Ranulph Crewe

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Sir Ranulph (or Ranulphe, Randolph, or Randall) Crew(e) (1558 – 3 January 1646) was an English judge and Chief Justice of the King's Bench.

Early life and career

Ranulph Crewe was the second son of John Crew of

His name does not appear in the official list of returns to parliament after 1597. He was certainly, however, the member for Saltash in 1614, and was elected speaker (7 April). He was knighted in June, and took the degree of serjeant-at-law in July of the following year. In the address with which, according to custom, he opened the session in 1614, he enlarged upon the length of the royal pedigree, to which he gave a fabulous extension.

In January 1614–15, Crewe was appointed one of the commissioners for the examination, under

The following year (26 January 1625) he was created

From a letter written by him to the Duke of Buckingham (28 June 1628) it seems that he hoped to receive some compensation through Buckingham's support. On the assassination of Buckingham (24 August 1628) Crewe urged his suit upon the king himself, but without success. After the impeachment in 1641 of the judges who had affirmed the legality of Ship money, Denzil Holles moved the House of Lords to petition the king to compensate Crewe, who seems to have passed the rest of his days in retirement, partly in London, and partly at his seat, Crewe Hall, Barthomley, Cheshire, built by him upon an estate said to have belonged to his ancestors, which he purchased from Coke in 1608. Crewe Hall was garrisoned for the parliament, taken by Byron in December 1643, and retaken in the following February. A letter from Crewe to Sir Richard Browne at Paris, under date 10 April 1644, describing the growing exasperation of 'this plus quam civile bellum,' as he called it, and the devastation of the country, is preserved in the British Museum, and is printed in the Fairfax Correspondence. Crewe died at Westminster on 3 January 1645–6, and was buried on 5 June in a chapel built by himself at Barthomley.

Private life

He married twice:

1. on 20 July 1598, Julia, daughter and coheiress of John Clipsby or Clippesby of Clippesby, Norfolk, who died on 29 July 1603;
2. on 12 April 1607, Julia, daughter of Edward Fasey of London, relict of Sir Thomas Hesketh, knight, who died on 10 August 1629. Julia Fasey was the widow of a prosperous Gray's Inn lawyer with a flourishing practice. It enabled Ranulph to buy an estate at Barthomley in Cheshire from Sir Christopher Hatton.^[3]

By his first wife, he had two sons, Clipsby Crew and John Crew, who were both MPs.

References

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Crew, Ranulphe". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.