heraldryofyorkmi01custuoft

THE SCROPES. 87
prisonment of the unfortunate Richard, who had loaded himself and his
son with honours, but he does not appear to have taken part in public
affairs again. Once he attended Parliament, when the attainder of his
son, the Earl of Wilts, was confirmed. Rising from his seat, his eyes
streaming with tears, the venerable peer, while he admitted the justice of
the sentence and deplored the conduct of his son, besought that the
proceedings might not affect the inheritance of himself and his other
children. Was it a consolation, unmixed with bitterness, that King Henry
comforted him with the assurance that he had always considered him a
loyal knight ?
One other member of this branch of the family deserves our attention
as connected with the Minster, viz., his grandson, another Sir Richard
Scrope, third Baron Scrope of Bolton. He seems, on ;th February, 1418,
with his servants and a certain John Hoton, to have " attacked one Richard
" Hemmingburgh, a serving-man, and one of the family of the Reverend
" Master Richard Cawood, canon residentiary of the church of York afore-
"said, did savagely wound him, and him so wounded did leave half dead."
Sir Thomas Haxey, the treasurer, with Master William Cawood and
Master William Pelleson, the canons residentiary, met together in
chapter
at once, and pronounced "the greater excommunication" against Sir
Richard and his friends. Moreover, they
decreed that divine service
should cease to be celebrated in the Choir, and take place in the chapel
of St. Mary and Holy Angels, " in a low voice, without the melody of organ
" or free chanting whatsoever, until the time of the humiliation and sub-
" mission of the said violators, and the parsons and vicars of the Cathedral
" Church, from the impulse of their own conscience, desisting or refraining
"from the celebration of their masses in the said Cathedral Church."
Also
" every day they went down into the Nave to denounce as excom-
" municated persons the violators aforesaid." On the Sunday following
they went in procession through the passage leading to the palace as far
as the Archbishop's hall, and round the garden of the palace and " all
;
" the doors of the church were strongly bolted, except one valve of the
"south door." On the i5th February following, the chapter assembled
again, and commissioned " that religious man, Brother Thomas de Spofford,
" abbot of the monasterie of St. Mary of York, to absolve in form of law
" Sir Richard Scrope, John Hoton, together with their accomplices," who
on the same day appeared and submitted themselves, swearing on the
gospels that they would abide by the commands of the Church and humbly
fulfil the penance to be imposed upon them. Upon which the abbot
enjoined Sir Richard to make sufficient reparation to the person injured,
and then to enter by the western door, having laid aside his belt, carrying
aloft and publicly in his hand his dagger drawn, the handle thereof being