CRAVEN, John (1610-48), of London.

John Craven was the son of a wealthy lord mayor of London, who in the early 1560s had arrived in the capital from Skipton in the West Riding of Yorkshire, to become an apprentice. William Craven became free of the Merchant Taylors’ Company, warden of the company in 1593, alderman for Bishopsgate ward in 1600, sheriff in 1601 and mayor in 1610-11. His mayoralty was marked by a revival of the lord mayor’s show, memorable for its splendour. He married a daughter of another London alderman, and was renowned for his benefactions to St John’s College, Oxford and Christ’s Hospital, London.8Oxford DNB, ‘Sir William Craven’. William Craven’s eldest son, William, served in the army of Maurice, prince of Orange, and on his return was created Baron Craven of Hampstead Marshall, Berkshire, and admitted as a member of Charles I’s council of war. The patent of creation of the barony entailed the peerage to the heirs male of William Craven, and failing these, to his younger brother John, this MP.9Coventry Docquets, 24. In 1637, William Craven became a principal supporter of a scheme to provide Charles I’s nephew, the elector palatine, Charles Lewis, with naval support, under the command of Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, for an intervention in the Thirty Years’ War. Another of the king’s nephews, Prince Rupert, was involved in the venture, and William Craven was captured, remaining in captivity until he paid for his own release, in 1639.10Oxford DNB, ‘William Craven, earl of Craven’. John Craven, Lord Craven’s younger brother, was bound at the Middle Temple with Bulstrode Whitelocke* and Craven’s cousin, Thomas Whitmore I*.11MTR ii. 740. His standing in relation to the baronetcy of his brother was acknowledged by Sir Thomas Coventry† in 1637, who noted that John Craven had been allowed to take a place in precedence as a baron’s son.12CSP Dom. 1637, p. 391.

It has been conjectured that John Craven’s short period of service in the House for Tewkesbury probably owed everything to his brother-in-law, Lord Coventry (Thomas Coventry†), who is known to have worked actively to place his relatives in seats, for example at Coventry.13Keeler, Long Parliament, 146. Another Coventry relative, Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, took a Tewkesbury seat in the Short Parliament. In fact, Coventry’s interest does not need to be invoked in order to explain Craven’s association with Tewkesbury. Between 1619 and 1622, Craven’s widowed mother bought a number of manors in the Tewkesbury area, including Prestbury, Boddington, Tredington, Gotherington, Elkstone and Great Washbourne, to add to the initial purchase made by Sir William Craven in 1611 of Mythe Hooke manor. This last would alone have given the family an interest in the borough of Tewksbury, but the additional purchases made the Cravens among the most powerful landlords in the area. None of these manors belonged outright to John Craven, but most were entailed on him in the event of his elder brother’s death.14NRA, Report 6040; Glos. RO, D184/77, T100, Z2; VCH Glos. iv. 433; vi. 233; vii. 213; viii. 9, 72, 91, 134, 146, 179, 191, 192, 229; Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. lxi. 282-3.

When, in the Long Parliament elections in 1640, Sir Edward Alford was double-returned for Arundel and Tewkesbury, his choice of one or the other seat was delayed because it came to light that there had been two returns. One had returned Sir Robert Cooke* and Edward Stephens*, the other Alford and Craven.15CJ ii. 22b. The report of the committee for elections on the case was delayed, and on 11 January 1641 the committee recommended that none of the returned Members for the borough should sit until a definitive judgment had been reached.16D’Ewes (N), 238. By 20 March 1641, Craven was in the House, however, perhaps because he had lent the Commons £1,000 towards relieving the needs of the king’s army in the north.17CJ ii. 109a; D’Ewes (N), 515. On 4 May, he took the Protestation, but on 15 July it was decided that the case of the Tewkesbury election was to be opened up again. On 6 August, the election was declared void, and so Craven left the House.18CJ ii. 212b, 239b.

On 22 September 1642, Craven was reported to have gone to Nottingham intending to serve the king at the outbreak of civil war. Having been arrested on his way back from Nottingham, he protested his commitment to Parliament, and offered to lend £500 to its cause.19CJ ii. 776b. He did indeed contribute £500 on the propositions of Parliament in September, but in November 1643 was assessed by the Committee for Advance of Money, at £400 for his fifth and twentieth. He contributed a further £200 at Northampton.20CCAM 299. Meanwhile, Craven had been created Baron Craven of Ryton by Charles I, on 21 Mar. 1643, partly because of the evident affection felt towards him by the king, but also doubtless to recognise the Craven family’s importance as paymasters to the royal cause. Craven’s loyalties may have been ambivalent – he was evidently distrusted by the Committee for Advance of Money, despite his loans to Parliament – but these doubts were not shared by his elder brother William, who contributed very large sums to the royalist cause.21Lttrs, and Pprs. of the Verney Fam. ed. J. Bruce (Camden Soc. lvi), 189.

Craven’s estate was discharged from the attention of the committee for penal taxation in June 1646. He made his will on 28 May 1647, trusting he would ‘with the elect be partaker of God’s glory in the kingdom of heaven’, suggesting a Calvinist outlook. Like his father, he was a benefactor of hospitals: five London hospitals in all, including Christ’s. He remembered the poor in his father’s birthplace, and in Northamptonshire, Warwickshire and London: he left £1,000 to the poor of five Yorkshire parishes alone. Cash bequests in his will, to individuals and for social welfare purposes, amounted to over £9,000. The most renowned legacy was the £100 a year from lands in Cancerne, near Chichester in Sussex, which Craven had bought from John Maynard*, for poor scholars at Oxford and Cambridge. Recipients of these four ‘Craven scholarships’ were to be selected by the vice-chancellors and regius professors and orators of the respective universities. Craven died childless before 26 February 1648; his place of burial remains uncertain.22PROB11/203/494.