John Cruso

John Cruso (1592 – after 1655) was a writer on military matters before the English Civil War, and a supporter of the Parliamentary

cause during the war.^[1]

Many of his works were as editor and a translator of continental works. Ole Peter Grell says "Cruso's military works were significant only in that they were the first to make the new continental, primarily Dutch, military literature available to an English-speaking audience."^[1] Cruso also wrote poetry in English and Dutch. His Dutch poems include a lengthy reflection on Psalm 8, and an elegy to the minister of the Dutch church in Norwich, Johannes Elison (1642). In 1655 he published a collection of 221 Dutch epigrams. We also know of at least three English poems by Cruso, dedicated to the preacher at St. Andrew's church, Norwich, Lawrence Howlett. Cruso was also an elder of the Dutch church in Norwich and made a living as a cloth merchant.

Bibliography

• Militarie Instructions for the Cavallrie (1632)^[1]
• The Complete Captain and A Treatise of Modern War^[2]
• A Short Method for the Easie Resolving of any Militarie Question^[2]
• The Art of Warre (Cambridge 1639)^[1]
• A Short Method—the second part of The Art of Warre,(1639)^[1]

References and notes

1. Grell, Ole Peter (2004). "Cruso, John (fl. 1595–1655". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6852. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.). Cites:
   • GL, MS 7397/7
   • John Cruso's commonplace book, St John Cam., MS 548 (U.26)
   • J. H. Hessels, ed., Ecclesiae Londino-Batavae archivum, 1–2 (1887–9)
   • J. J. van Toorenenbergen, ed., Acten van de colloquia der Nederlandsche gemeenten in England, 1575–1609 (1872)
   • J. J. van Toorenenbergen, ed., Uitreigser uit de volgenbe colloquia, 1627–1706 (1872)
   • The visitation of London, anno Domini 1633, 1634, and 1635, made by Sir Henry St George, 1, ed. J. J. Howard and J. L. Chester, Harleian Society, 15 (1880)
   • William John Charles Möens, The Walloons and their church at Norwich: their history and registers, 1565–1832, Huguenot Society of London, 1 (1887–8)
   • O. P. Grell, Dutch Calvinists in early Stuart London: the Dutch church in Austin Friars, 1603–1642 (1989)
   • O. P. Grell, Calvinist exiles in Tudor and Stuart England (1996)
   • E. A. Kent, ‘Notes on the Blackfriars Hall or Dutch church, Norwich’, Norfolk Archaeology, 22 (1924–6), 86–108
   • W. Woods, ‘Poetry of Dutch refugees in Norwich’, Dutch Crossing: Journal of Low Countries Studies (1979), 71–3
   • J. C. Arens, ‘Nederlandse Gedichten van Jan Cruso uit Norwich’, Spiegel der Letteren (1964–5), 132–40
   • A. H. Nelson, ed., Cambridge, 2 (1989), 895–6
2. Barbara Donagan, Halcyon days and the literature of war: England's military education before 1642 Past & Present, May, 1995. Page 14