Lords of the Manor in Stuart times
Go back to Lords of the Manor during the time of the Tudors. See also Georgian Lords of the Manor.
Sir Emanuel Scrope, 1st Earl of Sunderland, 11th Baron Scrope of Bolton (1584 - 1630)
Emanuel was the only child of Sir Thomas Scrope and Philadelphia Carey. Emanuel had royal relations - his mother's father was a cousin of Anne Boleyn and therefore cousin once removed of Queen Elizabeth I. He was born at Hunsdon House in Hertfordshire, his mother's house.
(To find out about his father, Sir Thomas, go to Lords of the Manor in Tudor times.)
Emanuel Scrope was appointed Lord President of the Council of North and Lord Lieutenant of Yorkshire by King James I in 1619.
He was the King's top man in the North.
However, many people did not like Emanuel.
- He had a bad reputation. He was a millionaire (in today's money) and he was not afraid to spend it. He was called a notorious gamester whose high play was the talk of court and country'. In other words, he was a gambler, a heavy gambler.
- Protestants also suspected Sir Emanuel of being a secret Roman Catholic. Although King James was the Head of the protestant Church of England, he did not want to persecute Roman Catholics and this was the reason the King had chosen Emanuel as President of the Council of the North, one of whose jobs it was to root out Roman Catholics.
During his time as President of the Council, Emanuel tried to stop the bribery, corruption and greed he found there. However, by the time he was sacked by King Charles I in 1628, he was just as guilty as the rest and ran an inefficient organisation. Nonetheless. the King thanked him for his faithfulness and honesty and gave him £3000 as a goodbye present (half a million pounds in today's money). Not bad for doing a bad job!
Wife and children
In 1609 Emanuel married Lady Elizabeth Manners, a daughter of the 4th Earl of Rutland of Belvoir Castle; they had four children but sadly all of them died very young.
However, Emanuel also had a mistress, a servant, Martha Janes, who bore him a son, John and three daughters.
Emanuel, his wife, mistress and her children all lived at Hunsdon House in Hertfordshire, where he had been born, and also at Langar Hall.
Emanuel Scrope died in 1630 aged 54 and was buried at at Langar church.
Problem
All the children borne by Emanuel's wife, Elizabeth, died young.
And because Emanuel was not married to Martha Janes, his children with her were not legally recognised as his. By law, when he died, all his wealth, property, manors and titles should be given to his nearest blood relative, who was a descendant of a great aunt.
But Emanuel was having none of it. In his will he left everything to his son, John Janes.
John was only 5 years old when his father died. There was also the eldest daughter Mary, then Elizabeth and a third daughter, Annabella Scrope who later inherited Langar and Barnstone - more of her soon.
John Janes Sandford le Scrope (1625 - 1646), son of Emanuel Scrope above and Martha Janes.
King versus Parliament -
the English Civil War
John Janes Scrope was only 17 when the English Civil war broke out. Like many people in the North of England, he was on the side of King Charles I - he was a Royalist.
From Autumn 1644, for more than a year, his home at Bolton Castle was besieged by the Parliamentary army who bombarded the castle walls with heavy cannon fire.
Defeated
The defenders of the castle held out until all they had eaten all the food, including the horses, and they were starving. John Scrope finally surrendered Bolton Castle in November 1645. He was allowed to leave the castle with four servants and go to Langar Hall. Here he was put in the charge of his step mother, Lady Elizabeth Manners, who was a supporter of Parliament. She was supposed to make sure he behaved himself.
The Parliamentary army occupied Bolton Castle for 2 years. When they moved out, they ‘slighted’ the castle, damaging it to make it uninhabitable.
The castle was never rebuilt; the Scrope family later built a new home, Bolton Hall in 1678 on the castle estate.
For his support of the defeated king, John Scrope was fined £7000 - over one million pounds in today's money.
The following year, 1646, John was in London - he had escaped from Langar Hall. He was in London under a false name - he may have been spying for the King. However, he died of the plague, one of a number of plagues that hit the country before the Great Plague of 1665. John Scrope was buried at St Swithin's Church in the City of London aged just 21.
After John's death, his property and estates were shared between his three sisters: Emanuel's oldest daughter Mary inherited the Bolton estates which are still owned by her descendants; Annabella inherited Langar and Barnstone, becoming lord of the manor and owner of the manor house, Langar Hall.
Lady Annabella Scrope (1629 - 1703), youngest daughter of Sir Emanuel Scrope and Martha Janes, sister of John Scrope above.
Annabella was born at Bolton Castle and later lived at Langar Hall.
John Grubham Howe (1623 - 1679), husband of Annabella Scrope
About 1648 Annabella married John Grubham Howe, second son of Sir John Howe of Little Compton in Gloucestershire. She gave birth to 13 children, most of them born at the Howe family home, Cassey Compton House in Gloucestershire; at least three of her children died very young.
The English Civil War
In 1659 John Grubham Howe was elected Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire. However, in that same year there was an unsuccessful uprising in Cheshire whose intention was to put the son of the executed King Charles I on the throne as Charles II. Howe was suspected as being a royalist plotter and the 10,000 acre Langar estate of John and Annabella was confiscated by Parliament.
Bring back the King!
When Charles II came to the throne in 1660, the Langar estate was given back to Annabella and her husband John.
King Charles also recognised Annabel as the legal daughter of Emanuel Scrope, Earl of Sunderland. At that time this was an unusual honour for a woman and was thanks for the family's support of the Royalists against the Parliamentarians during the Civil War.
In 1677 the Nottinghamshire historian Dr Robert Thoroton wrote that
'Langar Hall and nearly the whole of the parish had lately become the estate of Mr Howe, who has made a convenient park of the closes around the mansion and stocked it with deer.'
John Grubham Howe was re-elected MP for Gloucestershire in 1661 and sat in Parliament until his death in 1679 at the age of 54. He was buried at Langar church.
Annabella later moved back to the Howe family home at Cassey Compton House in Gloucestershire where she died at the age of 74. She is buried at nearby Stowell church.
Scrope Howe, 1st Viscount Howe (1648 – 1713),
son of Lady Annabella Scrope and John Grubham Howe above.
Scrope Howe was born at his father's family house in Gloucestershire but later lived at Langar Hall. He was educated at Christ Church College, Oxford University where he was awarded his degree in 1665. He was knighted by Charles II in 1663 for his family's support of the Royalists in the Civil War. Sir Scrope was the Member of Parliament for Nottinghamshire.
Scrope played a part in bringing about the
Glorious Revolution in 1688.
The Glorious Revolution
The Background: Many people in England lived in fear of Roman Catholics. Henry VIII separated the English church church from the Roman church in 1534 and there was tension and violence between Protestants and Roman Catholics in England for the next 200 years.
People were frightened of an invasion by a Roman Catholic king (of France or Spain, for example) to make England Roman Catholic again. And there were plots by Roman Catholics, including the Gunpowder Plot on 5th November 1605 when Guy Fawkes and others tried to blow up Parliament with King James I and all the MPs inside. This is remembered every year on Bonfire Night.
When King James II came to the throne, he passed laws allowing Roman Catholics to practise their religion and even to allow them to work for the government. Powerful lords across the country plotted to remove James from the throne. The plan was to replace him with his protestant daughter Mary and her Dutch husband, William of Orange, a nephew of James.
Scrope Howe was one of those who had secretly been in contact with William of Orange. William landed in England with a large army on 5 November 1668 and Sir Scrope got together a troop of soldiers and marched into Leicester to declare his support for William and Mary. It was a good move!
James II quickly left the country and William of Orange and Mary were declared joint monarchs.
For his support, King William made Scrope Howe a groom of the bedchamber in 1689, However, Scrope was disappointed at the pay. In 1690 his wages were boosted when he was paid £2000 by the King for ‘good and faithful service’.
In 1693 he was made Surveyor General of Roads and also appointed Comptroller of the Excise. This was an important and well-paid job - excise duties were government taxes on everyday goods such as such as salt, candles, leather, beer or soap or on luxury items, such as wine, silks, silver, horses, coaches and hats.
As Comptroller Sir Scrope was paid £1320 for himself and his clerks. However, he was often in trouble with the government's Treasury department for not doing his job properly. He was slow to produce the annual accounts. One reason was that the Comptroller before him had nine officers working for him for £720 a year, while Scrope had only eight clerks being paid £460. This meant that he couldn't do the job properly but he could keep more money for himself.
Scrope was in trouble in 1695, in 1696 and again in 1700. He blamed the problems on the previous Comptroller but he was told that he would be taken before the King if he did not do the job properly.
Although he was an MP, Sir Scrope Howe hardly ever went to the House of Commons. When he did go, and his younger brother Jack (MP for Gloucestershire) was about to speak, Sir Scrope would shout out,
‘Now, what is that impudent son of a *!*!* going to say?
If he begin, there’s nobody much put a word in but himself.'
Enclosures at Langar
In 1681 Scrope Howe turned his attention to Langar and Barnstone. He was trying to make more money again. He had an Act passed by Parliament enclosing the farmland and the common land at Langar. This meant he could keep more land for himself.
(Go back to Stuart times for more about Enclosures.)
In 1701 Sir Scrope Howe was created Viscount Howe by King William III as thanks for his part in the Glorious Revolution.
Scrope's first wife was Lady Ann Manners, daughter of the Earl of Rutland of Belvoir Castle; on her death he married Juliana Alington. He died and was buried at Langar in 1713 and was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Emanuel Scrope Howe, 2nd Viscount Howe.
