SCOTT, William I

The Scott family were descended from Sir William de Balliol, a knight known as ‘le Scot’ who had moved to Kent from Berwick-upon-Tweed at the end of the thirteenth century. The MP’s father, who sat for Hythe in the Parliament of April 1384, was lieutenant of Dover castle in Henry IV’s reign. John Scott appears to have married at least twice: first, to a daughter of William de Combe from whom the Scotts gained the manor of Combe in Brabourne; secondly, to Joan, the widow of John Mokkyng of Gravesend, but it is not known which (if either) of these women was William’s mother.3 Scott, 22, 89-92; CPR, 1391-6, p. 525.

Local deeds demonstrate that William was very active in and around Brabourne, even during his father’s lifetime. In April 1390, for example, he released his interest in a property there to his kinsman, Peter Combe, and in 1402 Combe and his wife Alice settled all their lands in Brabourne, Bircholt, Wye and elsewhere on him to hold during their lifetimes for a rent of 20 marks p.a. By then Scott had married Joan Orlaston, the daughter of a minor Kentish landowner, for it was as man and wife that the couple quitclaimed their interest in property in Lamberhurst (straddling the Kent-Sussex county boundary) to two of his Kentish kinsmen, Thomas and John Kemp, in August 1400.4 Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, Scott mss, U1115/T5, 6, 16, 17; CP25(1)/290/59/12.

Of defining importance for Scott’s career was his connexion with the Kemps of Wye near Ashford, since these relatives included his nephew, John Kemp, a cleric who rose to the highest office in Church and state.5 C1/20/16. After John was named as the new bishop of Rochester in early 1419, Scott and others were appointed custodians of the temporalities of that see.6 E159/214, brevia Mich. rot. 10d. Scott was also among those who received a grant of the temporalities of the vacant bishopric of Chichester in October 1420, in return for an annual payment of 650 marks. The grant superseded an earlier one to a different syndicate and it is tempting to see the hand of his nephew, by then keeper of the privy seal, behind it, not least because Kemp was translated to Chichester in February 1421. On the following 3 Mar., the King granted Kemp the temporalities of that bishopric and appointed Scott and others as his receivers.7 CPR, 1416-22, p. 317; CFR, xiv. 350, 355. In November 1421 Kemp was translated yet again, this time to the see of London and Scott stood surety for him when he received the temporalities in April 1422.8 E28/40/12. Scott remained close to his nephew for the rest of his life. In April 1428, for example, he and Kemp, by then archbishop of York, and the latter’s close associate, Thomas Haseley†, secured the wardship and marriage of Richard Windsor’s heir.9 CFR, xiv. 214. Scott and his nephew also came to share an interest in a deer park at Birling with John Pirie*, and in 1433 they and Pirie secured a royal commission charged with inquiring into alleged close-breaking there, a measure of the influence Archbishop Kemp wielded at the centre of government.10 CPR, 1429-36, p. 273.

It is likely that his connexion with Kemp ensured for Scott a more prominent role in local government than he might otherwise have enjoyed. He was first named to an ad hoc commission in January 1420, when he was among those appointed to raise a loan in Kent for the King’s campaign in Normandy. (While it is not clear that he himself ever saw active service, it is possible that he was the William Scott whose prisoner, Baudet de la Valey, was permitted to return to France to raise his ransom in September 1429. It is, however, likely that it was the subject of this biography who was licensed to export livestock and grain overseas – presumably for the English war effort – in 1428 and 1431, since the MP certainly stood surety for Nicholas Campion, one of the victuallers of the Calais garrison, in April 1429.)11 DKR, xlviii. 254, 257, 264, 282; CCR, 1422-9, p. 423. It would be unwise to trust the assertion by Scott that he was Hen. V’s sword-bearer and probably fought at Agincourt. The same authority also erroneously assumes that he was knighted: Scott, 43-44, 93. It is assumed that the William Scott whom the earls of Arundel employed to collect wages of war at the Exchequer in 1429-30 was a namesake: E101/52/53; E403/693, m. 15; 695, m. 4. After serving a term as escheator in Kent and Middlesex, Scott was pricked as sheriff of the former county in November 1428. His shrievalty did not pass without controversy. In September 1429, while presiding over the parliamentary election at Canterbury, he was persuaded by John Langdon, bishop of Rochester, to erase the name of one of the candidates, William Rose*, and insert that of the bishop’s servant, John Bonnington*, instead. In doing so, he incurred the anger of the citizens who sent a delegation to him and to Archbishop Kemp, then resident at Leeds castle, to ensure that his actions should not set a precedent and to reassert their own independence in parliamentary elections.12 C219/14/1; Canterbury Cath. Archs., Canterbury recs., chamberlains’ accts. 1393-1445, CCA-CC-F/A/1, f. 206. Scott’s term as sheriff also saw him accused of misdeeds in a petition that his neighbour, John Yenent, submitted to Kemp as chancellor. Having leased lands in Brabourne and Wye to Scott, Yenent accused the latter of refusing to pay him rent and abusing his powers as sheriff to imprison him. On Whitsunday 1429, or so he claimed, Scott had sent his officers to arrest him for supposedly having broken a bond to keep the peace. As the petition put it, Scott had ‘cast hym in a cart and lad hym to the castell of Canterbery the same day & put hym & his twey sones in prisone among felones til they were fayn to be bounde in gret summes to stande atte his [Scott’s] owyn ordynaunce naught wyth standynge that he was bounde to the pees afore of record and also atte all tymes sufficaunt meynpernours a redy to be bounde a3en’.13 C1/20/16.

Like those of his counterparts in other counties, Scott’s term as sheriff, lasted until February 1430, well over the usual year: the delay in choosing a successor was probably due to the deliberations in the Council and Parliament over the King’s coronation expedition. In the following May, no doubt assisted by Kemp’s patronage, he secured an allowance of £65 for his costs and expenses while sheriff.14 E159/206, brevia Easter rot. 7d. Despite the controversies of his shrievalty, Scott was returned as a knight of the shire for Kent at an election held at Rochester on Christmas Day 1430. His fellow MP, John Bamburgh*, was a lawyer well connected with Rochester and its bridge, although it is impossible to say whether these links played any part in his election.15 C219/14/2. As for Scott, the connexion with Kemp is likely to have assisted his candidacy, even if he did not enjoy his influential nephew’s open endorsement. A little over a year after the dissolution of the Parliament of 1431, he was appointed to the commission of the peace in Kent although he would attend the quarter sessions on only five occasions before his death.16 E101/567/3. His last recorded public duty was to witness the parliamentary election at Rochester in June 1433.

While Scott’s ties with the Kemp family was of greatest significance for his career, he also enjoyed links with other Kentish landowners, among them leading figures from the east of the county like John Martin, j.c.p., William Haute* and Geoffrey Lowther*.17 Canterbury recs., burghmote reg. 1298-1503, CCA-CC-O/A/1, ff. 42v-43; CP40/683, rot. 139. His own landed interests were concentrated in that part of Kent and he added to his inheritance throughout his lifetime. In 1414, for example, he bought a messuage in St. Dunstan’s by Canterbury, and in 1416 he acquired further property in Canterbury and Smeeth.18 CP25(1)/113/280/48; 286/181. Four years later, he further expanded his holdings in Brabourne by purchase,19 Scott mss, U1115/T8. and in about 1420 he began work on a new manor-house at nearby Smeeth, subsequently known as ‘Scott’s Hall’, a project completed some nine years later.20 Scott, 93. He also came into property through his first marriage to Joan Orlaston. Following the death of their brother Richard Orlaston in August 1418, she and her sister Margaret had inherited the manors of Orlestone and Capel in Kent and Stonelink, Sussex. Although Joan appears not to have borne him any surviving issue, Scott was able to acquire Orlestone and Stonelink on a permanent basis after her death. By 1425 he had reached an agreement with the Parkers, through which he purchased both his late wife’s and Margaret’s moieties of those manors.21 CIPM, xxi. 181; CCR, 1419-22, p. 18; Scott mss, U1115/T34/1-5; Oxf. DNB, ‘Scott fam.’. Tax records provide further evidence of Scott’s landed holdings: in 1431 he was assessed for a parliamentary subsidy on property in the Kentish parishes of Bircholt, Combe, West Hythe, Eastbridge, Worth, Street, Hurst and Westenhanger, although he was usually exempted from such taxation by virtue of his enjoyment of the status of a freeman of the Cinque Port of Hythe.22 Feudal Aids, iii. 59, 66, 74, 78, 79; E179/226/60. There is no evidence that the MP’s second wife, Isabel Fynch, brought him any lands but the match was a good one for the Scotts, since the Fynches were well connected and counted the influential Fiennes family of Herstmonceux, Sussex, among their relatives.23 Scott, 103-4; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 151-2. From the Fynches’ point of view, Scott’s own connexions with one of the most prominent ecclesiastics and churchmen of the day must have made it an attractive alliance, although it is not known whether John Kemp played any part in bringing it about.

Scott died on 5 Feb. 1434 and writs of clausum diem extremum were issued on the following 21 June, although the records of any subsequent inquisitions post mortem have not survived. In his will, made in January 1428, he had asked to be buried in the parish church at Brabourne. He made bequests to that church for forgotten tithes and the upkeep of its fabric, left other sums to those of Lymne, Smeeth and Eastbridge, and sought the intercessions of the mendicant orders at Canterbury, the Carmelites at Sandwich and the Maison Dieu at Dover. Scott provided handsomely for the marriages of his daughters when they came of age, assigning Margaret £100 and Joan 200 marks. Joan would become the wife of Thomas Yerde of Denton Court, Kent, although Margaret may have remained unmarried. Scott left his household goods to his wife Isabel and four sons to share equally between them. He also bequeathed 20s. in cash to each son and ordered that two of his servants should receive annuities of £10, on condition that they remained in his widow’s service. He chose for his executors Isabel and Thomas Chapman of Woodnesburgh.24 Archaeologia Cantiana, x. 261; CFR, xvi. 167; Scott, 103-5, 126n.

On her husband’s death, Isabel came under pressure from Archbishop Kemp to marry his protégé, Gervase Clifton*. At length, she agreed to the match only on condition that she was allowed free rein to purchase lands with the 1,000 marks she had been left in dower, presumably to provide for her children by the late MP.25 C1/67/234. She and the perhaps considerably younger Clifton married before 1437 and the next decade or so saw the couple embroiled in disputes relating to Scott’s affairs. It may well be that some of these quarrels arose out of attempts to take advantage of a hiatus in the management of the MP’s estates between his death and his widow’s remarriage and of the minority of his son and heir, John. In April 1434, for example, a couple of neighbours of lesser rank broke into Isabel’s close at Brabourne to steal her wood, and in 1437 the Cliftons brought an action of forcible entry in the same parish against another lord of a manor there, Sir Hugh Halsham, and four of his followers, perhaps to forestall a hostile claim by that knight to Scott lands.26 CP40/695, rot. 414d; 705, rot. 84; 707, rots. 36, 70d, 161, 163; 713, rot. 203; 723, rot. 145; 731, rot. 46; 737, rot. 205d; 740, rot. 497; Scott mss, U1115/T13/1, 3, 7. Isabel died in 1457, having had a further two daughters with Clifton.27 Scott, 105.

It is not clear what arrangements were made for the care of Scott’s sons until they came of age, but they almost certainly remained with their mother. During the 1440s and 1450s John Scott and Clifton were frequently associated with each other in public and private affairs and in 1450 they were jointly involved in the royal reaction to Cade’s rebellion. Their amicable relationship continued into the next decade, even though Clifton remained loyal to the Lancastrian Crown but his stepson pledged himself to the Yorkist cause. After 1461 John Scott emerged as one of the leading servants of Edward IV, under whom he and John Fogg† assumed the leadership of political society in Kent. His long attachment to the Yorkist Crown saw him serve as controller of the royal household, lieutenant of Dover castle, marshal of Calais, sheriff and knight of the shire for Kent, and councillor to both Edward IV and Edward, prince of Wales. He appears also to have backed Richard III in the events of 1483-5 and he died on 18 Oct. 1485.28 CPR, 1452-61, pp. 329-30; E404/66/210; Scott, pp. lix-lx; HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 750-2.