London, relict of Sir Thomas Hesketh, knight, who died on 10 Aug. 1629. By his first wife he had one son, who survived him, viz. Clipsby Crew, whose granddaughter eventually succeeded to the inheritance, one of whose descendants, the grandfather of the present Lord Crewe, was raised to the peerage as Baron Crewe of Crewe in 1806. The Crewe family is said to be among the most ancient in the kingdom, a fact the importance of which is not likely to have been underrated by Sir Ranulphe, if we may judge by his eloquent prologue to the Oxford peerage case, decided 1625, which is one of the few passages of really fine prose to be found in the ‘Law Reports.’ ‘Where,’ he asks, ‘is Bohun, where's Mowbray, where's Mortimer? &c. Nay, which is more and most of all, where is Plantagenet? They are entombed in the urns and sepulchres of mortality. And yet let the name and dignity of De Vere stand so long as it pleaseth God.’
[Ormerod's Cheshire, ed. Helsby, iii. 310, 314, 420 n.; Croke's Reports (Eliz.), 641; Lists of Members of Parliament (official return of), i. 434; Willis's Not. Parl. iii. 141, 171; Dugdale's Orig. 254, 262; Chron. Ser. 105, 106; Cobbett's State Trials, ii. 911, 952, 989, 994, 1131, 1135–1146; Spedding's Letters and Life of Bacon, iii. 199–200, v. 90–4, 125, 127, 128, 325–6, 386–394; Parl. Hist. i. 1106, 1256, 1447–50, 1467–9, 1477; Cal. State Papers (Dom., 1611–18), pp. 227, 230, 239, 397, (1623–5) pp. 119, 412, 472, (1625–6) pp. 153, 335; Yonge's Diary (Camden Soc.), pp. 28, 98; Rymer's Fœdera (Sanderson), xviii. 791; Erdeswick's Survey of Staffordshire, ed. Horwin, 77–86; Rushworth, pt. iii. vol. i. pp. 345–6; Fairfax Correspondence, i. 71, Hinchliffe's Barthomley, pp. 238, 324–5; Foss's Lives of the Judges; Campbell's Lives of the Chief Justices.]
CREW or CREWE, RANDOLPH (1631–1657), amateur artist, second son of Sir Clipsby Crew, by Jane, daughter of Sir John Poultney, and grandson of Sir Ranulphe or Randolph Crew [q. v.], was born at Westminster 6 April 1631. Fuller, who styles him ‘a hopefull gentleman,’ states that ‘he drew a map of Cheshire so exactly with his pen that a judicious eye would mistake it for printing, and the graver's skill and industry could little improve it. This map I have seen; and, reader, when my eye directs my hand, I may write with confidence.’ The map in question was published in Daniel King's ‘The Vale Royall of England, or the County Palatine of Chester Illustrated’ (folio, London, 1656), a work in which Crew seems to have taken a personal share. On an inscription thereon he states that he drew the map with his own pen, and after it was drawn engraved it at his own expense. This seems to be at variance with Fuller's statement quoted above, unless Fuller is alluding to the original drawing only. Wishing to perfect his education, Crew travelled abroad, but on 19 Sept. 1657, while walking in the streets of Paris, he was set upon by footpads, and received wounds of which he died two days afterwards, at the early age of twenty-six. He was buried in the Huguenots' burying-place in the Faubourg St. Germain at Paris, and a monument was erected to his memory.
[Fuller's Worthies of England, i. 193; Ormerod's Hist. of Cheshire; Nichols's Topographer and Genealogist, iii. 299.]
CREW, THOMAS (fl. 1580), philosopher, was the author of a small treatise entitled ‘A Nosegay of Moral Philosophy, lately dispersed amongst many Italian Authors, and now newly and succinctly drawn together into Questions and Answers and translated into English,’ London, 1580, 12mo. He has been confounded with his namesake, Sir Thomas Crew, the speaker [q. v.]
[Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib.]
CREW or CREWE, Sir THOMAS, (1565–1634), speaker of the House of Commons, third son of John Crew of Nantwich, brother of Sir Ranulphe Crew [q. v.], by Alice, daughter of Humphrey Mainwaring, was a member of Gray's Inn, where he was elected Lent reader in 1612. He was returned to parliament for Lichfield in 1603. In 1613 he was one of the counsel for the Bishop of London, the plaintiff, in a suit against the dean and chapter of Westminster, his brother Ranulphe being for the defendants. Though the official list contains no record of the fact, it is clear he was a member of parliament in 1614, as we learn from Whitelocke (Liber Famelicus, Camden Soc., p. 42) that he was one of a deputation to the lords on the question of impositions. His politics are indicated by the fact, also mentioned by Whitelocke (ib. p. 67), that in 1618, the king being asked ‘if there were any he would bar from the place’ of recorder of London, then vacant, ‘he confessed but one, and that was Mr. Thos. Crewe.’ In the parliament of 1620–1 he represented the borough of Northampton. He took part in the discussion on the scarcity of money (26 Feb. 1620–1). On 8 March he and Sir Heneage Finch were deputed to demand an inquiry into the conduct of the referees in the matter of monopolies, and were compelled reluctantly to begin proceedings against Lord-chancellor Bacon, one of these referees. Crew expressed his antipathy to the Spanish match (26 Nov. 1621), saying: ‘It is a wonder to see
