| Notes |
- From Paul M. Gifford (citation details below):
Nicholas, like his father, was a priest but probably did not graduate from a university. Perhaps while his father was alive, he lived in Penterry, Monmouthshire, Wales, since his son William left a bequest to the poor of that parish in 1616. It was a common practice to bequeath money to the poor of one's birthplace or where one had property. In any case, Nicholas seems not to have come to Winterbourne until about 1588, as John Middleton, of Winterbourne, testified on 27 January 1599/1600 that he had known Nicholas Crundall "but aboute the space of 12 yeares." Presented to the parish by his brother James, who had inherited the advowson of the parish, Nicholas succeeded his father as incumbent of Winterbourne at his father's death in 1589.
It was unusual for the local incumbent to possess the advowson. Normally it was held by the lord of the manor, but in this case it seems that Margery Bradstone, widow of Robert Bradstone, whose family had held the manor of Winterbourne since the 14th century, did not trust her family with it and so conveyed it to Nicholas Crondall the elder. Her reasons no doubt had to do with religious belief. Some of the Bradstones probably remained sympathetic to Catholicism, while she wanted to preserve the Protestant, perhaps even Puritan, practices that Crondall presumably espoused. Thus began a ten-year feud within the Bradston family, in which the Crundall family and gentry from the nearby parishes became intimately involved. Robert and Margery Bradstone were survived by an only daughter, Elizabeth. Robert's brother John had a son Anthony, and another brother was the father of Robert. [...]
In a very important action that had to be related to this dispute, on 3 June 1594, Nicholas Crundall, clerk, and William Veele (uncle of Margaret Veele, wife of Anthony Bradston), of Iron Acton, purchased, for the conventional sum of £600, from Elizabeth Bradstone (daughter of the deceased Robert and Margery Bradstone), the manor and advowson of Winterbourne, with appurtenances and twenty messages, etc., and forty shillings rent in Winterbourne, and the advowson of the church of Winterbourne. Warranty was given to William and Nicholas and the heirs of Nicholas. Veele and Crundall had taken livery and seisin of the property (meaning essentially that they had purchased it) on 22 Jan. 1593/4. Robert Bradston brought suit against Veele and Crundall in the Court of Star Chamber in January 1594/5, contesting their sale of three tenements, including a watermill.
Robert Bradston disputed other parts of his cousin's transfer of the manor to Veele and Crundall as well. In order for the latter to get possession of a particular property, known as Wager's Tenement, that Robert Bradston claimed, their lawyers advised them to evict Robert and his sisters Johan and Elizabeth. In May 1597, according to the testimony taken on 30 November 1599 by John Marshall, of Hambrooke, Winterbourne, husbandman, Nicholas Crundall struck down Johan Bradston with a crabtree staff, hitting her head and causing blood to "gush" from her nose and mouth. In this fight, the local constable, Richard Weare, came to her aid, at which point Crundall exclaimed, "in a mocking manner & drawinge his mowth awrie, 'The Queen's name! The Queen's name! I do not care a turd for thee nor her either.'"
Robert Bradston then tried to make the most of Crundall's rage, publicizing throughout the area that Crundall had committed sedition by shouting "The Queen! The Queen! I care not a turd for the Queen!" Crundall protested Bradston's actions in another case before the Court of Star Chamber in 1599 and 1600, but, whether successful or not in pursuing his case, Bradston's efforts to unseat him proved successful. On 6 May 1599, Nicholas Crundall was suspended from his office as vicar of Winterbourne, evidently for preaching doctrine contrary to the articles devised by the Synod of London in 1562. In another suit filed the next year in the Court of Star Chamber against Crundall, Bradston said that the Commission which suspended him declared him "infamouse, scandalouse and irreguler." On 7 June 1599, the Archbishop issued a license to two as yet unnamed priests to serve the parish of Winterbourne. [...]
The loss of Crundall's livelihood as well as legal fees and fines probably led Crundall and Nicholas Veele to sell the manor of Winterbourne. This sale must have taken place prior to 12 February 1602/3, when Robert Bradston filed an answer in Chancery to the suit that James Buck, the new lord of Winterbourne manor, had filed against him and Crundall, in which he stated that he was not party to Nicholas Crundall, Elizabeth Crundall, his wife, John Crundall, William Crundall, and Edward Crundall, in making any secret estates, conveyance and assurance charge, or encumbrance to the manor.
His subsequent life has not been traced.
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Nielsen Hayden genealogy
Abt 1555 - Bef 1608 (~ 52 years)
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