Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/13

 speare. In the epistle to the reader he is referred to as ‘friendly Shakespeare,’ which may imply that Shakespeare and Scoloker were acquainted. There are also various references to Hamlet, which seem to prove that Shakespeare intended Hamlet's madness to be real, and not merely feigned (, Introduction to Daiphantus).

[Authorities quoted: Works in Brit. Mus. Libr.; Cat. Douce Libr.; Hazlitt's Handbook and Collections, passim; Hunter's MS. Chorus Vatum; Ames's Typogr. Antiq. ed. Herbert, 1791, p. 748, ed. Dibdin, iv. 306–9; Ritson's Bibl. Anglo-Poetica; Tanner's Bibliotheca Brit.-Hibernica; Corser's Collectanea, iii. 202; Acad. 1884, i. 386; Strype's Eccl. Mem. II. i. 226; Shakespeare's Centurie of Prayse (New Shakspere Soc.), p. 64.]  SCORBURGH, ROBERT  (d. 1340), baron of the exchequer, derived his name from Scorborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire. He is no doubt the Robert de Scorburgh of Beverley to whom there are some references in 1320 to 1322 (Cal. Close Rolls, Edward II, iii. 241, 385, 547), and who in 1324 had license to assign a lay fee in Beverley and Etton, for at his death he is described as possessing the manor of Scoreby, together with property in Stamford Bridge and Etton (Abbrev. Rot. Origin. i. 274, ii. 136). In August 1322 there is reference to an inquisition held by him (Cal. Close Rolls, Edward II, iii. 591), and he also served on other commissions in Yorkshire in 1325 and 1326. His name appears in numerous commissions of oyer and terminer in Yorkshire between 13 Feb. 1327 and 4 March 1333 (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, i. and ii. passim). On 27 March 1328 he was on a commission to survey the common ferry over the water of Hull; in December 1329 he was a justice of eyre in Nottinghamshire, and in May 1330 in Derbyshire (ib. i. 290, 465, 521). On 12 Feb. 1332 he was named on the commission of peace for the East Riding, and on 3 Nov. 1332 to assess the fifteenth in the city of London (ib. ii. 287, 358). On 2 Nov. of the same year he was appointed one of the barons of the exchequer, and in October 1333 was appointed a justice of eyre in the liberty of Durham during the vacancy of the see (ib. ii. 362, 475). He was knighted in 1332, and on 7 Jan. 1334 was one of the proctors to carry out the agreement with the Count of Flanders (ib. ii. 479; Fœdera, ii. 875). On 16 July 1334 he was appointed chief baron of the exchequer at Dublin, at the same time as Robert de Scardeburgh [q. v.] was appointed chief justice of the king's bench in Ireland (Cal. Pat. Rolls, Edward III, ii. 568). On 4 Oct. 1334 he was appointed to treat with the men of the boroughs and ancient demesne lands of the North Riding concerning the payment of the tenth and fifteenth. On 26 Aug. 1335 he was on a commission of inquiry concerning alleged extortions, and on 16 Oct. 1336 was a commissioner for the arrest of suspected persons in Yorkshire (ib. iii. 39, 211, 367). On 28 July 1337 he was appointed a justice of the bench in Dublin, Robert de Scardeburgh being appointed chief justice the same day (ib. iii. 477). He died in 1340, when his property was committed to the custody of Wolfand de Clistere, because his son Thomas was an idiot.

[Parl. Writs, vol. ii. pt. ii. 1406; Rot. Parl. i. 420, ii. 28; Foss's Judges of England; authorities cited. In the indices to the Cal. of Patent Rolls Scorburgh is often confused with Robert de Scardeburgh [q. v.], but it is quite clear that they were distinct persons, though, by a strange coincidence, they became judges in the same year, and both held office at the same time in Ireland. In the notices of their judicial appointments in the patent rolls Scorburgh and Scardeburgh are correctly distinguished. It is not so easy to distinguish the references to Scord, Scorb, and Scharde as advocates in the year-books of Edward II and Edward III.]  SCORESBY, WILLIAM (1760–1829), arctic navigator, the son of a small farmer at Cropton, twenty miles from Whitby, was born on 3 May 1760. After attending the village school he was employed about the farm from the age of nine, and occasionally worked for neighbouring farmers. In his twentieth year he bound himself for three years as an apprentice to the captain of a ship called the Jane, trading from Whitby to the Baltic. He joined her in March 1780. He had already studied navigation, his knowledge and practice of which enabled him, in the second year of his service at sea, to detect an error in the reckoning which would otherwise have caused the loss of the ship. The only reward he got was the ill-will of the mate, whose blunder he had exposed. This caused him to leave the ship at London in October 1781, and enter on board an ordnance ship, the Speedwell, carrying out stores to Gibraltar. At the entrance of the Straits the Speedwell fell in with the Spanish fleet and was captured. Her men were taken to Cadiz, and thence sent inland to San Lucar de Mayor, from which, being carelessly guarded, Scoresby and one of his companions managed to escape. After various adventures they succeeded in reaching Cadiz, where they got on board an English cartel and were taken to England.