Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scrope of Bolton

Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scrope of Bolton (1567 – 2 September 1609) was the son of Henry Scrope, 9th Baron Scrope of Bolton and Margaret Howard, daughter of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey and Frances de Vere.

Lord Scrope with his mother, Margaret Howard.

Coat of arms of Sir Thomas Scrope, 10th Baron Scrope of Bolton, KG

He was knight of the shire (MP) for Cumberland from 1584 to 1586 and from 1588 to 1593.[1]

He held the office of Warden of the English West March from 1593 until the Union of the Crowns of England and Scotland in 1603. He was made a Knight of the Garter in 1599.

While Scrope was Warden, the outlaw Kinmont Willie Armstrong was arrested (in violation of a truce day) and imprisoned at Carlisle Castle. Scrope had only recently been appointed to the post of Warden, and he was unsure of what to do with an outlaw who had been illegally arrested. On 13 April 1596, as a result of a raid orchestrated by Walter Scott, 1st Lord Scott of Buccleuch, Kinmont Willie was freed. In a failed attempt to recapture Kinmont Willie, Scrope "burnt the towns of Annan and Dumfries to the ground, capturing two hundred prisoners whom he marched home 'naked, chained together on leashes'. This caused a major diplomatic incident." [2]

Scrope derived a significant part of his income from coal mining at Preston in Wensleydale.[3]

He died at the village of Langar in Nottinghamshire, England in 1609. In 1584, he had married Philadelphia Carey, daughter of Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon and Ann Morgan. They had one child Emanuel Scrope, 1st Earl of Sunderland. In the village church at Langar is to be found a magnificent memorial to him. His tomb is adorned with an effigy of himself, his wife and their son Emmanuel.