152 Abridgement of the History of the 



a copy of which is preserved at Castle Combe, are characteristic 

 of the times. After sundry accusations of keeping back monies 

 entrusted to him on Sir John's account, and taking exorbitant 

 tythes from him and his tenants, he charges Sir Thomas, whom 

 he had out of kindness, he says, boarded in his own house, 

 with "offering felony" to his, Sir John's, daughter, and also to 

 his wife's gentlewoman, and on their resistance " out of poor malice 

 uttering (i.e. publishing) their confession;" "wherefore, ever 

 since," says Sir John very reasonably, "I and my tenants have 

 little mind to be confessed of him." On another occasion he says, 

 this precious curate " drew a knife, on a certain William Powell, 

 within the Parish Church of Castle Combe, and at another, 

 "robbed the poor Monastery of Kyngton, and carried away the 

 prioress of the same ; with many other wrongs and misde- 

 meanours," which he says this priest ventured to perpetrate relying 

 on the protection of the lord bishop, over whom he boasted that he 

 possessed unlimited influence, owing to his having taken upon 

 himself the blame of some carnal offence of his Grace, who there- 

 upon punished him with a few days imprisonment, and " three 

 stripes with a fox taylle !" And in these and other misdeeds he 

 was supported, complains Sir John, by his rector, Sir Ingelram, 

 who was the bishop's chaplain. The vexation thus caused seems 

 to have driven Sir J ohn from his home during the last years of his 

 life. He certainly died in London and was buried in the Chapel 

 of St. Catharine's, near the Tower, to which charitable foundation, 

 he as well as his father, had been a liberal benefactor. Margaret, 

 the widow of Sir John Scrope, survived her husband several years, 

 and resided at Castle Combe, occupied in the education of her 

 young family ; which consisted of two sons and three daughters. 

 In the year after her husband's death a temporary assignment of 

 dower was made to her ; and seven years later — viz., in 1525, on 

 her eldest son, Richard, attaining his majority, he entered into an 

 agreement to pay to her " yearly during her life in the name of 

 her dower £31 6s. 8d. quarterly, at Castle Combe, and 40 couple 

 of conies, two kines lease, and going for one horse within the park 

 of Castle Combe aforesaid, one buck and doe in season to be taken 



