Crofts entered the Army in the early part of the reign of Queen Anne, rose to the rank of colonel by 1706, and in 1718 succeeded Sir Robert Rich in the command of a regiment of dragoons, which was disbanded later the same year.
On 6 July 1719 he obtained the colonelcy of the regiment of dragoons later known as the 9th Queen's Royal Lancers, and in 1727 he was promoted to the rank of major-general.
[1] Allan Fea states that Crofts married a daughter of Sir Thomas Taylor (“after 1706, when he is described as single”) and had a daughter, Maria Julia; and that she married first a Mr Dalziel and secondly R. Wentworth Smyth-Stuart, who claimed to be Monmouth’s son by Henrietta Maria Wentworth.
[3] In another theory, James Crofts and his mistress Grace Camfield had a daughter who married Gibson Dalziel and was the mother of Maria Julia Dalziel, who then married Colonel Charles Smyth, the son of Monmouth and Lady Wentworth.
[4] However, the mother of Gibson Dalziel’s lawful children was an illegitimate daughter of John Augier.