# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Crew, Ranulphe

​CREW or CREWE, Sir RANULPHE or RANDOLPH (1558–1646), judge, second son of John Crew of Nantwich, who is said to have been a tanner, by Alice, daughter of Humphrey Mainwaring, was admitted a member of Lincoln's Inn on 13 Nov. 1577, called to the bar on 8 Nov. 1584, returned to parliament as junior member for Brackley, Northamptonshire, in 1597, elected a bencher of Lincoln's Inn in 1600, and autumn reader there in 1602. The earliest reported case in which he was engaged was tried in the queen's bench in Hilary term 1597–8, when he acted as junior to the attorney-general, Coke. In 1604 he was selected by the House of Commons to state objections to the adoption of the new style of king of Great Britain in the conference with the lords. His name does not appear in the official list of returns to parliament after 1597. He was certainly, however, a member in 1614, as he was then 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 torture, of Edmond Peacham [q. v.] Peacham was sent down to Somersetshire to stand his trial at the assizes. Crew prosecuted, and Peacham was convicted. Crew was a member of the commission which tried Weston for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1615, and was concerned with Bacon and Montague in the prosecution of the Earl and Countess of Somerset as accessories before the fact in the following year. In 1621 he conducted the prosecution of Yelverton [q. v.], the attorney-general, for certain alleged misdemeanors in connection with patents. The same year Crew prosecuted Sir Francis Mitchell for alleged corrupt practices in executing ‘the commission concerning gold and silver thread,’ conducted the impeachment of Sir John Bennet [q. v.], judge of the prerogative court, for corruption in his office, and materially contributed to the settlement of an important point in the law of impeachment. Edward Floyde, having published a libel on the princess palatine, was impeached by the commons, and sentenced to the pillory. The lords disputed the right of the commons to pass sentence upon the offender on two grounds: (1) that he was not a member of their house; (2) that the offence did not touch their privileges. At the conference which followed Crew adduced a precedent from the reign of Henry IV in support of the contention of the lords, and the commons being able to produce no counter-precedent the question was quietly settled by the commons entering in the journal a minute to the effect that the proceedings against Floyde should not become a precedent. In 1624 Crew presented part of the case against Lionel Cranfield, earl of Middlesex [q. v.], on his impeachment. The same year he was appointed king's serjeant. The following year (26 Jan. 1624–5) he was created lord chief justice of the king's bench. On 9 Nov. 1626 he was removed for having refused to subscribe a document affirming the legality of forced loans. All his colleagues seem to have concurred with him, but he alone was punished. 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 Aug. 1628) Crew 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 Commons to petition the king to compensate Crew, 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 Crew 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 (Add. MS. 15857, f. 193), and is printed in the ‘Fairfax Correspondence. Memorials,’ i. 98. Crew died at Westminster on 3 Jan. 1645–6, and was buried on 5 June in a chapel built by himself at Barthomley. He married twice: first, on 20 July 1598, Julian, daughter and coheiress of John Clipsby or Clippesby of Clippesby, Norfolk, who died on 29 July 1603; second, on 12 April 1607, Julian, daughter of Edward Fasey of ​ 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.’
J. M. R.