Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/145

 wield the pen, and the short notes and controversial letters which appeared during the last few months of his life showed no symptom of mental decline. He died at Fairlawn, near Cobham, Surrey, 19 Jan. 1876, and was buried at Stoke d'Abernon. He had sold Castle Combe after the death of his wife, who for many years had been an invalid in consequence of an accident when riding, not long after her marriage. Late in life he married again, and his second wife survived him. There was no issue by either marriage.

Scrope, according to the Royal Society's ‘Catalogue of Scientific Papers,’ was the author of thirty-six regular papers, the majority on volcanic geology and petrology, but in addition to this department of science and to political studies, he took great interest in archæology, contributing papers on this subject to the ‘Wiltshire Magazine,’ and publishing in 1852 (for private circulation) an illustrated quarto entitled ‘History of the Manor and Ancient Barony of Castle Combe, Wilts.’ His position as a geologist may be best described in words used by himself in his earliest publication, written at a period when the Huttonian theory was generally discredited, viz. that the science ‘has for its business a knowledge of the processes which are in continual or occasional operation within the limits of our planet, and the application of these laws to explain the appearances discovered by our geognostical researches, so as from these materials to deduce conclusions as to the past history of the globe’ (Considerations on Volcanos, Pref. p. iv). It is, perhaps, not too much to say that though two or three of his contemporaries, by a more complete devotion to geology, attained a higher eminence in the science, not one of them ever surpassed him in closeness and accuracy as an observer or in soundness of induction, and firm grasp of principles as a reasoner.

[Obituary notices, Nature, xiii. 291 (A. G[eikie]), Academy, ix. 102 (J. W. Judd), Athenæum, 29 Jan. 1876; Geol. Mag. 1876, p. 96, also memoir with portrait, 1870, p. 193; Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. xxxii. Proc. p. 69; Proc. Roy. Soc. xxv. 1, mentioned in Lyell's Life and Letters and in Life of Murchison by A. Geikie (portrait, ii. 108); also information from Prof. J. W. Judd and R. F. Scott, esq., bursar of St. John's College, Cambridge.]

 SCROPE, HENRY  (d. 1336), chief justice of the king's bench, was the eldest son of Sir William le Scrope of Bolton in Wensleydale. His mother was Constance, daughter of Thomas, son of Gillo de Newsham. His brother Geoffrey is separately noticed. Their father, who was bailiff of Richmondshire in 1294, and was knighted at the battle of Falkirk, came of an obscure family originally seated in the East Riding and North Lincolnshire. No connection can be established with the Scrupes of Gloucestershire or with Richard FitzScrob [see, (fl. 1060)]. The name is said to mean crab, and a crab was their crest. Scrope's paternal estate was small (Kirkby's Quest, pp. 150, 152, 176). He studied the law, and first appears as an advocate in 1307, the year before his elevation (27 Nov. 1308) to the bench of the common pleas. Attaching himself to Edward II, with whom he went to Scotland in 1310, Scrope withdrew from the parliament of 1311, in which the magnates placed restraints upon the king, and was peremptorily ordered to return. Edward entrusted him with a mission to Wales in 1314, and, on shaking off the control of the magnates promoted him (15 June 1317) to the chief-justiceship of the king's bench. Five years later Scrope received a share of the estates forfeited by the Earl of Lancaster's supporters, to which Edward added early in 1323 the Swaledale lands of Andrew de Harclay [q. v.] But towards the close of that year, for some unexplained reason, he was superseded as chief justice. He was almost immediately, however, appointed justice of the forests north of Trent, received a summons with the justices to the parliament of 1325, and in March 1326 was trying Yorkshire offenders by special commission (Parl. Writs, . i. 284, 335). On Edward III's accession he was replaced (5 Feb. 1327) on the bench as ‘second justice’ (the title was new) of the common pleas, his old post being occupied by his brother (cf. Scrope and Grosvenor Roll, ii. 13). In the summer he held an inquiry into a fray between the English and Hainaulters at York (Fœdera, iv. 292). From 28 Oct. 1329 to 19 Dec. 1330 he took the place of his brother, then absent abroad, as chief justice of the king's bench. On the latter date he was made chief baron of the exchequer, a post which he held until his death, though for a moment in November 1333 transferred to be chief justice of the common pleas; perhaps without his consent, for within twenty-four hours he received a new patent restoring him to his old place. Like his brother, Scrope was a knight banneret. He died on 6 Sept. 1336, and was buried in the Premonstratensian abbey of St. Agatha at Easby, close to Richmond, the patronage of which, with Burton Constable and other lands, he had purchased from the descendant