church, but his younger brother, John, had married the widow of Northumberland's second son, and his sister Isabel was the wife of Sir Robert Plumpton of Plumpton, a wealthy tenant of Northumberland, near Spofforth. Hardyng, a retainer of the Percys, claimed (p. 351), after Scrope's death, that their rising in 1403 was entered upon ‘by the good advice and counsel of Master Richard Scrope.’ But he does not seem to have given them any overt support. They appealed, indeed, in their manifesto to his testimony that they had in vain sought peaceful redress of their grievances, but they joined his name with Archbishop Arundel's (ib. p. 353). When Henry came to York to receive Northumberland's submission, Scrope celebrated high mass in the minster (ib. ii. 211). It is hardly fair (Wylie, ii. 210) to connect his presence (with his suffragans) at the translation of the miracle-working bones of John of Bridlington [q. v.] on 11 May 1404 with the treasonable interpretation given two years before to the obscure prophecies attributed to this personage. Henry himself had in the interval granted privileges in honour of the ‘glorious and blessed confessor’ (ib. i. 272; Annales, p. 388).
Scrope joined the primate in stoutly resisting the spoliation of the church proposed by the ‘unlearned parliament’ of October 1404. Mr. Wylie thinks that he attended a council of the discontented lords in London as late as Easter (19 April) 1405; but this is putting some strain upon Hardyng's words (p. 362). It is certain, however, that in taking up arms at York in May, Scrope was acting in concert with Northumberland and Bardolf, who took advantage of Henry's departure for Wales to raise the standard of rebellion beyond the Tyne. One of the rebel lords, Thomas Mowbray, earl marshal [q. v.], was with him. The archbishop first made sure of local support by privately circulating a damaging indictment of Henry's government, which he declared himself ready to support to the death. It hit some very real blots on Henry's administration, and the known discontent which these had excited, and the high character of Scrope, gave reason to hope that the uprising would be general. Assured of armed support, he placarded York with the manifesto of the discontented in English. After a protest against holding parliament in places like Coventry under royal influence and interference with free election, three heads of reform were laid down. The estates of the realm, and particularly the clergy, were to be treated with less injustice, the nobles to be freed from the fear of destruction, and the heavy burden of taxation to be lightened by greater economy and the suppression of malversation. If these reforms were effected, they had the assurance of the Welsh rebels that Wales would quietly submit to English rule (Annales Henrici, p. 403; Walsingham, ii. 422). The procedure foreshadowed followed the precedent of those armed demonstrations against Richard II for the redress of grievances in which Henry himself had engaged. If Scrope indeed were really the author of another and much longer manifesto attributed to him (Historians of York, ii. 292), he was not going to be content with less than the deposition of a ‘perjured king’ and the restoration of the ‘right line.’ But Mr. Wylie (ii. 214) has thrown great doubt upon his authorship of this document. It would seem to follow, though Mr. Wylie does not draw the conclusion, that Scrope was not prepared to go the lengths which the Percys went when left to themselves, unless indeed we assume that his quasi-constitutional plan of campaign was a mere blind, like Henry's first declarations on landing in 1399.
Scrope expounded his manifesto in the minster, the neighbouring clergy in their churches. Gentle and simple, priests and villeins, flocked armed into York. The citizens rose in a body. The archbishop appeared among them in armour, urging and encouraging them to stand fast, with the promise of indulgence, and, if they fell, full remission of their sins. A ‘day of assignment’ had been arranged with Northumberland, but the rapid movements of the Earl of Westmorland and the king's second son, John, the wardens of the Scottish marches, disconcerted their plans. On 27 May Mowbray, Scrope, and his nephew, Sir William Plumpton, led out their ‘priestly rout,’ which soon grew to eight thousand men, under the banner of the five wounds, to join the forces gathering in Mowbray's country near Topcliffe. But at Shipton Moor, some six miles north-west of York, on the edge of the forest of Galtres, they encountered the royal army. Westmorland, not caring to attack with inferior numbers, is said to have waited for three days and then resorted to guile. He sent to demand the cause of all this warlike apparatus. Scrope replied that their object was peace, not war, and sent him a copy of their manifesto. The earl feigned approval of its tenor, and proposed a personal conference with the archbishop between the armies. Scrope accepted, and took the reluctant Mowbray with him. Westmorland assured him that nothing could be more
