before the date just mentioned he had adopted the stricter life of an anchorite, and about 1425 excited the indignation of Thomas Netter or Walden [q. v.] by going about the streets clothed in sackcloth and girt with an iron chain, crying out that ‘the New Jerusalem, the Bride of the Lamb, was shortly to come down from heaven prepared for her spouse.’ According to his epitaph, he was drawn from his retirement by Eugenius IV, to whom he dedicated another of his books. It was probably Eugenius who sent him as a papal legate to Rhodes. Nicholas V in January 1449 (? 1450) made him bishop of Dromore in Ireland, and he was consecrated at Rome on 1 Feb. 1450 (Tanner; cf. Ware, i. 261). He still held that see when, on 24 Nov. 1454, he was instituted to the rectory of Sparham, Norfolk. He is usually said, on the authority of Pits, to have resigned Dromore about 1460, but there is some reason to suppose that this date is too late [see under Misyn, Richard]. He had been vicar-general of the bishop of Norwich since 1450, and remained his suffragan until 1477 (Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum, p. 148; Tanner). He was instituted to the vicarage of Trowse, Norfolk, on 3 June 1466, and collated to that of Lowestoft on 27 May 1478 (ib.). In his old age he is said to have given all his goods to pious works, and to have gone about the country barefoot every Friday inculcating the law of the decalogue (Bale). He died on 25 Jan. 1491, nearly a hundred years old, and was buried in Lowestoft church. A long Latin epitaph was inscribed on his monument.
Scrope wrote: 1. ‘De Carmelitarum Institutione.’ 2. ‘De Sanctis Patribus Ordinis Carmeli’ (Bodl. MS. Laud, G. 9), written in 1426. 3. ‘De Origine et Vita Sanctorum xvii Ordinis Carmeli.’ 4. Another work on the same order, dedicated to Eugenius IV, of which Bale had a manuscript. 5. ‘Compendium Historiarum et Jurium,’ in nine books. 6. ‘Privilegia Papalia.’ 7. ‘De Fundatione, Antiquitate, Regula et Confirmatione ordinis Carmeli’ (‘MS. olim in auctione Cecilii,’ note by TANNER). 8. ‘De Sectarum Introitu ad Angliam.’ 9. ‘De sua Profectione ad Rhodios.’ 10. ‘Sermones de Decem Præceptis.’ 11. An English version of the ‘De peculiaribus Carmelitarum Gestis’ of Philippe Ribot of Châlons (MS. Lamb. 192 f.), dedicated to Cyril Garland.
[Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ed. Nicolas, ii. 72; Leland's Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis; Bale's Scriptores Majoris Britanniæ; Pits, De Illustr. Angliæ Scriptoribus; Tanner's Bibliotheca Britannico-Hibernica; Fuller's Worthies; Ware's Catalogue of Irish Bishops; Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, iii. 278; Nichols's History of Leicestershire, ii. 509; Blore's History of Rutland; Tanner's Notitia Monastica, ed. 1787; Blomefield's Norfolk.]
SCROPE, WILLIAM le, Earl of Wiltshire (1351?–1399), was eldest son of Richard, first baron Scrope of Bolton [q. v.], by Blanche de la Pole, sister of Michael, earl of Suffolk [q. v.] The date of his birth is unknown, but cannot have been much after 1350 if he was with John of Gaunt in his dash upon Harfleur in 1369 (Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, i. 166). Four years later (July 1373) Scrope accompanied John into Guienne, and was there again in 1378 (ib. pp. 118, 122, 136). He seems to have passed thence into Italy to the camp of Charles, duke of Durazzo, who, in command of his uncle Louis of Hungary's armies, was co-operating in 1379 with the Genoese fleet in a great blockade of Venice (ib. i. 172; Daru, Histoire de Venise, ii. 122). Whether his crusade to Prussia preceded or followed this adventure there are no means of determining (Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, i. 172). He was made seneschal of Gascony on 28 May 1383, and held this office until 1392. From 1386 to 1389 he combined with it the captaincy of Cherbourg, and from the latter date that of Brest. He was not continuously absent from England during these years, however, for about 1389 he did some injury to the bishop of Durham and his servants, sufficiently grave to be atoned for by presenting a jewel worth 500l. at the shrine of St. Cuthbert (Dugdale, i. 661). On his final return Richard made him vice-chamberlain of the household (February 1393) and, after a fashion set in the previous reign, retained his services for life in consideration of a grant of the castle, town, and barton of Marlborough in Wiltshire. In the same year Scrope bought the Isle of Man ‘with its crown’ (his legal title was Dominus de Man) from the childless William Montacute, second earl of Salisbury [q. v.], and subsequently figured in treaties as one of the allies of his sovereign (St. Denys, ii. 364). He quartered the legs of Man with the arms of Scrope. ‘Miles providus et prædives’ the chronicler calls him (Annales Ricardi II, p. 157). His position in the household, and possibly his relationship to Richard's former friend Suffolk, gave Scrope the ear of the king. In 1394 he became constable of Beaumaris, a knight of the Garter, and constable of Dublin Castle. Crossing to Ireland with Richard, he was promoted (January 1395) to be chamberlain of the household, and made chamberlain of Ireland (June 1395). With the Earls of Rutland and Notting-
