowe, a clerk of the university, received a royal pardon. Croft had evidently died intestate for the pardon referred to Alice as the administrator of his estate rather than his executor.8 C67/53, m. 3.