Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/147

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The daughters were: (1) Joan, who married Henry, second baron Fitzhugh of Ravensworth (d. 1386); and (2) Isabel (b. 24 Aug. 1337), who married Sir Robert Plumpton of Plumpton, near Knaresborough.

[Rotuli Parliamentorum; Rymer's Fœdera, original edit.; Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ed. Nicolas, i. 104, 105, 112, 127, 145, 242, ii. 112–120; Gent. Mag. 1805, ii. 798; Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.); Scrope's Hist. of Castle Combe, 1852.]

J. T-t.


SCROPE, HENRY le, third Baron Scrope of Masham (1376?–1415), eldest son of Stephen, second baron [see under Scrope, Henry le, first Baron Scrope of Masham], by Margery, widow of John, lord Huntingfield, was ‘upwards of thirty years old’ at his father's death in January 1406. He accompanied John Beaufort on the crusade to Barbary in 1390 (Devon, Issues, p. 245). On the suppression of Thomas Mowbray's rebellion in 1405, Scrope received a grant of his manors of Thirsk and Hovingham (Dugdale, i. 659). He and his father must have carefully dissociated themselves from Mowbray's fellow-rebel, Archbishop Richard Scrope [q. v.], who was Scrope's uncle. Immediately after succeeding to his father's honours, he assisted in escorting Henry IV's daughter Philippa to Denmark on her marriage. In May 1409 he executed an important mission in France with Henry Beaufort. Scrope enjoyed the friendship and confidence of the young prince of Wales, then in opposition. According to Menstrelet, they sometimes shared the same bed (ed. Panthéon Litteraire, p. 366; cf. Gesta Henrici V. p. 11 n.) When the prince ousted Archbishop Arundel (January 1410) from the chancery, in favour of Thomas Beaufort, he put in Scrope (who was also given the Garter) as treasurer. Next year he took his second wife, Joan Holland, from the royal family, the lady's father being half-brother of the late king, Richard II. When, at the end of 1411, the prince for the time retired from the government, Scrope resigned the treasurership, 16 Dec. 1411 (Wylie, History of Henry IV, iv. 51).

After the accession of Henry V Scrope was entrusted with delicate foreign negotiations. In July 1413 he accompanied Bishop Henry Chichele [q. v.] on a mission to form a league with the Duke of Burgundy (Fœdera, ix. 34). He headed the embassy to Charles VI in the early months of 1414, and another in the summer to Burgundy (ib. ix. 102, 136). At the end of April 1415 he contracted to serve in France with thirty men at arms and ninety archers, and as late as 27 May there was talk of sending him again to John of Burgundy (ib. ix. 230; Ord. Privy Council, ii. 167). His complicity, therefore, in the plot discovered at Southampton on 20 July to dethrone Henry in favour of the Earl of March (‘if King Richard be really dead’) caused general surprise. It seemed strangely inconsistent with his character as well as his past career. He himself pleaded that he had become an accessory in order to betray the conspiracy (Rot. Parl. iv. 66). It has been suggested that Scrope was drawn into the plot by his connection with Cambridge, whose stepmother he had married for his second wife. She was a daughter of Richard II's half-brother, Thomas Holland, second earl of Kent (d. 1397). Rumour ascribed the conspiracy to bribery with French gold; if so, it is possible that Scrope was the go-between. His claim to be tried by his peers, though allowed, availed him nothing, and the king marked his sense of Scrope's ingratitude by refusing to reduce the sentence to simple beheading, as in the case of his fellow-conspirators, the Earl of Cambridge and Sir Thomas Grey. Immediately after his condemnation (5 Aug.) he was ‘drawn’ right across Southampton, from the Watergate to the place of execution outside the north gate. His head was sent to York to be placed on one of the bars. His lands were forfeited, and those in Wensleydale and its vicinity granted to his cousin and neighbour, Henry, lord Fitzhugh. Others, perhaps Upsal and his East Riding estates, went to Sir William Porter (ib. iv. 213; Dugdale, i. 660). In his interesting will (23 June 1415) he bequeathed numerous books in Latin and French (Fœdera, ix. 272).

Though twice married, Scrope left no issue. His first wife was Philippa, granddaughter and coheiress of Guy, lord Bryan, a famous warrior and knight of the Garter, and widow of John, lord Devereux (d. 1396). Though related in the third and fourth degrees, they married without a dispensation, but the difficulty was surmounted by the good offices of his uncle, the archbishop (11 July 1399). She died on 19 Nov. 1406. Scrope married secondly, about September 1411, Joan Holland, daughter of the second Earl of Kent. He was her third husband, and after his death she took a fourth, Sir Henry Bromflete, dying in 1434.

Scrope had four younger brothers, of whom the eldest, Geoffrey, died in 1418 (Test. Ebor. iii. 35), and the youngest, William (1394?–1463) was archdeacon of Durham (ib.)

The second brother, Stephen, took orders, became secretary to his uncle the archbishop, prebendary of Lichfield and York, and arch-