 | | Skrine of Warleigh | | | CHAPTER 1 | | The Skrines of Forde and Warley | | he family of Skrine has been associated with the parish of Bathford, near Bath, since the middle of the fifteenth century. Its earlier origins are still the subject of inquiry, and it is not impossible that further search might establish the alleged connection with the ancient family of Skerne of Skerne in Yorkshire, which spread southwards through Lincolnshire into Essex, Surrey, Berks, Herts, and Dorset.
The name Skrine has been spelled in a great variety of different ways - Skryn,Skryne, Scryne, Scrine, Screene, Skreen, Skrene, etc., and it would seem thatSkyrne (also Skerne, Skearne, Skyren) and Skerwen are both variants of Skrine,since the Berkshire Will of Sir William Skerwen, clerk in Holy Orders, (P.C.C.33 Holgrave), proved at Lambeth 28th June 1505 by John Skrine his brother, rendersthe name Skerwen, Skyrne, and Skrine in the course of this short document.
The possibility thus suggested that the family may have sprung from that of Skerneof Skerne, to which further reference will be made later on, may have a bearingon the close similarity of the Arms borne by the two families.
The Skerne family had a traditional descent from a younger branch of the royalhouse of Castile and Leon, as stated in Hutchin's History of Dorset (edn. 1861,vol. i, p. 145, giving a reference to Coker, p. 108).
The Skrine family has been seated at Warleigh Manor in the parish of Bathford,co. Somerset, since 1634-5 when Henry Skrine, second son of John Skrine of theCourt House and Warley, and grandson of Thomas Skrine of Bathford, who was acopyholder in the manor of Forde, became its owner by purchase. At the same timehis elder brother, Thomas Skrine, similarly acquired the manor of Bathford, whichwith Warley and certain portions of the property assigned to William Fisher ofBathampton, the third co-purchaser, made up the original manor of Forde withWarley.
Though the actual purchase of the property was undertaken 12th February 1635,when their agents, Thomas Blanchard of Batheaston and Robert Rendall, boughtit from William Rolfe, Esqr., "with the monies and in behalf of WilliamFisher of Bathampton, gentleman, Thomas Skrine of Bathford, yeoman, and HenrySkrine the elder of Warley, yeoman", the manorial rights do not appear tohave been acquired until Easter 1636, at which date a fresh concord was drawnup between Thomas Blanchard, gent., and Robert Rendell, gent., and William Rolfe,Esqr., and Sarah his wife.
Four and a half years after the original Deed of Sale executed by William Rolfethe manor was divided into three sub-manors (12th October, 1639), by a writ "departicipatione facienda" out of the Court of Chancery, directed to Sir WilliamPortman, Bart., then Sheriff of the county of Somerset, "for the partingand dividing of the said manor tenements rents and common of pasture with theappurtenances in three equal parts according to the form of the Statute in thatbehoof made and provided". Warleigh thus became for the first time a separatemanor, and has ever since remained the home of the Skrines. But the family hadbeen resident in Bathford for at least two hundred years before this date, theirname not appearing in the Court Rolls of Forde before 1446 so far as at presentascertained. The earliest lineal ancestor yet identified was Thomas Skrine, theelder, the grandfather of Thomas and Henry the co-purchasers with William Fisher,who flourished as a yeoman, maltster and churchwarden in the sixteenth century,and died in 1574.
The William Rolfe, who sold the manor to these co-purchasers, was William Rolfe,Esqr., of the Inner Temple, London, son and heir of William Rolfe, citizen andvintner of London, who left it in the hands of trustees for his son's benefit,having purchased it 6th May 1582/3 (16 James 1) from "Susanna Ducke" ofBray, co. Berks.
Susan Duck, who had succeeded her late husband as farmer of the manor, boughtit from William Cecil, second Earl of Salisbury, 18th April, 12 James I. It hadremained in the hands of the Crown from the time of the dissolution of the monasteriesuntil 1608 when it was granted by the King to Robert Cecil, the first earl, duringhis tenure of the office of principal Secretary of State, by Letters Patent 27thMay, 5 James 1, whereby the King did give grant, etc., to Robert, Earl of Sarisburiehis heirs and assigns, (inter alia), the Manor of Fourde, alias Bathford, incounties Somerset and Wilts . . . late parcel of the then late priory of Bath,etc. To be held of the said King his heirs and successors as of his manor ofEast Greenwich in co. Kent by fealty in free and common soccage and not in capiteor by knight's service under the yearly rental of £37 11s. 9d. payableinto the receipt of the Exchequer.
Some portion of William Fisher's share of the property long remained in the handsof his descendants, one of whom - a Miss Briscoe - still retained a part of itin the nineteenth century when H.D.S. wrote his sketch of the history of Bathford.But other parts of it were soon purchased by the Warleigh family, to whom alsothe greater part of Thomas Skrine's estate passed gradually, by purchase or exchange,in the course of the next fifty years following the division of the manor. Andin 1691 the representatives and successors of Henry Skrine's two co-beneficiariesin the purchase of the manor conveyed to John Skrine of Warleigh Manor and ofthe Middle Temple, esquire, grandson of the said Henry, all the manorial rightsof Forde. These rights were, thereafter, exercised continuously by the Head ofthe Warleigh family until the Inclosure Act of 1866.
The Indentures of 1691 above referred to were made, in the one case between "ThomasFisher of Shotterwick in Bathford, gentleman, son and heir of the late ThomasFisher of Shotterwick, son and heir of William Fisher of Bathampton", andJohn Skrine; and in the other case between "John Skrine of Bath, gentleman,son and heir of John Skrine then late of Bathford, gentleman, deceased, who wasson and heir of John Skrine of the same place, who was son and heir of ThomasSkrine of the same place", and John Skrine.
We are still very much in the dark as to the exact train of circumstances whichprovided Thomas and Henry Skrine with the means to purchase the manor in whichthey, and their father and grandfather and at least one or two preceding generationsof Skrines had been yeomen, holding their lands by copy of Court Roll on a tenureof three lives. The price which they and William Fisher paid for the estate was £2,700,which was a very considerable sum of money for those days. (The term "Yeoman" hada different signification in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from thatwhich it has to-day. "Gentlemen of Coat-Armour" were frequently called "Yeomen" inthe Tudor and Stuart periods if they did not hold large estates. In legal documentsthe term was employed to describe a small freeholder who was not a magistrate;the epithet gives, therefore, when found in ancient deeds, little or no clueto the social status of the person so designated).
It is, of course, possible that the Skrines, becoming sheep-farmers, profitedlargely by the continued growth of the woollen industry in Somerset, which there,as in the Cotswold country, Wiltshire and elsewhere, brought affluence and positionto so many successful families. And it is interesting to note that about thistime, and a little later, we find various members of collateral branches of thefamily appearing as "clothiers". Moreover, the devices on various familyseals about this date are similar in character to those used by merchants ofthe staple in the Cotswolds and elsewhere.
But there are other and more romantic possibilities. It is always a task of extremedifficulty to apportion the precise degree of credence and attention, if any,which should be accorded to "family tradition" when unsupported byevidence capable of proof. It may occur from time to time that some such tradition,long held as an article of faith, receives eventually full, or partial, confirmationby the discovery of actual documentary evidence. But it is probably true to sayof genuine traditions in general that there is a definite tendency towards displacementin time. Periods become shortened, generations fall out and are forgotten, actionsand events long past are brought down to more recent dates.
In the Skrine family a strong Spanish tradition seems to have been current forquite a long, though somewhat indeterminate, period. If it should eventuallyprove to be the case that the Skrines were really descended from the family ofSkerne, it is not impossible that some dim memory of this ancestry, with itsalleged descent from the house of Castile and Leon, might explain the originof such a tradition. But, however this may be, the Spanish story reappeared inan astonishingly garbled form in the last century, when Burke's Landed Gentryprinted in earlier editions, the surprising statement that the family was firstestablished in England by a certain "Don Eskrino", a Spanish gentlemanwho, coming to England in the train of Philip of Spain, settled in the country,and became the founder of the Skrine family. The legend was unfortunate in overlookingthe fact that at the date in question Skrines had already been living in Bathfordfor some century and a half.
A later hypothesis, which, though it is at present incapable of direct proof,is not incompatible with any known facts, is to the effect that the fortunesof the family were founded by a certain Richard Skrine, who was one of the youngersons of Thomas Skrine, the elder.
This Richard Skrine was an undoubted and genuine personage. He is named in hisfather's Will, and in that of his eldest brother, John Skrine of Court House.A Richard Skrine, as to whom there is no direct evidence whether he was the sameRichard or not, died overseas in or about 1634, since administration of his estatewas taken out in May 1635 by one William Smith. The record in the AdministrationBook of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury (P.C.C.), 29th May 1635, reads "vicesimonono die emanavit commissio Willmo. Smith creditori Richdi. Skreene nuper inpartibus ultramarinis celebis decedentis etc.".
Tradition states that Richard Skrine entered the service of Philip of Spain,that he gained high favour with his master, and that he amassed a respectablefortune in the course of an adventurous career. In reward for some signal serviceto the Spanish Crown he is said to have been granted the Arms of Castile andLeon, with tinctures reversed, which Arms were thereafter borne by the family.It is from him that the family is said to inherit certain interesting objects,which have been carefully preserved. These are a three-sided silver seal of theArms; an ancient silver reliquary in the form of a Cross, said to enclose a fragmentof the true Cross, a relic of St. Ignatius Loyola, and some other relic; anda miniature, which is supposed to represent Richard himself. There is also anold silver medal with a Dutch (or Flemish) inscription, showing on the obversethe marriage ceremony of two persons-the lady crowned, the man bare-headed; andon the reverse the marriage of Cana in Galilee. Each of these objects might perhapsyield important information in regard to date and origin on careful expert examination.
If, as is not impossible, evidence were eventually discovered to prove that RichardSkrine was actually the founder of the family fortunes, the fact that WilliamFisher of Bathampton shared with Thomas and Henry Skrine in the purchase of FordeManor would suggest that he was in some way nearly related to Richard. Possiblyhe was the son of one of Richard's three sisters, Alice, Joan, and Elizabeth,of whom at present we know little beyond their names.
If the accession of the family to a position of affluence was really due to thesuccess of the Richard Skrine who died in 1634, the time of his decease fitsremarkably well with the date at which the first steps were taken in the purchaseof the estate of Forde Manor. An agreement for the purchase of the estate fromWilliam Rolfe was made by Thomas Blanchard and Robert Rendall on 12th February1635. There followed an Indenture of 20th March 1635 between Thomas Blanchardand Robert Rendall of the one part, and William Fisher, Thomas Skrine and HenrySkrine of the other part, reciting the Indenture of 12th February 1635 and testifyingthat it was made by Blanchard and Rendall "by the direction and appointmentand at the costs of William Fisher, Thomas Skrine and Henry Skrine, meant andintended for the only good of the said William Fisher, Thomas Skrine and HenrySkrine, their heirs, and to be at their and their heirs only disposition etc.".There followed a final concord for the purchase of the Manor at Easter 1636.
Whatever be the facts in regard to Richard Skrine, we may at any rate safelyassume that the Fishers were in some way closely connected with the Skrines.But there are also other lines of inquiry which, if they could be followed upto a successful conclusion, might prove of great interest. For example, therewas a Skrine connection - so far as name goes - with the wealthy merchant familyof Thorne of Bristol. This family gave Bristol a mayor, a member of Parliamentand the founder of the Grammar School, as well as a succession of most worthyand wealthy citizens. It was largely engaged in the Spanish trade, and at leastone member of the family, Robert Thorne, resided in Spain for a number of yearsand was knighted in Seville (see Spain and the West Country by J. A. Fraser,1935, p. 111 et seq.). The Will, (dated 1547 and proved 1556), of John Thorneof "Bristowe", merchant, son of Nicholas Thorne, mayor of Bristol,and nephew of Robert Thorne, M.P., the founder of the Grammar School, names hisson-in-law, John Skrine, as one of his executors (1556; P.C.C. 22 Ketchy). Butwe do not at present know exactly who this John Skrine was, nor in what relationship,if any, he stood to Thomas Skrine, the elder, of Bathford. Was he the John Scryneof the 1539 Manor Roll? As a matter of speculation, it is not inconceivable thatsome member of Thomas's family (Richard, for example) might have been taken intothe Thorne's Spanish business, and made a fortune there; but it would be a mereguess. Incidentally, it may be worth noting here that John Thorne's mother wasBridget Milles of Hampton (query Bathampton).
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