this post so long ago as 1523. On 24 June 1535 he was appointed water-bailiff of the port of Lynn, Norfolk, and on 1 March 1542 received a patent to export for his advantage four hundred tuns of double beer. He was shortly before this still master of the children, and played before the king in January 1540. The date of his death is at present unknown, but it was probably before 1560; his successor as master of the children at the Chapel Royal was Richard Bower, who died in 1563. Crane was a married man, and had at least one daughter, who in January 1535 was betrothed to one Christopher Draper, who was in holy orders. On the engagement coming to the ears of the Archbishop of York it drew forth from him a severe reprimand. In June of the same year ‘a maid called Crane's daughter’ was abducted by a priest of St. Albans named Thomas Kyng, but there is nothing to show whether these were the same persons. It is not known whether Crane wrote any music; his name is not found in any contemporary collection, and it is hardly probable that he would have time to devote himself to composition in the midst of the incongruous occupations of merchant, court musician, and custom-house officer.
[The details of Crane's biography are almost entirely derived from the Calendars of State Papers (Dom. Ser.) of Henry VIII; a little additional information is supplied by Collier's History of Dramatic Poetry, ed. 1879, i. 73, 95, 116, and the Privy Purse Expenses of Henry VIII, ed. Nicolas, pp. 33, 52, 76, 83, 99, 100, 140, 227, 287, and 291.]
CRANFIELD, LIONEL, Earl of Middlesex (1575–1645), was baptised on 13 March 1575 (Doyle), and when a boy was apprenticed by his father to Mr. Richard Shephard, a merchant adventurer ‘dwelling in St. Bartholomew's Lane, near the Exchange’ (Goodman, i. 299). ‘Mr. Cranfield … being a very handsome young man, well spoken, and of a ready wit, Miss Shephard, his master's daughter, fell in love with him, and so there was a match between them. His master gave him 800l. portion and forgave him two years of his apprenticeship’ (ib.) After his marriage with Elizabeth Shephard, Cranfield traded with great success as a merchant adventurer and member of the company of mercers. He attracted the king's notice by his ability when representing his company before the privy council, and succeeded in securing the favour of the Earl of Northampton, who became his patron (ib. i. 304). ‘The first acquaintance I had with him,’ said James to the parliament of 1624, ‘was by the lord of Northampton, who often brought him unto me a private man before he was so much as my servant. He then made so many projects for my profit that Buckingham fell in liking with him after the Earl of Northampton's death, and brought him into my service. … He found him so studious for my profits that he backed him both against great personages and mean, without sparing any man. Buckingham laid the ground and bare the envy; he took the laborious and ministerial part upon him, and thus he came up to his preferment’ (Parliamentary History, vi. 193). On 1 April 1605 Cranfield was appointed receiver of customs for the counties of Dorset and Somerset, in July 1613 he became lieutenant of Dover Castle, was knighted July 4, and made surveyor-general of the customs July 26. He was elected M.P. for Hythe in 1614 and for Arundel in 1620, becoming on 20 Nov. 1616 master of requests. Buckingham's growing power quickened the pace of Cranfield's rise. He was appointed successively master of the great wardrobe (14 Sept. 1618), master of the court of wards (15 Jan. 1619), and chief commissioner of the navy (12 Feb. 1619). In all these departments his industry and business experience enabled him to effect great reforms. In the household alone he effected an annual saving of 23,000l. (Gardiner, Spanish Marriage, i. 170). In the wardrobe he saved the king at least 14,000l. a year. ‘The king,’ he used to say, ‘shall pay no more than other men do, and he shall pay ready money; and if we cannot have it in one place we will have it in another’ (Goodman, i. 311). In spite of these services Cranfield, who had now become a widower, found in 1619 that any further advancement must be purchased by marrying one of Buckingham's needy relatives, and giving up accordingly the hope of wedding the widowed Lady Howard of Effingham, he married in 1621 Anne Bret, cousin of Lady Buckingham (Gardiner, Spanish Marriage, i. 183). Before this date, however, he had obtained a seat in the privy council (5 Jan. 1620). In the parliament of 1621 Cranfield took a prominent part in the attack on Bacon. His opposition, no doubt sensibly embittered by a dispute which had arisen between the court of wards and court of chancery, was based on his objections to Bacon's policy with respect to the question of patents and monopolies, which Cranfield considered harmful to trade. After Bacon's fall there were expectations that Cranfield would succeed him as chancellor. ‘He was the likeliest to get up, and I may say had his foot in the stirrup’ (Hacket, Life of Williams, i. 51). But James appointed Williams, and consoled the disappointed candidate with the title of Baron Cranfield of Cranfield (9 July 1622). This, says Mr.
