SCRIVEN, Reginald (1551-1636), of Frodesley, Salop.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

bap. 20 Sept. 1551 at Frodesley, 2nd s. of Thomas Scriven of Frodesley by Elizabeth, da. of John Leighton of Wattlesburgh. educ. Shrewsbury 1562; All Souls, Oxf., fellow 1569, BA 1572, MA 1577. m. Elizabeth, da. of William Swanne of Branxston, Northumb., wid. of Fulk Onslow of Herts.

Offices Held

Sec. to Thomas Bromley as ld. chancellor from 1583.

Receiver and surveyor, duchy of Lancaster manor of Tutbury; receiver, duchy of Lancaster manor of Castle Donington.

Biography

Scriven’s seat at Frodesley was near Shrewsbury, which he represented in five Parliaments. Though he was educated there and his sister Elizabeth married a Shrewsbury man, Robert Ireland, Scriven himself was not a burgess of the town, and might never have been returned except for Shrewsbury’s increasing difficulty in meeting parliamentary expenses, and perhaps a feeling of exhaustion in the corporation following a long duel between the mercers and the drapers. In 1588, the council asked their recorder, Thomas Owen, whether they were obliged to return a resident burgess; he replied that they were not, and Scriven continued to represent the borough throughout the reign, being preferred, in 1597, to a nominee of the Earl of Essex.

Scriven’s name appears on a list of candidates for knighthoods at James I’s coronation, marked ‘not knighted’: it is unlikely that this was because his death intervened, for in 1636 the Condover register records the burial of ‘Reinold Scriven, gent.’. If this is the Shrewsbury MP he would have been 85, a good age for the period.

Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 271; (xxix), 435; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 4), xii. 193; SP46/71/64; PRO Index, duchy of Lancaster patents, p. 15; Shrewsbury mss 76.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: J.J.C.

Notes