Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/367

 always of opinion in the Long parliament the more liberty the greater mischief’ (, Parliamentary Diary, i. 24, 48, 101, 218). The Protector summoned Skippon to sit in his House of Lords (December 1657), and he was so generally respected that even the republican pamphleteers found nothing except political inconsistency to allege against the choice (Harleian Miscellany, iii. 478). When the Protector died, Skippon was one of the dignitaries who signed the proclamation of Richard as his successor (3 Sept. 1658), but he was so little identified with the Cromwellian régime that the restored Long parliament reappointed him major-general of the London militia (27 July 1659), and commander-in-chief of all the forces within the limits of the weekly bills of mortality (2 Aug. 1659; Commons' Journals, vii. 707, 745; Cromwelliana, p. 176). Age and infirmity prevented him from taking any active part in the revolutions of the next few months, and he died about the beginning of March 1660. His will, dated 20 Feb. 1659–60, was proved on 25 Oct. following (, p. 440).

Skippon was the author of three religious books: 1. ‘A Salve for every Sore, or a Collection of Promises out of the whole Book of God, and is the Christian Centurion's infallible Ground of Confidence,’ 1643, 12mo. A second enlarged edition, entitled ‘A Pearl of Price, in a Collection of Promises,’ &c., appeared in 1649. 2. ‘True Treasure, or Thirty Holy Vows, containing a brief sum of all that concerns the Christian Centurion's conscionable Walking with God,’ 1644, 12mo. 3. ‘The Christian Centurion's Observations, Advices, and Resolutions, containing matters divine and moral, collected according to his own experience, by Philip Skippon,’ &c., 1645, 12mo. All three are practical works of devotion addressed to his fellow-soldiers, with rude verses of his own interspersed. The third contains some recollections of his service in Holland. Skippon's other writings consist of despatches printed in pamphlet form during the civil war.

Skippon married twice: first, Maria Comes at Frankenthal in the Netherlands, on 14 May 1622; she died on 24 Jan. 1655, aged 54, and was buried in the chancel of Acton church, where a monument to her memory was erected (, Hundred of Launditch, p. 438;, Hist. of Foulsham, pp. 80, 97; cf. Commons' Journals, vi. 535). Skippon's second wife was Katherine Philips, widow. Skippon left a daughter Susanna, married to Richard, eldest son of Sir William Meredith, bart., on 5 April 1655 (, p. 441). His will also mentions two other daughters. Skippon's son by his first wife, Philip Skippon, was knighted on 19 April 1674 (, Knights, p. 298).

Portraits of Skippon, with short memoirs annexed, are given in John Vicars's ‘England's Worthies,’ 1647, p. 50, and in Ricraft's ‘England's Champions,’ 1647, p. 55. A list of others is given in the ‘Catalogue of the Sutherland Collection’ in the Bodleian Library, ii. 114.

[In 1648 a poem was published entitled Truths Triumph, or a Just Vindication of Major-Gen. Skippon, 4to; Carthew's Hundred of Launditch; Noble's House of Cromwell, ed. 1787, i. 398; other authorities mentioned in the article.]

 SKIPWITH, WILLIAM  (fl. 1380), judge, was second son of William de Skipwith, by Margaret, daughter of Ralph FitzSimon of Ormsby, Lincolnshire. He was descended from Osmund, younger son of Robert de Stuteville [q. v.], who in the reign of Henry III assumed the name of Skipwith from his lordship in Yorkshire. Skipwith succeeded to the family estates in 1336, on the death of his father and elder brother. He is stated on somewhat doubtful evidence to have been a member of Gray's Inn, and to have been the first reader there. He frequently appears as counsel in the year-books from 1343 onwards. On 18 Nov. 1350 he was one of the commissioners to carry out the proclamation concerning the moderation of wages and prices in Lindsey (Fœdera, iii. 211; Rot. Parl. ii. 455). In 1354 he was appointed one of the king's serjeants, and on 25 Oct. 1359 was made one of the judges of the court of common pleas, and soon afterwards knighted. In 1362 he became chief baron, and was a trier of petitions in the parliaments of October 1362, October 1363, and January 1365. On 29 Oct. 1365 Skipwith and Sir Henry Green [q. v.], the chief justice of the king's bench, were removed from office for having acted against law and justice, and obtained large sums of money unjustly (, Edward III, pp. 624, 667). Barnes also states that they were for ever excluded from the king's favour. But the exact accuracy of these statements is open to question, and Skipwith certainly regained the king's confidence, for on 15 Feb. 1370 he was appointed chief justice of the king's bench in Ireland, and on 21 Feb. received forty marks for his expenses (Fœdera, iii. 887; Issue Roll, p. 458). On 8 Oct. 1376 he was restored to his old place as justice of the common pleas in England, and in the Michaelmas sessions of that year delivered the judgment of the court in the case of the Bishop of St. Davids and John Wyton. He