SCRAS, Robert

Of Sussex origins, Scras was a kinsman of the Scrases of Winchelsea and he had family connexions with Preston, a parish near that Sussex Cinque Port.4 PRC 32/2, f. 240v. He is not, however, to be confused with his namesake, a baron of Winchelsea, who represented that Port in the Brodhull on a number of occasions between 1444 and 1460: White and Black Bks. 19, 30, 31, 33, 35, 40-42. He had settled at Romney by the late 1440s, and from March 1448 until his death he paid maltolts as of Holyngbroke, the ward in which most of its leading burgesses resided.5 NR/FAc 3, ff. 2, 7, 11, 15, 19, 24v, 26v, 29, 31v, 37v, 43v, 47, 49, 52v, 54v, 57, 59v; NR/FAc 4, ff. 4v, 16v, 26v, 39v, 50v, 70, 80. Marriage provides the readiest explanation for his appearance at Romney, his immediate inclusion in the ranks of its governing jurats and for his election to his first Parliament, even if it is impossible to confirm that his wife was from the town.

For his first Parliament, Scras was returned alongside the town’s bailiff, Geoffrey Godelok*. Surprisingly, given that the Parliament of February 1449 was the latter’s sixth (and second as a representative for Romney), Scras seems to have frequented this assembly more than his fellow MP: the wages he received (amounting to £4 17s.) covered his time at the sessions at Westminster and Winchester although the payments made to Godelok were for his sitting at the latter venue only.6 NR/FAc 3, ff. 4, 10. Following his re-election to the Commons later in the same year, Scras attended all three sessions of the Parliament of 1449-50. It proved more difficult than usual for the jurats of Romney to raise his wages for this long assembly; totalling £5 13s. 4d., these were not finally settled until 1452. He was, however, considerably more fortunate than his fellow MP, John St. Leger*, who never received full payment of the £6 19s. owed to him.7 Ibid. ff. 10, 13, 16v.

By the early 1450s Scras was firmly established within the governing elite of Romney. It is likely that he served as a jurat every year from 1449 until his death, as the only gaps in his cursus honorum are those for years in which the compiler of the accounts failed to record the names of the jurats and for 1456-7, for which there is no extant account.8 Ibid. ff. 16v, 18v. He was regularly employed on special business for the town: in 1451-2 he rode to Dover with Richard Ford to meet the new warden of the Cinque Ports, Humphrey, duke of Buckingham;9 Ibid. f. 16v. in 1452 he and John Ford went to London to consult the archbishop of Canterbury about Romney’s charters;10 J.T. Driver, ‘Parl. of 1472-5’ (Liverpool Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1982), 844. and in 1457 he and other townsmen consulted Buckingham’s deputy, Richard Witherton, about their long and acrimonious dispute with Guy Ellis* over the latter’s parliamentary wages. The defence of the Cinque Ports was another matter which occupied Scras’s attention, and after the French raided Sandwich in August 1457 he travelled to Winchelsea and Dover to meet fellow Portsmen and to participate in discussions with Robert Horne* and other royal commissioners about the ships that Romney was to contribute for that purpose.11 NR/FAc 3, f. 33. He also frequently represented his Port at the Brodhull, of which he attended no fewer than 59 meetings of that assembly between July 1450 and April 1473.12 White and Black Bks. 26-42; Driver, 844. In July 1457 the Brodhull deputed him to collect the Ports’ contributions towards the costs of employing the lawyer Thomas Bayen* for his services in seeking tax allowances for their advocants in the Exchequer.13 Driver, 844; White and Black Bks. 38. On three occasions Scras served as one of the Cinque Ports’ bailiffs at the annual herring fair at Great Yarmouth. In 1456, during his second term in that office, the authorities at Yarmouth arrested him and his fellow bailiffs, in retaliation for the actions of William Stamer of Hastings, who had seized a vessel containing goods worth 2,000 marks belonging to some Norwich merchants. Scras was again at liberty by 14 Dec. that year, when he attended a special meeting of the Brodhull which discussed this controversy. Although it ordered the bailiff of Hastings to investigate Stamer’s actions and to restore any wrongfully seized goods, the Ports also pursued an action in Chancery against the bailiffs of Yarmouth, Edmund Wydewell* and Alexander Brygate, for wrongful arrest.14 White and Black Bks. 37; C1/26/566; NR/FAc 3, f. 30v.

In September 1460 Scras was elected to his third Parliament. He travelled to Westminster with John Chenew*, with whom he had recently been appointed keeper of the town’s new common house. Afterwards, Chenew received parliamentary wages of £3 14s., but Scras was paid only £2 6s. for 46 days’ service.15 NR/FAc 3, f. 42. The deposition of Henry VI in March 1461 brought the Parliament (then in recess) to an end but the pair returned to Westminster for the coronation of Edward IV in the following June. Along with other barons from the Cinque Ports, they had the honour of fulfilling the Ports’ privilege of bearing the canopy at the ceremony. Scras and Chenew were also among the Portsmen who petitioned the new King for the renewal of their charters when he visited Canterbury later that summer.16 Ibid. f. 44.

During 1462-3, Scras returned to Canterbury and visited Folkestone, as a member of a delegation of Romney burgesses that had meetings with Sir John Scott†, controller of Edward IV’s household and the leading member of the Yorkist affinity in Kent.17 Ibid. f. 48. In the same period he was elected to the Parliament that Edward summoned for York in February 1463, and he and the other MPs for the Cinque Ports had already departed when it was postponed. The Parliament was rearranged for Leicester in March and Scras had likewise set off for the Midlands when it was again postponed. For his troubles, he received 17 days’ expenses for travelling to and staying at York and for a further four spent riding to Leicester.18 Ibid. ff. 48v, 50v, 54. Parliament eventually assembled at Westminster on 29 Apr. 1463 and was not finally dissolved until 28 Mar. 1465. In 1464-5 Scras received a single payment of 58s. for 58 days’ service at that venue (although the Parliament also sat briefly at York and lasted for a total of 121), but his fellow baron, Thomas Couper†, was paid for just 28.19 Ibid. f. 54. During the lengthy recesses between the two main sessions, Scras continued to serve Romney and the Ports as a body in other capacities. He attended five meetings of the Brodhull and in July 1464 he was named as Romney’s representative in the delegation of Portsmen appointed to solicit the Crown for a new charter. The Brodhull directed that he and his associates should each receive daily expenses of 2s..20 White and Black Bks. 48-52. Scras returned to Westminster within three months of the close of the Parliament of 1463-5, as one of the barons of the Cinque Ports who attended the coronation of Queen Elizabeth Wydeville on 26 June.21 NR/FAc 3, f. 56.

In May 1467 Scras was re-elected to the Commons, this time alongside John Chenew†, the son of his former associate in the Parliament of 1460-1. When the election returns were certified at Dover castle, he and Chenew were among those Portsmen who submitted a petition to the warden there, probably in connexion with the disputes in which Romney was then embroiled with the burgesses of Calais, the sheriff of Kent and the abbot of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury. For the Parliament, Scras received wages for 25 days at Westminster, five fewer than his colleague; and for riding to the second session at Reading – a somewhat fruitless journey given that Parliament was immediately prorogued upon reopening there – he and Chenew were each allowed costs of only 5s. 4d.22 Ibid. f. 61; HP Reg. ed. Wedgwood, 362; White and Black Bks. 56.

In the spring of 1470 Scras and other Portsmen took part in discussions with Sir John Guildford, the deputy of the then warden of the Cinque Ports, Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, at Dover castle. He returned to Dover in June that year as a member of a delegation deputed to meet Edward IV, who was carrying out a personal inspection of the defences of that Port and Sandwich. Yet it is likely that he, like his fellow barons and Sir John Guildford supported Warwick against the Yorkist King during the Readeption. At some point in the winter of 1470-1, he and Thomas Couper took part in discussions at London about the Ports’ charter of liberties with the ‘lieutenant’ (possibly meaning Guildford) and members of the restored Henry VI’s Council. These negotiations may have coincided with their attendance at the Readeption Parliament, which opened at Westminster on 26 Nov. 1470.23 NR/FAc 3, f. 69. Both of them left Romney for that assembly on 23 Nov. and remained at Westminster until 22 Dec.; they again departed for Westminster on 21 Jan. 1471 and returned home on 21 Feb.24 NR/FAc 4, f. 32. During the Parliament, they and the other barons sought a pardon of the sums demanded from their Ports in lieu of their customary ship service.25 White and Black Bks. 62. Following Edward IV’s return to England, the barons of the Cinque Ports made a serious error of judgement by coming out in support of the Bastard of Fauconberg’s rebellion. It is possible that Scras was an active participant in the uprising. In its aftermath he was one of those Kentishmen who paid a fine (although he did not sue for an immediate pardon) and he was not among the barons chosen to solicit the King for the restoration of the Ports’ liberties.26 M. Mercer, ‘Kent and National Politics’ (London Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1995), 91-92; C. Richmond, ‘Fauconberg’s Kentish Rising’, EHR lxxxv. 687; White and Black Bks. 64.

On 20 Aug. 1472, however, Scras was pardoned as ‘of New Romney, merchant alias yeoman’,27 C67/49, m. 17. and in the following month he was elected to his final Parliament. He and his fellow MP, John Tuder†, departed for the first session at Westminster on 4 Oct., two days before it opened. While Tuder remained there until 18 Dec., Scras went home on 31 Oct., set off once more for Westminster on 9 Nov. and arrived back home on 26 Nov., four days before the end of the session. Both he and Tuder were present at Westminster when the second session of the Parliament opened on 8 Feb. 1473, but while Tuder remained there until 25 Mar. his fellow MP returned home on 28 Feb.28 NR/FAc 4, f. 55. Scras does not seem to have taken up his seat again thereafter and he died nearly a year before the Parliament was finally dissolved on 14 Mar. 1475. Despite his frequent absence from the Commons, he remained heavily involved in the communal business of the Ports at the end of his life. Between May 1470 and his death, for example, he missed only two meetings of the Brodhull, in December 1471 (perhaps because of his involvement in Fauconberg’s rebellion earlier in the year) and July 1473. He also became keeper of the common purse of the Ports in May 1470. Again recorded as such in April 1472 and 1473, it is likely that he held the position until his death, since his executors afterwards had some of the Ports’ money in their possession.29 White and Black Bks. 60-67.

While Scras’s pardon of 1472 described him as a ‘merchant’ there is little evidence of his business activities. He did, however, trade in wine and was frequently listed among the vintners licensed to sell that commodity within Romney. On at least one occasion near the end of his life, he entertained his fellow jurats and the bailiff of Romney at his house with wine from his own cellars.30 NR/FAc 3, ff. 3, 8v, 16, 18, 20, 32v, 39, 41v, 43v, 49v, 53, 55, 58v, 76v. It is also possible that he made part of his living in legal or quasi-legal affairs. Often an attorney in the bailiff’s court, he presided over that body as the bailiff’s deputy in December 1460, and in 1469 he arbitrated in a dispute over the town’s ‘keyhouse’. The regularity with which he was called upon to act as a feoffee, his election to at least seven Parliaments and his frequent employment in the communal business of the Ports might also suggest some legal expertise.31 New Romney recs., bk. of pleas 1454-82, NR/JB 2, ff. 10-11, 20v, 51-56v; NR/FAc 4, f. 59; feet of fines, NR/JBr 8/1, 3, 22, 24; Canterbury consist. ct. wills, PRC 32/ 2, f. 240v. Of Scras’s own quarrels there is no record, save that in September 1472 a local priest, John Reede, was arrested at his complaint and put in the bailiff’s ward for ‘ungoodly wordes and langage by hym reyde in reuylinge hym ayenst the honour and usages in such case in this town usid’. To gain his release, Reede was required to find sureties to keep the peace towards the MP.32 NR/FAc 4, f. 56v.

In his will of 17 Mar. 1474 Scras requested burial in the parish church of St. Nicholas at Romney and left sums to its high altar, fabric and lamps. The will provides evidence of his Sussex connexions, for he left a missal to the parish church of Preston in that county and asked for an honest priest to sing there for his soul and those of his kindred (‘parentum meorum’). To each of his two ‘daughters’ Scras bequeathed the miserly sum of 12d., but it is possible that they were his wife’s issue by a previous marriage. Other beneficiaries of the will included his brother Richard Scras and Richard’s children, the son of Henry Scras of Winchelsea, the widow and sons of the elder John Chenew (his former associate in the Parliament of 1460), his sister Isabel, his niece Alice and his nephew, another Richard Scras. To the last named Scras left a silver cup known as ‘James Lowys’s cup’: presumably it had once belonged to the late James Lowys* of Romney, but it is not known how it had come to pass to the testator. Scras provided for his wife, Joan, by leaving her his household goods and assigning to her his holdings at Romney, Stonebridge and Hope for life, after which they were to be disposed of for the benefit of his soul. He appointed two executors, Joan and his brother Richard, and died before 19 Apr. 1474.33 PRC 32/ 2, f. 272; White and Black Bks. 67. It is not entirely clear whether the two Richards, the MP’s bro. and nephew, should be identified with the Scrases of Hangleton, Suss., of whom Richard Scras of Hangleton (d.1500) was probably the fa. of the Richard admitted to Lincoln’s Inn in 1486. Yet there was clearly a family connexion between them and the subject of this biography, since in his will the elder Richard (i.e. the lawyer’s putative fa.) provided for a brass ‘picture’ and inscription to be set on the MP’s tombstone at Romney: J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1375.

After his death, Scras’s real property was the subject of litigation in Chancery. First, his widow, who had married John Hunt†, a Southwark grocer, sued her co-executor for refusing to allow her possession of the holdings that her late husband had assigned to her in his will. Later, probably between 1486 and 1493, the younger Richard Scras brought a bill against Ralph Dowell, alleging that the latter and his late wife, Agnes, had withheld deeds relating to lands in Romney, Hope and Lydd which he claimed as the MP’s nephew and heir.34 C1/54/44; 162/11.