CROWLEY, ROBERT (1518?-1588), English religious and social reformer, was educated at Magdalen college, Oxford, where he was a foundation scholar and a fellow. He set up a printing office in Ely Rents, Holborn, where he printed many of his own writings. As a typographer, his most notable production was an edition of Pierce Plowman in 155o, and some of the earliest Welsh printed books came from his press. His "Information and Petition against the Oppressors of the poor Commons of this realm," addressed to the parliament of 1547, is remarkable for its attack on the "more than Turkish tyranny" of the landlords and capitalists of that day. While repudiating communism, Crowley was a Christian Socialist, and warmly approved the efforts of Protector Somerset to stop enclosures. In his Way to Wealth (155o), he attributes the failure of the Protector's policy to the organized resistance of the richer classes. His Voice of the last Trumpet blown by the seventh Angel (155o), his One-and Thirty Epigrams (155o) and Pleasure and Pain (15 51) were edited for the Early English Text Society in 1872 (Extra Ser. xv.). Crowley was ordained deacon by Ridley on Sept. 29, 1551. During Mary's reign he was among the exiles at Frankfort. At Elizabeth's accession he was made archdeacon of Hereford in 1559, and prebendary of St. Paul's in 1563, and was incumbent first of St. Peter the Poor in London, and then of St. Giles's Without, Cripple gate. He refused to minister in the "conjuring garments of popery," and in 1566 was deprived and imprisoned for resisting the use of the surplice by his choir. His "A Brief Discourse against the Outward Apparel and Ministering Garments of the Popish Church," is "memorable," says Canon Dixon, "as the first distinct utterance of Nonconformity." In 1576 he was presented to the living of St. Lawrence Jewry. Nor had he abandoned his con nection with the book trade, and in 1578 he was admitted a free man of the Stationers' Company. He died on June 18, 1588. The most important of his works not hitherto mentioned is his con tinuation of Languet and Cooper's Epitome of Chronicles See J. M. Cowper's Pref. to the Select Works of Crowley (1872) ; Strype's Works; Gough's General Index to Parker Soc. Publ.; Machyn's Diary; Macray's Reg. Magdalen College; Newcourt's Rep. Eccles. Load.; Hennessy's Nov. Rep. Eccl. (1898) ; Le Neve's Fasti Eccl. Angl.; Pocock's Burnet; Pollard's England under Somerset; R. W. Dixon's Church History.
