Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scrope, Henry le (1315-1391)
SCROPE, HENRY le, first Baron Scrope of Masham (1315–1391), was the eldest son of Sir Geoffrey le Scrope [q. v.], by his first wife, Ivetta de Roos. Born in 1315, he won his spurs early at Halidon Hill (19 July 1333). Just before his father's death in 1340 he fought at Sluys, and, after making the Scottish campaign of 1341, he accompanied Edward III to Brittany in the next year; after which he served in Ireland under Ralph d'Ufford, and then accompanied the king to Flanders in 1345. Scrope is said to have fought as a banneret both at Cressy (26 Aug. 1346) and Neville's Cross (17 Oct.). This may be doubted. He was certainly present at the siege of Calais (1346–7). During the truces he was chiefly employed on the Scottish border, but took part in August 1350 in the famous sea-fight off Winchelsea, known as Espagnols-sur-la-Mer. A few months later (25 Nov.) he was summoned to parliament as Lord Scrope. The designation ‘of Masham’ first appears when the representatives of the elder line came to sit in the House of Lords, no doubt for distinction. In 1355 Scrope went to Picardy with the king, and returned with him on the news of the loss of Berwick. For three years he was almost exclusively occupied on the border, but in 1359 he proceeded to Gascony, and next year figured with five other Scropes in Edward III's demonstration before Paris. Peace being made, he took up (18 Feb. 1361) the onerous post of warden of Calais and Guisnes, which he apparently held until his appointment as joint warden of the west march towards Scotland (1370) and steward of the household (1371). At Calais he had frequently conducted important negotiations, and as late as July 1378 was sent on a mission to the king of Navarre. He sat on the committee of the upper house appointed to confer with the commons in the Good parliament; was on the first council of Richard II's minority, and continued to attend parliament down to 1381. Spending his last years in retirement, he died on 31 July 1391, and was buried in York minster. Scrope increased the family estates both in and out of Yorkshire, where he acquired Upsal Castle, near Thirsk, the seat of a family of that name down to 1349, which gave a second territorial designation to some of his descendants. All that is known of his wife is that she was called Joan (? Upsal, cf. Testamenta Eboracensia, iii. 32). They had five or six sons, of whom the fourth, Richard (1350?–1405) [q. v.], was archbishop of York, and two daughters.
The eldest son, Geoffrey, married a daughter of Ralph, lord Neville (d. 1367), and after the peace of Brétigny went on a crusade with the Teutonic knights into heathen Lithuania, where he perished in 1362 at about twenty years of age.
The second son, William, after the peace followed the Earl of Hereford to Lombardy and the taking of Satalia (Attalia) in Asia Minor (1361). He died in the East, and may be the Scrope buried at Mesembria (Misvri) on the west coast of the Black Sea (Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, i. 70, 125, 166); Nicolas (ib. ii. 106), however, refers these exploits to William, son of Sir Geoffrey le Scrope [q. v.]
The third son, Stephen, ‘forty and upwards’ in 1391, was knighted by the king of Cyprus at Alexandria in 1365 (ib. i. 124), and accompanied John of Gaunt into Guienne in 1373; he married (before 1376) Margery (d 29 May 1422), daughter of John, fourth lord Welles, and widow of John, lord Huntingfield, succeeded as second Baron Scrope of Masham in 1391, and died on 25 Jan. 1406; his son Henry, executed in 1415, is separately noticed.
The youngest son, John (d. December 1405), married (c. 1390) Elizabeth, daughter and coheiress of David de Strabolgi, earl of Atholl, and widow of Sir Thomas Percy (d. 1386), second son of the first Earl of Northumberland (cf. Testamenta Eboracensia, i. 338). 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.]