SKERNE, Robert (d.1437), of Kingston-upon-Thames, Surr.

It is now impossible to tell what relationship, if any, existed between this MP and the Robert Skerne of Yorkshire who served both Richard II and Henry IV as a royal clerk and often stood surety in Chancery for his friends during the two reigns. He was rewarded in 1389 with the keepership of St. Ellen’s hospital (called ‘Bracefordspittle’) in his native county, and in the same year he obtained, also from the Crown, the farm of the manor of Willoughton in Lincolnshire. Since he was still paying rent for it in November 1420, there are, perhaps, grounds for supposing that he and the subject of this biography were one and the same person, although there is no direct evidence to support such an argument, especially as it looks as if the Yorkshireman had taken holy orders.VCH Berks. iii. 288; VCH Essex, vii. 149; VCH Warws. v. 58-59; Dugdale, i. 564-5; Surr. Arch. Colls. xxix. 104-5; Essex Feet of Fines, iii. 247; Oxf. Hist. Soc. xc. 234, 398-400; CCR, 1392-6, pp. 48-49; 1402-5, p. 486; 1405-9, pp. 39, 168-9, 227; CPR, 1436-41, p. 73." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote

Skerne’s estates in Surrey, which were said to produce £10 a year in 1412, seem to have been his own rather than his wife’s. He held a capital messuage called ‘Downhall’ in Guildford which belonged to Merton college, Oxford, and he also possessed lands and rents in Kingston-upon-Thames and Thames Ditton, as well as the manor of Freemantles. His title to property in Windlesham and Bagshot is rather more ambiguous, since his interest may well have been merely that of a feoffee-to-uses for Robert Loxley’s son, William. Skerne also enjoyed an annual income of £10 from land in Hampshire, but we do not know where this was situated.Thomas (his colleague in the Parliament of 1422) engaged his services in the same capacity, thus bringing him into contact with the influential Middlesex landowner, Thomas Frowyk (who also sat on this occasion).Walter Gawtron, and others arraigned Skerne on an assize of novel disseisin at Guildford, but the action was almost certainly collusive.CPR, 1429-36, p. 380; CCR, 1409-13, pp. 344-5." style="color:red;" class="drupal_footnote Skerne died on 9 Apr. 1437. He was buried beside his wife at All Saints’ church, Kingston-upon-Thames, and was commemorated by a memorial brass of particular distinction, which draws attention to his manifold qualities as a public figure. His nephew and heir, William Skerne, subsequently founded a chantry dedicated to him, his wife and other members of the Skerne family.