page_title: William Scrope, 1st Earl of Wiltshire
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: William Scrope, 1st Earl of Wiltshire / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Sir William le Scrope, KG FOX-DAVIES, Arthur Charles, The Art of Heraldry: An Encyclopedia of Armory, London: T. C. &amp; E. C. Jack, 1904. Print. – Chapter XXXI, p. 480: “ Fig. 692.—Arms of William Le Scrope, Earl of Wiltes (d. 1399): Quarterly, 1 and 4, the arms of the Isle of Man, a label argent; 2 and 3, azure, a bend or, a label gules. (From Willement's Roll, sixteenth century.) ”
context_page_description: William le Scrope, 1st Earl of Wiltshire, King of Mann KG was a close supporter of King Richard II of England. He was a second son of Richard le Scrope, 1st Baron Scrope of Bolton.
context_section_description: He was a soldier-adventurer in Lithuania, Italy and France, where he served with John of Gaunt. Gaunt made him seneschal of Aquitaine in 1383. 
  He was made vice-chamberlain of the household of King Richard II in 1393 and granted the castle and manor of Marlborough in Wiltshire. In the same year his father purchased for him the Isle of Man from the earl of Salisbury, giving him the nominal title Dominus de Man or King of Mann. In 1394 he became a Knight of the Garter.
  He was created Earl of Wiltshire in 1397 and became Lord High Treasurer in 1398. He became effective head of the government in Richard's absence. He benefitted from the confiscated estates of Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, who was kept for a time under his care in the Isle of Man, and of John of Gaunt; he also accumulated control of a number of strategic castles. He was left 2,000 marks in King Richard's will in April 1399.
  He had been closely involved in Richard's second marriage to the 6-year-old Isabella of Valois in 1396  and was made Isabella's guardian at Wallingford Castle, of which he was castellan, when the King went to Ireland in 1399.
  Together with Sir John Bussy, Sir William Bagot and Sir Henry Green he had been made responsible for assisting Edmund of Langley, Duke of York in the defence of the realm during Richard's absence, when the exiled Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford seized his chance to invade. Scrope was captured with Bussy and Green when Bristol Castle surrendered to Henry on 28 July 1399. He was executed without trial at Bristol Castle, together with Bussy and Green, and his head carried to London in a white basket to be displayed on London Bridge. After Hereford's ascendance to the throne as Henry IV, Parliament confirmed the sentence and determined that all his estates and title were to be forfeit to the crown.
caption: Arms of Sir William le Scrope, Knight of the Garter.
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