The Battle Abbey Roll. Vol. III.
by
The Duchess of Cleveland.
Prepared by Michael A. Linton
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Sent Scudemore : The prefix to this name here given, and given, as far as I am aware, here only—alludes to its sacred significance, as a contraction of Escu d'Amour, the Shield of Divine Love. "The Surname of the Scudamores," as their historian tells us, "was derived from their bearing Scutum Amoris Divinis, which was antiently their arms, and in all Probability was given upon some gallant Action done by them in Defence of the Christian Faith." Their Cross patee fitchee Or was, however, in course of time exchanged for the arms of the great heiress through whom they were transplanted into Herefordshire. She bore three stirrups leathered and buckled Or:—scarcely a fitting substitute for the Escu d'Amour as the emblem of Divine Love; and in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Sir John Scudamore, who held an office at Court, thought it well to recall the memory of the original bearing. "And to make his Atchievement in all points complete," says Guillym, "he hath annexed this Motto or Device placed in an Escrole underneath his Shield, Scuto Amoris Divini. Manifesting thereby his confident affiance in the most puissant protection and never failing helpe of the Almighty against all adverse events and occurents: grounding his assurance upon the saying of the Kingly-Prophet David, Psal. v. 13: 'For thou Lord wilt give thy blessing unto the righteous, and with thy favourable kindnesse wilt defend him as with a shield.' This noble knight hath so honourably deserved, both of his Country in generall, by procuring (together with his Lady) the Building of the goodly Bridge neere unto Rosse, over the River Wye, and likewise of my selfe in particular: as I held my selfe obliged in a double band of loving respect to yeeld him in this place, this due acknowledgement of his worthy vertues."
The family was first seated in Wiltshire, where Walter de Escudemore was Lord of Upton, near Warminster, in the time of Stephen. "In 1165 Geoffrey de Scudimore" (perhaps his son) "was a baron in Wilts (Liber Niger), and had sub-enfeoffed Waleran de Scudimore and Walter Gifford. He also held four fees of ancient enfeoffment from Robert D'Evias of Hereford (Ibid.)"—The Norman People. The latter was by "the finding one white Warhorse Every Year for the Service of a Centinel at the Castle of Ewyas, under his Custody or Guard." Peter de Schidimore was Sheriff of Dorset and Somerset in 1197 and 1199: and Sir Godfrey Scudamore Sheriff of Wilts in 1258. He married the heiress of Gifford of Brimsfield, and was the father of Sir Peter, "a man of eminence" who kept great state at Upton, and founded a chantry in the church. His effigy, and that of his wife Margery, remain in the N. aisle, still called Scudamore's Aisle. It was his grandson Thomas who, though a younger brother, "became a greater man than the elder, by marrying Clare, daughter and heir of Ewyas." The line of Upton-Scudamore ended with his nephew Peter, whose heiress married John de Keynes; and their former manor-house has disappeared, but, from some traces that were yet visible in the last century, is conjectured to have stood "in a fair meadow adjoining the church-yard." Besides Upton, Norton Skydmore and Warminster Skydmore bore the name in Wiltshire.
The posterity of the fortunate younger brother continues to flourish in Herefordshire. His wife Clare (or Clarice) was the eldest daughter of Clare de Ewyas, Lady of Ewyas Harold, and both he and his son Philip took her name. Philip's grandson and namesake "first planted himself at Holme-Lacy," which came to him from the Tregoz family, and is still, after the lapse of four hundred and fifty years, the home of his descendants. Sir John Scudamore, Gentleman Usher to Henry VIII., was High Sheriff of Hereford for three years: and his grandson (Gwillym's Sir John) was one of Queen Elizabeth's Council for the Marches of Wales, and Standard Bearer of the Gentlemen Pensioners. He and his son Sir James were both of them intimate friends of Sir John Bodley, and contributors to the noble library that he bequeathed to Oxford. Sir James had been knighted at the siege of Cadiz, and was "renowned for chivalry": "a man," says Fuller, "famous and fortunate in his time"; and preserved from oblivion in our own as the "gentle Sir Scudamour" of Spenser's 'Faerie Queene.'
John, the next heir, inherited the literary tastes of his father and grandfather, and was so ardent a student at Magdalen College, that his friend Bishop Laud bade him "Book it not too much." He entered parliament and received a baronetcy when he came of age in 1620; was created Viscount Scudamore of Sligo by Charles I. in 1628; and seven years afterwards appointed Ambassador to the Court of Louis XIII. He gave offence at Paris by refusing to attend the Huguenot church at Charenton, as former Ambassadors had done, "but furnish'd his own Chappel in his House, with such Ornaments (as Candles upon the Communion Table and the like), as gave great Offence and Umbrage to those of the Reformation there, who had not seen the like; besides that he was careful to publish upon all occasions, 'That the Church of England look'd not on the Hugenots as Part of their Communion.'"—Clarendon. Yet he had a plan concerning which he corresponded with Hugo Grotius, for "uniting all the Protestant Churches against their common enemy the Church of Rome."
Another faithful and diligent correspondent was his old ally Bishop Laud, who used to visit him at Holme-Lacy on his way to and from his (then) diocese of St. David's, "and found his Entertainment as kind and full of Respect, as ever he did from any Friend." By him the Bishop was first informed of the murder of the Duke of Buckingham, and writes in reply: "Now the Court seems new to me, and I mean to turn over a new Leaf in it, for all those Things that are changeable. For the rest, I must be the same I was, and patiently both expect and abide what God shall be pleased to lay upon me."
Evil days were in store for his friend as well as for himself. Lord Scudamore suffered greatly during the Civil War. He was taken prisoner by Sir William Waller at Hereford, sent up to London, there committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms, and kept in close confinement for nearly four years, which so grievously injured his health that he "hardly survived." Some of his houses were burned, his estates sequestered, his goods plundered and sold, and his losses in all computed to exceed £37,000. Yet he found means to be generous and hospitable to those in worse straits than himself; most of all the distressed clergy; and Fuller calls him "a nursing Father of the Church. There is no good Thing," he adds, "could be said of any good Man that cannot justly be said of him." His last years were spent in the country, where he devoted himself to gardening, and had the credit of bringing into cultivation the Red Streak Cyder Apple,
"that once
Was of the Sylvan kind, unciviliz'd,
Of no regard, till Scudamore's skilful hand
Improv'd her, and by courtly discipline
Taught her the savage nature to forget,
Hence called the Scudamorean plant."
Phillips' Pomona.
At his death, in 1671, he was succeeded by a grandson, and then by a great-grandson, with whom the title expired in 1716. This last Viscount only lived to be thirty-two, and left as his sole heir his daughter Frances, first married to Henry Somerset, Duke of Beaufort, from whom she was divorced; and secondly to Charles Fitz Roy. By her last husband, who took the name and arms of Scudamore, she again left an only child named Frances. This second heiress was the wife of the Honourable Charles Howard, afterwards Duke of Norfolk, but died s. p. in 1820. Holme-Lacy then devolved upon Sir Edwyn Francis Stanhope, who represented a sister of the first Lord Scudamore's, and is now held by his descendant, Edwyn, tenth Earl of Chesterfield.
Within the last twenty years, the family still existed in the male line at Kentchurch in the same county, where they are said to have been seated since the time of Edward IV.: but it is not known when they branched off from the parent stock. The line ended with a Colonel Scudamore, whose daughter, Mrs. Lucas, is the mother of the present owner of Kentchurch, Mr. Scudamore-Lucas. They held the parish of Rowlston, of which "the name is a contraction of Rowland's town, and probably refers to some distinguished member of the Scudamore family, bearing this Christian name."—Duncumb's Herefordshire. In the time of Henry VII., Philip Scudamore of Rowlston married his kinswoman, the heiress of Kentchurch, and was the direct ancestor of its present possessor.
Neither in this nor the Holme Lacy pedigree do I find the name of Barnabas Scudamore, the gallant Cavalier who defended Hereford Castle against. the Scottish army under the Earl of Leven, till the King's advance from Worcester raised the siege. More than once Lord Leven had called upon him to surrender. "My Lord," was his reply, "I am resolved to endure all mines and storms which shall be made against this place, and doubt not, by God's assistance, to render His Majesty a good account of it."—Ibid.