Herbert Croft (bishop)

[3] In 1644 he was appointed chaplain to Charles I, and obtained within a few years a prebendary's stall at Worcester, a canonry of St George's Chapel, Windsor (1641–1662), and the deanery of Hereford (1644–1661), all of which preferments he lost during the Civil War and Commonwealth.

[2] By Charles II he was made bishop of Hereford in 1661[2] and also dean of the Chapel Royal (1668–1669) from which position he preached to the King, who praised him as a man from whom he never heard a bad sermon.

Despite his youthful adherence to that faith, he was noted for his exceptional severity towards Roman Catholics, especially during the Popish Plot.

No doubt for this reason, at the outset of the Plot its inventor Titus Oates claimed that the Jesuits had specially marked Croft for assassination.

Croft was the author of many books and pamphlets, several of them against the Roman Catholics; and one of his works, entitled The Naked Truth, or the True State of the Primitive Church (London, 1675), was celebrated in its day, and gave rise to prolonged controversy.