d Earl of Sunderland by Charles I., AD.
1628. {20f} Castle Combe in Wiltshire was one of their residences, {20g}
but their chief seat was Bolton in Richmondshire. {20h} William le
Scrope was created Earl of Wiltshire by Richard II., but beheaded when
that king was dethroned and murdered, in 1399. {20i} Richard le Scrope
was Archbishop of York, but condemned by Henry IV. for treason. {20j}
The name Le Scrope also appears in the Battle Abbey Roll of the
Conqueror. Thus in both Tibetots and Scropes Horncastle was connected
with families who played a considerable part in public life.

In the reign of Edward VI. there was a temporary change in the ownership
of this manor. Among the Carlisle Papers is one {20k} by which that king
grants permission to Robert Aldrich, Bishop of Carlisle, to sell "to our
very dear and faithful councellor, Edward Fynes, K.G., Lord Clinton and
Saye, High Admiral of England, the lordship and soke of Horncastre, with
all rights, appurtenances, &c., to hold to himself, his heirs and assigns
for ever," and that he, the said Edward, "can give and grant to the said
Robert, bishop, an annual rent of 28 pounds 6s. 8d." We have, however,
in this case an illustration of the instability even of royal decrees, in
that on the demise of that worthy prince, to whom the realm and Church of
England owe so much, his successor, Queen Mary, in the very next year,
A.D. 1553, cancelled this sale, and a document exists at Carlisle {21a}
showing that she "granted a licence," probably in effect compulsory, to
the same Lord Clinton and Saye, "to alienate his lordship and soke of
Horncastle and to re-convey it to Robert Aldrich, Bishop of Carlisle."

His Lordship would, however, appear to have continued to hold the manor
on lease under the bishop, and to have acted in a somewhat high-handed
manner to his spiritual superior, probably under the influence of the
change in religious sentiment between the reigns of "the bloody Mary,"
and her sister Elizabeth of glorious memory. For again we find a
document {21b} of the reign of the latter, in which the Bishop of
Carlisle complains to Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen's Commissioner,
of a "book of Horncastle," which the Earl of Lincoln (the new title of
Lord Clinton and Saye) had sent to him "to be sealed," because (he says)
the earl, by the words of the grant, had taken from him "lands and tithes
of the yearly value of 28 pounds 6s. 8d.," the exact sum, be it observed,
ab