CRANE, Sir Robert, 1st bt. (1586-1643), of Chilton, nr. Sudbury, Suff. and Buckenham Tofts, Norf.

The Cranes were probably direct descendants of William Carbonel, who had held land at Chilton on the outskirts of Sudbury during the twelfth century. These lands had descended through female lines, first to the Botelers and then, from 1439, to the Cranes.30Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 70-1. By the time they inherited Chilton, the Cranes were already well established in the county, for they had owned land at Stonham since the thirteenth century.31Appleton, Mems. 20-34, 57-8. By the early seventeenth century, the history of the family had already become a subject of interest to local antiquaries, in particular Robert Ryece and Sir Simonds D’Ewes*, and Sir Robert Crane was able to claim armorial bearings with 15 quarterings .32Bodl. Tanner 72, f. 200; Harl. 639, ff. 79-83; Autobiog. and Corresp. of Sir Simonds D’Ewes ed. J.O. Halliwell (1845), ii. 238-9; Appleton, Mems. 14.

Mystery surrounds the exact circumstances of Sir Robert’s birth. His father, Henry, the only son of Robert Crane, had taken the unusual step in 1579 of obtaining a divorce to end his first marriage, after his wife, Anne Goodwin, had been caught committing adultery. Whether he then remarried, taking the heiress, Katherine Jernegan, as his new wife, long remained a matter of dispute. As late as 1655, Sir Robert’s cousin, George Reeve†, who hoped to claim the family estates, was arguing that this second marriage had never taken place and that the offspring from Henry Crane’s relationship with Katherine Jernegan were therefore bastards.33Appleton, Mems. 67; Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 33. Legitimate or not, the future MP never knew his father, for he must have been born at about the time of Henry Crane’s death on 1 August 1586. The death of Robert’s grandfather in 1591 re-opened the question of whether or not he was the true heir to the family estates. Crane’s grandfather had certainly assumed that his grandson would be his heir. In indentures agreed in 1586 and 1588, and in his will of 7 October 1590, he had made arrangements for the management of the estates during his grandson’s minority, vesting the most important manors in the control of his son-in-law, Dudley Fortescue†. Despite the rival claims of the daughter who was the only surviving child from the ill-fated first marriage, these arrangements were upheld.34Vis. Suff. ed. Howard, i. 146-55; The Gen. n.s. xiii. 277-8. The boy’s cousin once removed, Sir Robert Jermyn†, was named as his guardian, and thus Robert was brought up in the Jermyn household at Rushbrooke. Although Sir Robert Jermyn’s eldest son, (Sir) Thomas Jermyn*, had left home by 1591, the connection between Crane and Sir Thomas remained close throughout Crane’s life.35Bodl. Tanner 69, ff. 15, 37; Tanner 71, ff. 145-146; Appleton, Mems. 52.

Crane was knighted at Newmarket in 1605, quite possibly on the recommendation of Sir Thomas Jermyn, who by then was a gentleman of the king’s privy chamber.36Shaw, Knights of Eng. ii. 137. Crane’s marriage in 1607 to his first wife, Dorothy, daughter of the attorney-general, Sir Henry Hobart†, and the sister of Sir John Hobart I*, took place shortly before he came of age and assumed control of his estates. It may have been the decision of his new father-in-law that he should receive a legal education, for three months later, at the advanced age of 20, Crane was admitted to the Inner Temple, transferring the following year to Lincoln’s Inn, which was Hobart’s own inn.37CITR, ii. 29; I. Temple Admiss. 176; LI Admiss. i. 147.

The estates which passed to Crane when he came of age had probably survived the minority intact. Over the years he would sell off some of his land holdings, but these sales seem to have been balanced by purchases.38Wills of the Archdeaconry of Suff. ed. M.E. Allen (Suff. Rec. Soc. xxxi.), 414; Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 91, 97; Bodl. Tanner 69, ff. 2, 152. Among the purchases was the manor of Sudbury, bought from the crown in 1610.39Copinger, Manors of Suff. i. 234. This became the basis of Crane’s electoral interest at Sudbury, which secured his return to six Parliaments over the course of quarter of a century. It was a measure of the strength of his interest that, until 1640, the only contests at Sudbury occurred in 1620 and 1626, when Crane was standing instead for the county seats. According to his address to the Suffolk electorate, his reasons for seeking a county seat in 1620 were the conventional ones; he claimed that the gentlemen of Suffolk had pressed him to stand and that his only desire was to serve the interests of the county.40Bodl. Tanner 290, f. 28. One feature of his career in these earlier Parliaments – his interest in the clothing trade, which dominated the economy of the area around Sudbury – would again become evident during his time in the Long Parliament. It is likely that the income from Crane’s own estates was partly dependent on the prosperity of that trade. It was also because of this connexion that the privy council employed him whenever it needed commissioners to investigate local disputes among the various interest groups in the East Anglian clothing industry.41APC 1621-3, p. 156; 1629-30, pp. 65, 155-6; 1630-1, pp. 230-1, 329-30, 355; CSP Dom. 1629-30, p. 113.

Crane became a justice of the peace and a captain in the local militia before he reached the age of 30.42Add. 39245, ff. 11v, 26, 78v, 101v, 116; Bodl. Tanner 283, f. 47v. Throughout the 1620s and the 1630s he was also serving as one of the Suffolk deputy lieutenants.43Add. 39245, ff. 43, 72, 103, 119v; APC 1630-1, 355. Occasionally, these positions gave rise to trouble. In August 1630, he and Sir Lionel Tollemache† created difficulties at the Bury assizes when they refused to sign the deputy lieutenants’ warrants for the collection of the fees for the muster master of the militia. Their objection was that the previous Parliament, in which they had both sat, had threatened to arrest any Member who signed such warrants. Crane’s view was that only those deputy lieutenants who had not been MPs should sign, but his fellow deputy lieutenants were suspicious of this argument and the matter was referred to the lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Suffolk (Theophilus Howard†).44CSP Dom. Add. 1625-49, p. 379. After the muster master himself complained to the privy council, Crane and Tollemache were ordered in November 1631 to ensure that the money was collected.45Add. 39245, f. 154. It was at about this time that Crane was appointed to be sheriff of the county, which itself might have been a punishment for his obstructiveness.46Coventry Docquets, 365; List of Sheriffs, 132; Bodl. Tanner 71, f. 129. This makes it all the more odd that he (although not Tollemache) may have been dropped from the commission of the peace several weeks later. His omission from the 1632 liber pacis was probably no more than a scribal error as within months he had been reinstated.47SP16/212, ff. 58-59v; Coventry Docquets, 67. His militia company was mustered as usual in the summer of 1632.48Add. 39245, f. 157v.

Over the following seven years his duties as a deputy lieutenant continued to be time-consuming but routine.49Bodl. Tanner 69, ff. 126, 154; Tanner 70, f. 81; Tanner 67, ff. 47-48. This changed with the crisis of 1639, when troops had to be rushed northwards to repel the Scottish invaders. Much of his time between February and July was taken up with the efforts to put the Suffolk militia onto the necessary war footing. His efforts paid off, for the mobilization in Suffolk was smoother and more complete than in most other counties.50Add. 15084, ff. 1, 3; Add. 39245, ff. 178v, 179; Bodl. Tanner 67, ff. 111-112; M.C. Fissel, The Bishops’ Wars (Cambridge, 1994), 206. While the trained band raised by him sailed for the north, Crane remained in Suffolk to ensure that the county was at least left with some military protection.51Add. 39245, f. 179v. The Spanish invasion scare that autumn was probably another major distraction for him.52Add. 15084, ff. 4-7.

In advance of the county election to the Short Parliament, Crane was among those who tried to persuade Henry North* to stand as an alternative to Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston*.53Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 124. Crane had worked closely with North’s father, Sir Roger*, in getting the Suffolk forces ready for the campaign against the Scots and they both may have felt that failure to back the king in the second bishops’ war would make certain that their efforts in 1639 had been in vain. At Sudbury, Crane was once again the obvious choice to represent the town, and when the corporation met on 16 March they approved the return of Crane and Richard Pepys* (the barrister who was steward of the honor of Clare).54Suff. RO (Bury), EE501/2/7, unfol. A petition challenging this result was subsequently presented to the Commons, suggesting that there had been a contest.55CJ ii. 3b. The disappointed candidate remains unidentified, although Brampton Gurdon† seems a strong possibility. In the interval between the election and the meeting of the new Parliament, Crane was kept busy organizing the latest muster of troops.56Add. 15084, ff. 7v-9. This was probably the reason why he delayed his journey to London until about a fortnight after the new Parliament had begun.57Harl. MS 384, f. 66.

In late April 1640, one of the other Suffolk deputy lieutenants, Sir William Waldegrave, wrote to advise Crane that ‘all our proceedings [military mobilization] in the county is [sic] at an end unless you will take some pains at London and set it on foot again’.58Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 20. In the crucial Commons debates on supply and the future of Ship Money, Crane seems to have supported the compromise favoured by the court. On 27 April, when the Commons came to discuss whether to invoke privilege against the move by the Lords to persuade them to compromise by granting subsidies to replace Ship Money, it was at Crane’s suggestion that the key passage in the report by the solicitor-general, Edward Herbert I*, on the most recent joint conference was read again. The point of this move was that the Commons had again to listen to the reasons given by the Lords for their motion.59Aston’s Diary, 74; CJ ii. 13a-14b. On 2 May, Crane twice spoke in favour of the compromise on offer from the king. He agreed with the view that the king deserved new grants as a substitute for Ship Money and opposed the move by John Pym* to insist on the promise of religious reform before supply.60Procs. Short Parl. 190; Aston’s Diary, 123, 126. On this issue, Crane’s views may have been influenced by his old connection with the Jermyns, for Sir Thomas Jermyn, as comptroller of the Household, was acting as one of the principal spokesmen for the court in these debates. Crane’s probable alliance with the Jermyns may also be discerned in his interest in the bill to reform intestate probate procedure. Crane’s speech on the bill on 1 May voiced concerns that the poor were suffering as a result of the fees charged by ecclesiastical officials and he was then appointed to the committee to which this bill was assigned. It was Jermyn’s name which headed the list of committee men.61Aston’s Diary, 112; CJ ii. 17b.

Crane did not remain in London for long after the dissolution of the Short Parliament on 5 May, although he had a couple of correspondents who were able to keep him informed about events in London.62Bodl. Tanner 65, ff. 78, 89. Back in Suffolk, his first concern was the assembling of the Suffolk troops for the renewed war against the Scots. Crane’s own troops marched to the coast for their rendezvous in late May, although Crane himself remained in Suffolk.63Add. 15084, f. 23; Add. 39245, ff. 191, 192; Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 47. Following the death of the earl of Suffolk in June 1640, Crane and two other deputy lieutenants wrote, via Thomas Jermyn*, to the king asking that a new lord lieutenant be appointed for the county.64Add. 15084, ff. 25v-26. Throughout that autumn, Jermyn (who, as a groom of the bedchamber to the prince of Wales, was with the court in London) wrote to Crane on a regular basis, reporting first the hopes for victory by the king over the Scots and then the manoeuvrings in the wake of the English defeat at Newburn (28 Aug. 1640).65Bodl. Tanner 65, ff. 35-36, 100-101, 112-13, 128-9. On hearing that the Covenanting army had crossed over into England, Crane and his fellow deputy lieutenants once again put the Suffolk militia on the alert.66Add. 39245, f. 196.

In the elections to the Long Parliament, Crane was closely involved in the efforts to get candidates elected for Suffolk seats who would be more sympathetic to the king’s policies than the Barnardistons and their allies. In late September Henry North, mindful of the pressure Crane had applied to him the time before, approached him to ask for his support in securing one of the county seats. North’s hope was that Crane would organise his campaign in the south-eastern corner of the county.67Bodl. Tanner 65, f. 124. Crane’s willingness to support North became particularly evident on election day itself. During the polling at Ipswich on 19 October, Crane played a leading part in the efforts to prevent Barnardiston and Parker being re-elected. It was he who got the clerk taking the names for Barnardiston replaced and then argued that all the clerks should concentrate on listing North’s supporters.68T. Carlyle, Critical and Misc. Essays (1888), vii. 61-2, 64-5. These heavy-handed tactics did North little good, for Barnardiston and Parker still gained more votes. These rivalries spilled over into the election at Sudbury. With Sir Simonds D’Ewes* agreeing to stand as Crane’s partner, the plan was that the two men should be elected without a contest. However, Brampton Gurdon, head of the godly family from Assington, had other ideas and decided to stand against Crane. The support of the mayor, Daniel Byatt, secured Crane’s return.69C219/43/2, no. 174. Gurdon then petitioned the Commons to overturn the result. When the petition was heard in December 1640, Brampton’s son, John Gurdon*, the MP for Ipswich, accused Crane of the same sort of tactics he had used in the county election. According to D’Ewes’s notes on the debate, it was alleged that ‘Sir Robert Crane himself threatened men’.70Procs. LP i. 511. John Pym tried to make an issue of this but was unable to prevent the Commons agreeing to let the return stand.71Procs. LP i. 489-90, 497, 511, 518; Rushworth, Hist. Collns. iv. 89; CJ ii. 47a-b.

Crane was able to take his seat in the Commons even before the House upheld the Sudbury result. During the opening days of the session he made his first intervention, asking on 12 November that the House’s security be increased after an intruder with a concealed pistol had been found prowling the corridors near the Commons chamber.72Procs. LP i. 120, 122. As a veteran of seven Parliaments, Crane had sufficient experience to merit regular committee appointments. Some of these committees concerned matters in which he had a local or personal concern.73CJ ii. 60a, 102b, 169a-b. This was obviously true of all those items of business affecting the cloth trade.74CJ ii. 77b, 461a, 641b. Most of his appointments, however, were to committees relating to national issues, such as supply, the impeachment of the 1st earl of Strafford (Sir Thomas Wentworth†), and the infringement of parliamentary privileges by the king in 1629.75CJ ii. 31b, 39b, 91a; Procs. LP i. 196. The committee to consider the Ipswich petition against the arch-Laudian, Matthew Wren, bishop of Ely, to which Crane was named on 22 December 1640, concerned one local East Anglian issue with wider significance.76CJ ii. 56a. Other appointments, to committees on preaching ministers, the right of clergymen to hold temporal office, clerical pluralism and popish recusants, confirm that Crane disliked all that Bishop Wren stood for.77CJ ii. 65a, 99a, 101b, 113b. It is perhaps an indication of how opposed Crane was to the Laudian innovations that he was first named to a committee set up on 27 April 1641 on a bill to punish Convocation for accepting the new Laudian Canons the year before.78CJ ii. 129a. Crane’s connection with Henry Jermyn*, who was one of the prime suspects in the army plot, did not prevent him from taking the Protestation to defend the Protestant religion in May 1640. He was also appointed to that other response to the discovery of the army plot, the committee for the security of religion (6 May).79CJ ii. 133b, 136b.

In late November 1641 one of Crane’s relatives wrote to him mentioning that he had heard of his ‘many and serious employments in Parliament’.80Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 13. This may have been no more than flattery. Crane in fact had recently been keeping a low profile, and, for that reason, his precise attitude towards the Grand Remonstrance cannot be established. What is known is that, once the Remonstrance was completed, he was reluctant to see its contents made public. Thus, on 22 November he and Sir Edward Dering* were minority tellers against having the Remonstrance published in any form.81CJ ii. 322b. Their fear was that the king would be less likely to respond positively if the Commons’ complaints were widely known. By the end of November Crane was making plans to return to Suffolk and that return became urgent when he heard that his wife was ill. It was Robert Reynolds* who on 9 December obtained the necessary permission for Crane to leave London.82Bodl. Tanner 69, f. 128; CJ ii. 336a; D’Ewes (C), 256. In earlier Parliaments Crane had been a strong supporter of the recusancy laws against Catholics and in August 1641 he had been named as one of the commissioners to disarm them.83HP Commons 1604-1629, iii. 721, 723; LJ iv. 385b. While back in Suffolk he probably busied himself searching for Catholic arms caches. When he returned to Westminster the following month he obtained a order for the local justices of the peace to search the house of one of his Catholic neighbours.84CJ ii. 396a-b; PJ i. 178, 328.

Crane played a small part in the attempts by Parliament early in 1642 to win concessions from the king. He was one of the four Members appointed on 8 February to the delegation which delivered to the king the list of reasons why he should approve the bill removing the bishops’ temporal powers, including their right to vote in the House of Lords.85CJ ii. 421b, 424a; PJ i. 322, 324. Crane’s friend, Sir Roger North* (father of Henry), was appointed to perform a similar task on 9 February, when the Commons completed their reply to the king’s offer of concessions regarding the militia bill. North felt the journey would be too arduous and so got Crane to ask the Commons to replace him.86PJ i. 434. On 28 February Crane was named to the large committee which met with the Lords to discuss the latest developments in this dispute with the king.87CJ ii. 461a.

Crane left London for Suffolk on about 18 March 1642, and, in his absence, his name was omitted from the list of Suffolk deputy lieutenants approved by the Commons that day. Sir John Holland* wrote to him several days later, giving as the explanation the fact that Crane was going to be away during the period covered by the bill.88Bodl. Tanner 66, f. 298. But this rings hollow and it may well be that there were some Members who thought him too closely associated with Sir Thomas Jermyn, whom Parliament had already removed as joint lord lieutenant of the county. The omission was rectified the following July, but by then Crane had been back at Westminster for at least two months.89CJ ii. 563a, 654a; LJ v. 184b.

On 10 March 1642, D’Ewes had noted with disapproval how his fellow MP for Sudbury had slipped out of the chamber when Pym had announced that there was a delegation waiting at the door, willing to lend substantial sums for the prospective Irish campaign on condition that Members underwrote the loan.90PJ ii. 21. D’Ewes evidently assumed that Crane was trying to evade this obligation. However, Crane’s record during the spring and summer of 1642 instead suggests support on his part for Parliament’s efforts to fund the Irish campaign and military preparations at home. During that period he was named to a whole series of Commons’ committees connected with military finances.91CJ ii. 563a, 571b, 589a. In July 1642 it was Crane who was behind the moves to pay arrears to army officers serving in Ireland.92CJ ii. 662b-663a, 673a; PJ iii. 190, 418; LJ v. 228a. He was also regularly included on those committees entrusted with the task of persuading wealthy corporate bodies and individuals to lend money to Parliament. The most important of these committees was the standing committee appointed on 3 June, to which Crane was third-named.93CJ ii. 598b, 601b, 623a, 666b. It was probably in connection with the work of this committee that three of its members – Sir John Holland, William Cage* (another Suffolk MP) and Crane – were added to another standing committee, this one dealing with accounts, on 21 June.94CJ ii. 634b. At this stage Crane clearly still had hopes that conflict within England could be avoided, for his offer of four horses on 11 June came with the caveat that they were for ‘the defence of king and Parliament not divided’.95PJ iii. 475.

As the prospect of war increased, Crane returned to Suffolk, but before setting out from London in early August, he was able to write at length to Sir John Potts* (the MP for Norfolk and uncle of Lady D’Ewes) describing the military preparations by both sides.96Bodl. Tanner 63, f. 125. As it turned out, his presence in Suffolk was opportune, for within weeks Sudbury and the surrounding area experienced several anti-popish disturbances. The focus for this trouble was the most prominent Catholic inhabitant of south-west Suffolk, Countess Rivers. At this time she was living at Long Melford, only a few miles from Chilton, and when a mob attacked her house on 20 August, it was Crane who organised her escape.97Desiderata Curiosa ed. F. Peck (1732-5), ii. bk. xii. 23-4. Crane took these events seriously. By 25 August he had written to London reporting the disturbances around Sudbury and he later signed the letter of 6 September from the Suffolk justices of the peace informing Parliament that they had managed to restore order in the area.98CJ ii. 736a; PJ iii. 345-6. This did not make Crane popular with his neighbours. According to Arthur Wilson, the earl of Warwick’s steward who had gone to aid the countess, the incident meant that Crane ‘was forc’d to retain a train’d band in his house (although he was a Parliament man) to secure himself from the fury of that rabble’, and it may have been for his own protection that Crane sought permission from the Speaker on 23 September to arm himself with muskets, carbines and blunderbusses.99Desiderata Curiosa ed. Peck, ii. bk. xii. 24; CJ ii. 778b. It was at about this time that Crane handed over the four horses he had promised the previous June.100CJ ii. 778b. With the king having pushed the crisis to the point of war by raising the royal standard, Crane was now prepared to side with Parliament. When that December questions were asked the Commons about the loyalties of Sir Thomas Jermyn, it was proposed that Crane should be sent to ask him what he intended to contribute towards the war effort. That proved unnecessary when it emerged that Jermyn had already indicated to another MP, Harbottle Grimston*, his intention to donate money.101Harl. 164, f. 274v.

Crane’s support for Parliament did not mean that he had abandoned hopes of a negotiated settlement. He may well have been one of those who, by the end of 1642, favoured negotiations with the king on the terms proposed by the Lords. On 10 January 1643 he was a teller with Walter Long* in one of several confused divisions relating to the propositions to be sent to the king at Oxford. These divisions appear to have reflected disagreements within the ranks of those in favour of a swift, negotiated settlement, rather than between the supporters and opponents of peace per se. The precise issue concerned whether anyone whose property had been seized during the war should be allowed to reclaim it in a ‘peaceable manner’. Crane was apparently among those who disapproved of this proposal.102CJ ii. 920b-921a.

The request to the Commons on 11 February 1643 for one of Crane’s servants to be allowed to travel to the royal court at Oxford was probably connected with Crane’s impending death.103CJ ii. 962a. His condition was serious enough for his will to be drawn up two days later. Crane died at London on 17 February 1643 and Lady Crane was immediately given permission by the Commons for the removal of the body.104Vis. Suff. ed. Howard, i. 142; CJ ii. 968b. The funeral took place the following day in the church at Chilton, where 17 years before Crane had installed a large memorial to himself and his wives.105Appleton, Mems. 52-3; Bodl. Tanner 97, f. 49; Linnell, ‘Suff. church monuments’, 5, 20; Pevsner, Suff. 165-6; The Dictionary of Art ed. J. Turner (1996), vii. 236. Crane’s only son, Giles, had died in 1639 and the child his wife was carrying at the time of his death did not survive.106Vis. Suff. ed. Howard, i. 142, 157. As all five of his surviving daughters were still under age, Crane assigned his estate to five trustees – Isaac Appleton†, Arthur Jenney, Richard Pepys, Edward Wenieve* and Isaac Creme.107PROB11/191/171; Vis. Suff. ed. Howard, i. 155-7. The sequestration by Parliament of the estates of the Dorset landowner, Sir George Morton†, caused particular difficulties to Lady Crane in her role as executrix, for it took her almost ten years to obtain repayment of a debt of £1,080 due to her late husband from Morton.108CCC 3272-6. A decision on the division of the estates between the four surviving daughters was delayed until 1652, by which time they had all married.109Norf. RO, GIL 4/206; Hare 6128. This prospective inheritance had made them desirable catches and three of them had married men who at some stage became MPs – Mary marrying Sir Ralph Hare*, Susan, Sir Edward Walpole† and Anne, William Armyne*. Anne later became a peeress by marrying the prominent Catholic, John Belasyse*. The other daughter, Elizabeth, married the premier baronet of England, Sir Edmund Bacon.110Univ. of Chicago, Bacon coll. 4395. Crane’s widow found a new husband in Isaac Appleton, a neighbour who in 1661 was elected as Member for Crane’s old seat at Sudbury.111HP Commons 1660-1690.