The previous three chapters have taken us on a journey through Cruso's literary output in the 1640s and 1650s. This journey began with poems of piety in Dutch, continued with his later English military works forged in the opening years of the First English Civil War, and concluded with his final poetic flourish, a collection of 221 Dutch epigrams. This chapter describes events in Cruso's life as it moved towards its conclusion. In Chapter 9, we learnt that he was still a militia captain until at least 1647. There is evidence that he continued to perform his duties as a Dutch church elder until the same year. His wife Rebecca died in the summer of that year. John continued to live in his large house in the parish of St Peter Mancroft, the most visible sign of success in the life of a man whose father came from the ‘middling sort’. By 1649, however, John's name is replaced by that of his son Aquila in local rate records. In 1651, John's name appears in court records, which may indicate that even as he approached the age of sixty, he was not afraid of bringing a case to court if required. The question of when John died is not an easy one to answer and this chapter analyzes the relevant evidence. Finally, it adds more details to the final years of John's brothers, Timothy and Aquila, and presents what we know about John's descendants, opening a new chapter in the history of the illustrious Cruso family.

We hear nothing more about John Cruso's career as captain of the Stranger militia after 20 January 1647 when he was named in the House of Commons Journal in relation to the suppression of the Excise Riots in Norwich. He continued to work as an elder in the Norwich Dutch church into the 1640s. In early September 1641, he attended a colloquy of Dutch and French churches in London convened to discuss how to respond to the impeachment of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. The Norwich Walloon church was represented by Pierre de Laune, who had led the church for several decades.