12 Earh of Wilishirc. 



The high favour in which this nobleman was hold by his Sov- 

 ereign, his fidelity, and the melancholy fate which overtook him in 

 the prime of life in consequence, are alike touched upon by 

 Shakespeare in his historical drama of Richard II. He it is of 

 whom Lord Roos is made to exclaim with indignation, 

 " The Earl of WiltsMi-e hath the Eeahn in farm,"i 

 and whose execution with that of his companions, when an- 

 noimced by his brother. Sir Stephen Scrope,- is bewailed so 

 pathetically by the beleaguered King in the celebrated passage, 



" Of comfort no man speak ; 

 Let's talk of graves, of worms, of Epitaphs," &e. 



Richard's regard for the Earl was also manifested by his will, dated 

 7th April 1399, in which he bequeathed him two thousand marks 

 and a gold cup of the value of £20, and appointed him one of his 

 executors, a post Scrope did not live to fulfil. The Earldom of Wilt- 

 shire was, of course, forfeited together with all his estates, on his exe- 

 cution and subsequent attainder. The Rolls of Parliament describe 

 an afiecting scene as having occurred at Westminster, when the 

 judgment pronounced against the Earl of Wilts was confirmed. 



1 Act II, scene 1. This was not a mere figure of speech. Shakespeare 

 emploj^s the same phrase in several other places ; as where Ilichard himself, 

 in the last scene of the fii-st Act, is made to say apologetically, 



" And for our coffers are grown somewhat light. 

 We are enforced to farm our Royal Realm." 

 and in the 1st scene of the 2nd Act, the dying Gaunt thus laments over the 

 state of the island, 



"This precious stone set in a silver sea. 

 This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land, 

 Is now leas' d out (I die pronouncing it) 

 Like to a tenement or paltry farm." &c. 

 Fabian's Chi'onicle states, " In this 22nd yeare of King Richard, the common 

 fame ranne that the King had letten to farm the realme unto Sir WUliam 

 Scrope, Earl of Wiltshire, Sii' John Busbey, Sir John Bagot, and Sir llenrj' Grene, 

 Kts." And Lord Treasurer Burleigh in a formal harangue made before Queen 

 Elizabeth in Council, in the year 1595, upon the expediency of appointing a 

 Commission for the reform of abuses, a written copy of which was presented to 

 the Queen, refers, as to a kno'WTi and unquestionable fact, to " the perilous 

 precedent of King Richard the Second, in letting the whole realm to farm to 

 the Lord Scrope, his Treasiu-er." Strype Ann. iv. i). 329. 



2 This Sir Stephen Scrope was at that time in right of his wife, Miliceut, Lord 

 of Castle Combe in Wiltshiic, which still is held by his direct descendants. 



