148 Abridgement of the History of the 



families of Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, and Duke of Bolton ; 

 Savage, Earl of Eivers; and Grubham Howe, Earl Howe of 

 Langar ; which these ladies respectively intermarried. 



The third son of the Chancellor Scrope, Sir Stephen, was, as we 

 have seen, the Lord of Castle Combe, in right of his wife, Milicent 

 Tiptoft. He also was faithful to the last to King Richard, and 

 accompanied him in his disastrous and fatal retreat to Conway and 

 Flint Castles, and his fidelity is immortalized in those pathetic 

 scenes in which Shakespeare has embalmed the memory of the un- 

 happy prince. He was for many years Governor of Ireland, as 

 deputy of Thomas of Lancaster, the king's son, by whom he was 

 entirely trusted. And there he died in 1408, leaving an only son, 

 Stephen, a minor. 



His widow, the Lady Milicent, had, however, a life estate in 

 the Lordship of Castle Combe, and the bulk of the property of her 

 husband, which came to him as her inheritance. She was re-married 

 very shortly afterwards to the celebrated Sir John Fastolf, then 

 serving as an esquire in the Irish army, under Lord John of Lan- 

 caster, and lived herself to a considerable age ; while her second 

 husband claimed and retained possession of her estates, under plea 

 of the custom of England, to a still more advanced period. It thus 

 happened that the unlucky Stephen Scrope was kept for more than 

 fifty years after his father's death out of the enjoyment of his inhe- 

 ritance, and during this long minority was reduced to great straights ; 

 as appears from an amusing correspondence, or controversy rather, 

 printed in this volume from documents extant at Castle Combe, 

 between himself and his father-in-law, Sir John — who, we need 

 hardly say, is generally considered the prototype of Shakespeare's 

 fat knight, Sir John Falstaff. Indeed the behaviour of the real 

 knight to his son-in-law, if we are to believe the relation of the 

 latter, is very much what we might expect from the dramatic Sir 

 John. One of the schedules of grievances which Stephen Scrope 

 pitifully recounts, commences thus — "In the first yere that my 

 fader Fastolf was maried to my moder he solde me" (in wardship and 

 marriage this of course means) " for 500 marks, without any titill 

 or right ; through which sale my person in this world was dis- 



