CROFT 1614," just a year before Agnes Worship, the vicar's wife. Another monument, a marble slab eighteen inches square, has this inscription:—
"Here lyeth Willyam Bonde Gentleman, whoe dyed An̄o Dom̄ 1559 leaving two sonnes, Nicolas Docter in Divinitie, and George Docter in physicke, the elder sonne, who dyed the et etatis and here is buryed. TE which in remembrance of his most kynd father haith erected this lytle moniment"
Bondus eram Doctor Medicus nunc vermibus esca,
Corpus terra tegit, spiritus astra petit,
Ardua scrutando, cura, morbis, senioque
Vita Molesta fuit: Mors mihi grata quies.
The guide-books say that this was erected by Nicolas, D.D., who afterwards became president of Magdalen College, Oxford. But clearly it was by George the M.D., and he left spaces for his own death date, which were never filled; perhaps he is not buried at Croft, but he must have been near his end when he wrote the Latin lines which are all about himself, and may be thus translated—
I was Bond a Physician, now I am food for worms,
The earth covers my body, my spirit seeks the stars,
From difficult studies, anxiety, diseases and old age
Life was a burden; death is a welcome rest to me.
There is a note in the church accounts to the effect that the old bell was (re-)cast at Peterborough by Henry Penn in 1706 and inscribed "prepare to die."
This church is, for spaciousness and for the amount of good old woodwork, and for its monuments, one of the very best. As we leave it we notice carved on the door, "God save the King 1633."
I believe that Bishop Hugh-de-Wells who was appointed Bishop of Lincoln in 1209, but who, mistrusting King John, did not take up the work of his See till 1218, when John was dead, was a native of Croft.
The parish books of Croft show "The dues and duties belonginge and appertaininge unto the office of the clarkes of Crofte. A.D. 1626."
He collected the Easter gratuities of the neighbours in the parish; he got twenty shillings a year for looking after the clock, "to be paid by the churchwards."
