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THE SCROPES. 93
Life was lightly valued in those days, and "Sic volo sic jubeo" often
the policy of kings, but such an act as this
could not be tamely submitted
to. In vain were logs of wood laid upon the grave. The people flocked
in numbers to offer prayers as at a shrine of a saint ; and doubtless they
but expressed the wide-spread feeling amongst those whose sentiments it
would be dangerous policy to disregard. The Scropes were amongst the
most powerful families in the land, and certainly they, and the members
of the other noble houses with whom, they were related, would resent
that
the distinguished son of the head of the branch of Bolton, and the no less
distinguished brother of the head of the branch of Masham, should, by the
same hand, be laid in bloody graves.
Then there were the clergy to be reckoned with. John of Gaunt, his
father, had been more than suspected of favouring John Wycliffe and the
Lollards. Henry had lately found it expedient, therefore, to consent to
the burning of William Sawtre, or Chatrys, on that charge, a penalty never
before heard of in England. The ecclesiastical spirit was not to be trifled
with. Such an event as Scrope's death might
reactionary policy.
And therefore he may have deemed it wise
well seem to indicate a
to temporise, and to seek
to reconcile his aggrieved and angry subjects in the north by honouring
the persons and the memories of the houses which they loved. Perhaps,
too, he remembered the trouble and dishonour to which his predecessor,
Henry II., had had to submit for the death of Becket.
And so young Henry Scrope, now third Baron of Masham, the
nephew of the Archbishop, was received into royal favour, and sent as
ambassador to Denmark the following year, 1406, and to France in 1408.
His wife, Philippa, daughter of Sir Guy de Bryan, had died in 1406, and
this year he married Joan Holland, second wife and widow of Edmund,
Duke of York and Earl of Cambridge, the King's uncle. Surely the house
of Scrope must have seemed to be again in the ascendant by such a
brilliant alliance. Additional tokens of royal confidence followed. In
1409 he was made Treasurer of England. In 1413 he was again sent as
ambassador to the Duke of Burgundy, and the year following to France,
perhaps to communicate to the King the accession of Henry V. to the
throne, for Henry IV. died that year. At any rate it is evident that he
was in his favour, for the year following he was employed by him as one
of the ambassadors sent to Charles VI. demanding the crown of France
as the heir of Isabella, mother of his great-grandfather, Edward III., with
the quaint but characteristic alternative that he would marry his daughter
Catherine if he consented, or fight him if he did not.
The King of France naturally chose the latter; and after many
fruitless negotiations, war was declared, and Henry, with his customary
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