Manor and Ancient Barony of Castle Combe. 



147 



SEAL OF SIR W. SCROPE, K.G., 

 EARL OF WILTS 1395. 



to the truce with France, as " one of the allies" of the King of 

 England. It is he of whom Shake- 

 speare, in his play of "Richard II." 

 makes the Lord Roos say — 

 ' ' The Earl of "Wiltshire has the realm to farm," 



And again, in the first part of " Henry 

 IV.," he is mentioned in company with 

 another noble scion of the same family, 



"That same noble Prelate, well-beloved, 

 The Archbishop of York, — who bears hard 

 His brother's death at Bristol, the Lord 

 Serope." 



He likewise (the Archbishop) met the 

 same fate, being executed in 1408 for 

 his attempt to restore the deposed line 

 — a bold and what in those days was 

 considered a sacrilegious act on the part of the new Sovereign, and 

 perhaps prefiguring the independence of ecclesiastical domination, 

 which his dynasty was destined in after years to vindicate for the 

 state. It is reported that on the indignant remonstrance of the 

 Pope against this outrage committed on a son of the church, he 

 was silenced by King Henry's sending him the armour in which 

 the Archbishop had been taken at the head of his forces, asking 

 "if that was his son's coat?" Indeed the members of this family 

 were individually as brave in the field of battle as distinguished in 

 tin; church and the law courts, and wore the surcoat and the 

 gown or cassock alternately, and with equal honour. 



The Earl of Wiltshire left no children, so that on the decease of 

 liis illustrious father in 1403, his second son, Roger, succeeded to 

 the Barony of Bolton, and the large family estates in Yorkshire 

 and elsewhere, which his descendants for several generations con- 

 tinued to enjoy until this branch became extinct in 1630, in the 

 person of Emmanuel, eleventh Baron Serope of Bolton, created 

 I. nl of Sunderland by Charles I. This noblenum divided his vast 

 itee between his three illegitimate daughters, which thus became 

 the chief foundation of the fortunes .still enjoyed by the three noble 



