Paul Ambrose Croke 1561-1631

Paul Ambrose CROKE 1561-1631

Biographical Note

Younger son of Sir John Croke, of Chilton, Buckinghamshire, and a member of family with strong legal traditions; his grandfather was a master in Chancery, and two of his brothers became judges. He is not recorded in the university lists but became a barrister at the Inner Temple, where he was Lent Reader in 1608. His daughter Lucy married Edward, the son of Sir Robert Heath, the Recorder of London in 1631; the acrimony which ensued between Croke and Heath shortly afterwards, over property, is documented by Kopperman in his biography of Heath.

Books

Extracts from his personal account book in the 1610s and 1620s, published in Notes & Queries, include a couple of entries for the purchase of books. In his will, Croke left to his wife such English books as she should choose, within one month of his death, and the rest of his English books to his daughter Lucy. All his other books, except his law books, were to go to his son in law Edward Heath, while his law books and manuscripts were given to his nephews Thomas St Nicholas and William Coo. Two lists of the books which went to Edward Heath survive in the Heath papers in the British Library; Egerton MS 2983 fo. 28 has a list of books from Croke's study in the Inner Temple (94 titles in Latin, Greek, English and Hebrew, arranged by format, covering the usual mixture of subjects including Bibles and patristics, theology, classics, dictionaries, law and geography), and one from his study in his house at Cottesmore (a similar but shorter list of ca.40 titles). At the end there is a list of 6 "English books taken out of his study at that time for my wife".

Characteristic Markings

None of Croke's books have been identified.

Sources

• Bloom, J. H. (ed), Paulus Ambrosius Croke: a seventeenth-century account book, Notes and Queries 12th ser 4 (1918), 5-7, 36-38.
• Kopperman, P. Sir Robert Heath, 1574-1649, 1989, pp.66-70.