Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/334

  house was in flames, Skeffington was with great difficulty ‘urged to move quick enough to make his escape. In the street he cut a most amusing figure, in his nightgown, without his hat, and his hair in paper’ (Music and Friends, i. 303–4). In June 1819 he was dubbed by Horace Smith ‘an admirable specimen of the florid Gothic’ (, Memoirs, ed. Russell, ii. 328).

Skeffington produced at Covent Garden Theatre on 26 May 1802 the comedy, in five acts, of the ‘Word of Honour’ (, English Stage, vii. 557–8), and at Drury Lane, on 27 May 1803, a second comedy, of the same length, entitled ‘The High Road to Marriage’ (ib. vii. 574). A greater measure of success fell to his melodrama, ‘The Sleeping Beauty,’ which was brought out at Drury Lane with great splendour on 6 Dec. 1805 (ib. vii. 702). The entire play was not printed, but a volume containing ‘the songs, duets, chorusses,’ was published in that month (Gent. Mag. 1805, ii. 1146). Skeffington is said to have written several other plays, viz. ‘Maids and Bachelors,’ Covent Garden, 6 June 1806, which was an alteration of ‘The High Road to Marriage’ (, viii. 19); ‘Mysterious Bride,’ Drury Lane, 1 June 1808 (ib. viii. 74); ‘Bombastes Furioso,’ possibly the play produced at the Haymarket on 7 Aug. 1810 (ib. viii. 203); ‘Ethelinde,’ an opera, produced at Drury Lane about 1810; and ‘Lose no Time,’ which came out at Drury Lane on 11 June 1813 (ib. viii. 359). Not one of these obtained any popularity. Several prologues by him were printed in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ (cf. 1792, i. 556).

Skeffington succeeded to the baronetcy and family property on his father's death in January 1815; but he had permitted his father to cut off the entail of their large estates, and his reckless extravagance had wasted the rest of his resources. He sought refuge for several years within the rules of the king's bench prison, living near the Surrey Theatre in Southwark. Some time before his death his means were augmented by the recovery of an hereditary estate producing about 800l. per annum; but he failed in his action in 1838 to obtain possession of the Hubbert property at Rotherhithe. He still continued to live in the southern suburbs, and it was at that time that Henry Vizetelly made his acquaintance. He was ‘a quiet, courteous, aristocratic-looking old gentleman, an ancient fop … wore false hair, and rouged his cheeks.’ He entertained, and had great store of anecdote. It was his boast that the secret of life lay in ‘never stirring out of doors during the cold damp winter months, and in living in a suite of rooms,’ so that he could constantly shift from one to another (Glances Back, pp. 111–12). He died, unmarried, in lodgings near the Indigent Blind School, St. George's Fields, Southwark, on 10 Nov. 1850, and was buried at Norwood cemetery on 15 Nov. The title became extinct.

Skeffington's portrait, engraved by Ridley and Holl from an original miniature by Barber, is prefixed to the ‘Monthly Mirror,’ vol. xxi.

[Gent. Mag. 1805 ii. 1120–1, 1815 i. 185, 1851 i. 198–200, 289; Baker's Biogr. Dramatica, i. 671–2; Monthly Mirror, xxi. 5–8, 78–9, 220–221, 1806; Nichols's Leicestershire, iii. 450; Gillray's Works, 1873, pp. 266, 274, 282; Wright and Evans's Caricatures of Gillray, pp. 203, 456–7, 462, 471; Robinson's Romeo Coates, pp. 170–4.]

 SKEFFINGTON, WILLIAM, called ‘’ (d. 1535), lord deputy of Ireland, eldest son of Thomas Skeffington or Skevyngton of Skeffington in Leicestershire, and Mary, his wife, emerges from obscurity as sheriff of the counties of Warwick and Leicester in the last year of the reign of Henry VII, by whom he is said to have been knighted. He was appointed master of the ordnance by Henry VIII, and continued to hold that post till 1529, taking part in that capacity in the military enterprises of the first half of the reign, and between 1520 and 1528 was frequently employed in attending to the fortifications of the English Pale in France. He was returned M.P. for Leicester in 1529, and in August of that year was appointed deputy to the Duke of Richmond, lord lieutenant of Ireland. His appointment was indicative of an attempt on the part of Henry to recover for the crown that supremacy in Irish affairs which its own former weakness had allowed to slip into the hands of one or other of the great Anglo-Norman families, and of the house of Kildare in particular. It was the first time that the government of the country had been entrusted to a simple gentleman possessing no personal influence and deriving his importance solely from the monarch whose servant he was. Had indeed Wolsey, by whom the policy was dictated, continued in power, his hatred to the head of the Leinster Geraldines might have been productive of serious consequences. As it was, the downfall of the cardinal at the very moment, and the restoration of the Earl of Kildare [ ninth ] to favour, practically deprived Skeffington's appointment of its significance. The instructions delivered to him touched the preservation of order in the Pale and its defence against the attacks of