This is part two of an article an article I wrote for Blanc Sangliers, the quarterly journal of the Richard III Society Yorkshire Branch.
You can read part one here. jon rosling
Cover page of JR Scott’s Memorials of the Family of Scott, of Scott’s Hall.
In his book Memorials of the Family Scott of Scott’s Hall in the County of Kent, JR Scott ascribes the parentage of Thomas Rotherham to Sir John Scott, the son of Sir William Scott of Scott’s Hall in Kent.
However, the providence of this is so dubious as to bring to question JR Scott’s reason for doing so in the first place. Although JR Scott gives no date of birth for Sir John, other historians do, having him born in or around 1423 – the same year that Thomas Rotherham himself was born.
That there is no record of Sir John holding any office until the late 1430s lends credence to the assumption that he was born around the same time as Thomas Rotherham and therefore
makes it impossible he could be his father[i].
Elsewhere[ii] JR Scott points to Thomas Rotherham’s last will and to the “consanguineous” relative, John Scott. This, suggests JR Scott, is proof that Rotherham was originally called Scott and changed his name following medieval practice among some high clerics and ecclesiastics to rename themselves after the place of their birth. jon rosling
Examples of this are strewn throughout the history books.
William Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor of England at one point, was born William Longe. William Waynflete, also Bishop of Winchester, Lord Chancellor, Provost of Eton College and headmaster of Winchester College was born William Patten.
And Simon Sudbury, the unfortunate Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury who was taken out of the Tower and beheaded by the mob during the 1381 Poll Tax revolt, was born Simon Theobald.
So this seems like a reasonable deduction on the part of JR Scott, and possibly goes some way to explaining why Rotherham’s name is almost always presented as “Thomas Scott alias Rotherham” from about 1535 onwards. jon rosling
But let us consider the detail of the will itself.
In it, the Scott family is described as “descendens in eodem nomine et sanguine” – “descending in name and blood” and in the original Latin, he calls John Scott of Ecclesfield “cosanguineus meus” meaning “my cousin”.
It is here that I think JR Scott has made an error for he appears to have translated the Latin “cosanguineus meus” into the English “consanguineous”, which means “people descended from the same ancestor”. This, however, is a much less precise translation than the quite specific “cosanguineus meus”, or “my cousin”. It also seems nonsensical to repeat the point about descending in name and blood made just previously.
Indeed it seems more appropriate a conclusion that the Scotts out at Barnsley were just as he says, cousins, relatives on his mother’s side, or possibly a generation further back with his grandparents.
Where he does make a valid point is that medieval clerics often took the name of the place where they were born or began their spiritual career. There is no doubt that Thomas Rotherham was Rotherham born, for he states so quite clearly at the beginning of his will, written in 1498:
… [because] I was born in the town of Rotherham, and baptized in the Parish Church of the same town, and so at that same place was born into the world, and also born again by the holy bath flowing from the side of Jesus[iii]
However, the practice of assuming the name of the town where one was born, spiritually or otherwise, was dying out by the mid-fifteenth century, and there is some question whether it was ever much practised in the first place. Certainly, questions abound with respect to William Waynflete cited previously[iv]. jon rosling
Beyond that though, it becomes increasingly evident that the archbishop’s parentage was from a Rotherham family line[v]. The Rotherhams are captured inhabiting the town in various snapshots in history, such as various close and calendar rolls and other documentation from the preceding centuries.
“Poll” Tax of anno 2 Richard II., membrane 5, column 3, under “Villa de Rodirham” : “Robertus de Roderham (et) Alicia vx’ eius.” A few entries before, under the same township, occurs, “Adam Skotte (et) Beatrix vx’ eius.” – Lay Subsidies of the County of York, No 206/49, Public Records Office
See also Black’s Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS., p. 675 (No. 860 of those MSS., fo. 60), for Robert de Roderham, of co. York, anno 11 Edw. III.
Likewise “De Banco Roll” Easter Term, anno 19 Edward I., membrane 10 of Roll of Attorneys (modern consecutive number 181), for one Richard de Roderh*m, connected with a suit in co. Nottingham.
More direct evidence can be found in the volumes of the College of Arms compiled by the highly regarded Augustine Vincent. Vincent was a junior officer at the College of Arms in the early seventeenth century and was later the Windsor Herald. Before this, he had held a post at the Tower of London which gave him unfettered access to the thousands of ancient documents held there, of which he made many copies. jon rosling
Vincent records the parentage of Thomas Rotherham quite clearly not once but three times in three different volumes. He states that Thomas was the eldest of three sons of Sir Thomas Rotherham, a Knight, and his wife Alice. The record also details Rotherham’s brothers, Sir John Rotherham and Roger Rotherham.
St Mary’s Church Luton, where there are numerous memorials to the Rotherham family.
There is much evidence of Sir John Rotherham, for in adulthood he became a wealthy and significant landowner in Bedfordshire and, along with Thomas and their mother, was one of the founders of the Guild of the Holy Trinity in Luton. His descendants represented the town in Parliament.
Roger Rotherham, was warden at Kings Hall Cambridge and later Archdeacon at Rochester, Lincoln and Leicester before he died in 1477.
Unmentioned by Augustine Vincent in the College of Arms records is a sister. However, Thomas himself refers to her and the arrangements he made for the marriage of her daughter to Richard Restwold in his will. This sister remains unnamed in history. jon rosling
What is notable is that none of these people are referenced in any contemporary documentation with the name Scott. Looking back at more ancient documents one can detect the possible presence of the father, Sir Thomas Rotherham, in and around Yorkshire in the years before the archbishop’s birth[vi] thereby removing any doubt that the family name – for that generation and after, at least – was Rotherham.
James Greenstreet also points out that the contemporary archives of Kings College (as opposed to Hatcher’s register) record “Thomas Rotherham” and not “Thomas Scott” at a time when he was just twenty years of age, and well before his ordination. While it’s true that Thomas could have received the tonsure by this age – and thus changed his name from Scott to Rotherham – all of the other evidence points to the family name being Rotherham in the first place.
Of course, this hints at the most obvious evidence – how Rotherham was referred to in life and not by historians writing more than a century after his birth and a quarter of a century after his death.
In cases before the Court of Common Pleas, we find Thomas Rotherham, not Thomas Scott, acting as official[vii] and the Calendar of Close Rolls for various monarchs during his lifetime also record him as Thomas Rotherham
“July 28 – Grant, during office, to Master Thomas Rotherham, king’s clerk, keeper of the privy seal, a yearly rent of 360 marks…”- Calender of Patent Rolls, 7 Edw IV
“… by decree and judgement of Thomas Rotherham the chancellor, by charter dated 3rd May, 21 Edward IV…” – Calendar of Close Rolls 21 Edward IV, membrane 1d, 851
“May 24 – Grant to Thomas Rotherham, bishop of Lincoln, the Chancellor, of the custody of the temporalities of the archbishopric of York and all issues of the same from the death of Laurence, late archbishop, so long as they remain in the King’s hands, with knights’ fees and advowsons.” – Calendar of Patent Rolls, 20 Edward IV, membrane 8
The above examples are just three of many such examples throughout the recorded history of the period.
So it seems Rotherham was always Rotherham.
Not only does he refer to himself as such in both versions of his will and not only does the Kings’ College archive refer to him as such, but all of the contemporary documentation made in his lifetime does as well. Furthermore, we can attest to the Rotherham family being active and involved in public life in the years before Thomas’ birth in Rotherham in 1423.
Sir John Scott, most definitely not Thomas Rotherham’s father, as alleged by JR Scott.
The Scott name seems to have been ascribed to him in the early sixteenth century by historians and although confusion by John Leland over the heir to Wenlock’s lands in Luton is a likely reason, the precise source is unclear.
What is clear is that there then follows Henry Leigh Bennett’s “clerical error”[viii] – a repetition of the mistaken identity down through history, one that seems to have been reinforced by a handful of historians writing in the Victorian period. jon rosling
It strikes this writer as no coincidence that those most fervently proposing the Archbishop’s original name as “Scott” during this period are themselves called “Scott”.[ix]
Amongst all this, we find no real or convincing evidence for Thomas Rotherham ever having been called Thomas Scott in his lifetime.
Footnotes
[i] Sir John’s own parentage is well documented. His father, Sir William, was purportedly Henry V’s sword bearer at Agincourt.
[ii] Notes & Queries, Fifth Series vol 7, page 331
[iii] Guest, p136.
[iv] James Greenstreet, Notes & Queries, Fifth Series vol 8, page 372
[v] Invariably recorded as Roderam, de Roderam and Rotheram.
[vi] An entry in the handwriting of Lancaster Herald Francis Thynne, preserved among his collections in the Cottonian Library, mentions “Rotherame. Isabell Cawode late wyfe of Johne Cawode gave to Thomas of Rotheram her sonne all her right wicce (she) hadde in a certeine rent of xls. by yere going oute of two houses in Fossegate in York, ab 8 Henry IV” James Greenstreet – who highlights this record – also points to several other local records from the reigns of Henry IV and Henry V where Thomas de Rotherham is engaged in plea disputes with various people over debts. See Notes & Queries, Fifth Series vol 8, p370
[vii] Court of Common Pleas, CP 40/874, rot. 328d is one example.
[viii] See previous.
[ix] James Renat Scott and John Scott, as mentioned previously; but also Alfred Scott-Gatty, writing in Notes & Queries, Fifth Series vol 7 p139. Scott-Gatty was an officer of the College of Arms whose father (also Alfred) was a one-time pastor at Ecclesfield in Yorkshire and who was married to a Margaret Scott. Though Alfred Jr. defends the notion that Rotherham was originally called Scott, he argues it was the Yorkshire Scott family and had nothing to do with James Renat Scott’s Kentish Scotts.
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