William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven

Who was William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven?

William Craven, 1st Earl of Craven, PC was an English nobleman and soldier.

His father William Craven was born in a poor family in Appletreewick in North Yorkshire but moved to London, became wealthy, and was Lord Mayor of London in 1610.

Craven fought for Frederick V on the Continent and fell in love with his wife, Elizabeth of Bohemia. Still being absent during the English Civil War, he supported this lady's brother, Charles I, financially rather than in person and, therefore, had all his lands – largely in Berkshire, but including his main country seat at Caversham Park in Oxfordshire – confiscated. After the Restoration, he set about planning to build a vast palace for Elizabeth at Hamstead Marshall in Berkshire with a hunting lodge at nearby Ashdown, but she died before construction began.

After the Restoration, he was rewarded with several Court offices and given an earldom. He was granted a share in the Colony of Carolina and served as one of its Lord Proprietors. As a Privy Councillor he seems to have been diligent enough: Pepys in his Diary regularly mentions his attendance at the Committee for Tangier and his chairing the Committee on Fisheries. In the latter role Pepys was rather shocked by his bawdy language which Pepys thought improper in a councillor. In 1678 we read of his presence at the historic Council meeting where Titus Oates first publicised, the Popish Plot.