Family and Education

Offices Held

Collector of taxes, Yorks. (N. Riding) Dec. 1421, Oct. 1422.

Commr. of inquiry, Yorks. Feb. 1422 (falsifiers and counterfeiters).

Biography

Scalby was almost certainly a lawyer, and first appears in 1409 (and again one year later) acting as an attorney for John Hawkswell in a dispute over a grant by royal letters patent of certain confiscated estates in Yorkshire. He was at this time appointed by the sheriff of Yorkshire to summon one of the claimants to the office of forester of Pickering to defend his title in court, so he must already have enjoyed some local influence. His own estates lay in Malton, where he was living when, in July 1420, he offered sureties of £40 in Chancery on behalf of a local woman who had been accused of disturbing the peace. His own connexions with Appleby are now hard to determine, but he was not the first Yorkshire lawyer to represent the borough during our period (Robert Gare had done so in both 1395 and 1402), and the fact that he was frequently present at Westminster on local business must have recommended him to the electors. In July 1421, for example, he again acted as a mainpernor in Chancery, this time for two Yorkshiremen summoned to appear before the royal council.1

In November 1421 Scalby joined with Robert Thorneff in taking on the lease of the manor of Arncliffe and other property in Yorkshire which had been confiscated by the Crown from an outlaw. Shortly afterwards he was made a collector of taxes in the North Riding, being again chosen for this task in the following year. He also served on at least one royal commission of inquiry, but he did not otherwise pursue an active career as an administrator. In 1424 Scalby gave the prior of the Augustinian house of Warter in Yorkshire a recognizance for £16, pledging his own holdings in the county and in the city of York as security for this sum. He is last mentioned in June 1429, when royal letters of protection accorded to him as a member of Sir Robert Ogle’s* retinue at Roxburgh castle in Scotland were rescinded because he had stayed in London rather than take up his duties in the north.2

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

• 1. CCR, 1405-9, pp. 24-25, 439; 1419-22, pp. 110, 207; CPR, 1408-13, p. 20.
• 2. CFR, xiv. 420-1; 1422-9, pp. 192, 538.