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Draft:Elizabeth Crane

Elizabeth Crane (died c. 1606) was a religious activist in 16th-century England. She was the eldest daughter of Sir Robert Hussey of Linwood, Lincolnshire, and his second wife, Dame Jane.

Elizabeth married Anthony Crane, a clerk controller in the royal household and resident of the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury, London, soon after Elizabeth I's accession to the throne. Elizabeth and Anthony were granted the manor of Ockham, Surrey, on 8 April 1560, which they alienated with permission six years later. By 1571, the couple had acquired a reversionary lease of the manor of East Molesey, also in Surrey, where Anthony served as a justice of the peace and member of the quorum since 1564. Anthony died in 1583, leaving his estate to Elizabeth and their daughter, Mary.

Anthony was involved with the Puritans as early as 1572, allegedly associating with those who erected a presbytery at Wandsworth, London. In May 1588, Crane's printing press was destroyed for printing John Udall's treatise The State of the Church of England Laid Open. Robert Waldegrave and his wife salvaged part of the machine and brought it to Crane's house. The press was further later re-located to Crane's country house in East Molesey, where several influential tracts, including Udall's A Demonstration of Discipline and An Epistle to the Terrible Priests, were printed. However, fearing retaliation, Waldegrave's protector dared not house the press any longer, and Penry removed it to Northamptonshire.

After Anthony's death in 1583, Elizabeth maintained her connection with other Protestant reformers. In late 1588 or early 1589, she married George Carleton, stepfather of Anthony Cope and a close associate of Richard Knightley. Carleton was suspected of involvement in the distribution of the Martin Marprelate tracts, leading to his summons before the privy council in April 1589. Subsequently, Crane was imprisoned in Fleet Prison alongside other individuals associated with the press, including Knightley and Roger Wigston and his wife. Following Carleton's death in January 1590, Crane faced charges in the Star Chamber in May of the same year. Despite affirming her loyalty to Elizabeth I and denying affiliation with dissident religious sects, she was fined for refusing the ex officio oath and for helping to hide the press.

Crane was left widowed with a daughter named Mary, who married Gerard Gore, a merchant from Aldermanbury, around 1588. Crane's exact date of death is uncertain, but it is believed to have occurred before her daughter's death in 1606, as Mary was buried in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury on 1 March of that year.