which is unknown, he supported himself by farming, or, according to Calamy, by keeping a grocer's shop. In 1667 he again came to London and opened a school near Aldgate. He died in 1672. He published a large number of pamphlets and tracts, mostly of a controversial character, and a few sermons. He was a man of hasty temper and prejudiced views, yet of considerable acuteness, as his controversial tracts prove, and of more than average scholarship and ability. His more important writings are: 1. 'Catechising God's Ordinance, delivered in sundry Sermons,' 1656. 2. 'The People's need of a Living Pastor asserted and explained,' 1657. 3. 'Sermons of Psalms xxxiv. 14,' 1660. 4. 'ANAΛHΨIΣ ANEΛHΦΘH, The Fastning of St. Peter's Fetters, by seven links or propositions,' 1660. 5. 'Altar-Worship, or Bowing to the Communion Table considered, as to the novelty, vanity, iniquity, and malignity charged to it,' 1661. 6. 'Berith-anti-Baal; on Zach. Crofton's Appearance before the Prelate Justice of the Peace, by way of rejoinder to Dr. John Gauden,' 1661. 7. 'The Liturgica Considerator considered,' c., 1661. 8. 'The Presbyterian Lash, or Nactroff's Maid Whipt. A Tragi-comedy,' 1661. 9. 'The Hard Way to Heaven explained and applied,' 1662. 10. 'ANAΛHΨIΣ, or St. Peter's Bonds abide, for Rhetoric worketh no Release.'
[Calamy's Nonconformist's Memorial; Neal's History of the Puritans, iv. 302, ed. 1738; Chalmers's Biographical Dictionary; Watt's Bibl. Brit.]
CROFTS or CROFT, ELIZABETH (fl. 1554), was the chief actor in an eccentric imposture, contrived early in 1554, on the part of the protestants to excite an open demonstration in London against the projected marriage of Queen Mary with Philip of Spain. The girl, who was only about eighteen years old, appears to have concealed herself within a wide crevice in the thick wall of a house in Aldersgate Street. The wall faced the street, and by means of a whistle or trumpet her voice assumed so strange a sound as to arrest the attention of all passers-by. Large crowds constantly assembled, and confederates scattered among the people interpreted her words as divinely inspired denunciations of King Philip, Queen Mary, and the Roman catholic religion. The device deceived the Londoners for many months, and the mysterious voice was variously named ‘the white bird,’ ‘the byrde that spoke in the wall,’ and ‘the spirit in the wall.’ Before July 1554 the imposture was discovered; Elizabeth was sent to Newgate and afterwards to a prison in Bread Street, and there confessed the truth. She said that one Drake, Sir Anthony Knyvett's servant, had given her the whistle, and that her confederates included a player, a weaver of Redcross Street, and a clergyman, attached either to St. Botolph's Church in Aldersgate Street or (according to another account) to St. Leonard's Church in Foster Lane. On Sunday 15 July she was set upon a scaffold by St. Paul's Cross while John Wymunsly, archdeacon of Middlesex, read her confession. ‘After her confession read she kneeled downe and asked God forgivenes and the Queen's Maiestie, desyringe the people to praye for her and to beware of heresies. The sermon done she went to prison agayne in Bred Street. … And after Dr. Scorye resorted to her divers tymes to examin her; and after this she was released’ (Wriothesley, Chronicle, ii. 118). On 18 July one of her accomplices stood in the pillory ‘with a paper and a scripter on his hed.’ No other proceedings appear to have been taken, although seven persons were said to have taken part in the foolish business. The imposture resembles that contrived with more effect twenty-two years earlier by Elizabeth Barton [q. v.], the maid of Kent.
[Stowe's Annals, s.a. 1554; Chronicle of the Grey Friars (Camd. Soc.), p. 90; Wriothesley's Chronicle (Camd. Soc.), ii. 117–18; Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc.), p. 66; Burnet's Reformation, ed. Pocock, ii. 439, v. 611; Strype's Memorials, iii. i. 214; Chronicle of Lady Jane and Queen Mary (Camd. Soc.)]
CROFTS or CRAFTE, GEORGE (d. 1539), divine, may probably be identified with the George Croft of Oriel College, Oxford, who was elected fellow from Herefordshire 10 Oct. 1513, proceeded B.A. 13 Dec. following, and resigned 4 Feb. 1519 (Registrum Univ. Oxon. i. 82), and with George Croftys of the same college, southern proctor in April 1520 (Fasti Oxon. i. 51). He was instituted to the rectory of Shepton Mallet, Somerset, in 1524, and probably about the same time to the rectory of Winford in the same county, paying a pension of 8l. to his predecessor, who had resigned the living. On 21 Feb. 1530–1 he was collated to the chancellorship of Chichester Cathedral. On 4 Dec. 1538 he was indicted for saying ‘that the king was not, but the pope was, supreme head of the church.’ He pleaded guilty, was condemned, and executed early in the following year. Archbishop Cranmer, writing to Cromwell on 13 Nov. 1538, says that ‘one Crofts, now in the Tower and like to be attainted of treason, hath a benefice … named Shipton Mallet,’ and begs it of the lord privy seal for his chaplain Champion, a
