SKERNE, Robert

In addition to the earlier biography, The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 382-3. more may be said about Skerne’s reputation and employment as a lawyer. He was retained with livery, as an apprentice-at-law, by the duke of Clarence in the final years of Henry V’s reign, and paid a fee by the Merchant Taylors of London as a ‘homme de loye’ in the 1430s. Furthermore, the inscription on his monumental brass described him as ‘validus, fidus, discretus lege peritus’. Household Accts. ed. Woolgar, 655; J.H. Baker, Men of Ct. (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xviii), ii. 1403.

In the year before his death, Skerne was assessed for taxation on an income of £60 p.a. from his lands in five different counties. E159/212, recorda, Hil. rot. 14 (vii). As suggested in the earlier biography, the holdings in Surrey may have been purchased by the MP himself, while those in Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Warwickshire came to him by marriage. More intriguing is the statement in the tax return that some of his income was derived from property in Yorkshire. This brings to mind the unresolved question concerning his relationship to or identification with Robert Skerne, the Yorkshireman who had served Richard II and Henry IV in a clerical capacity.

Skerne’s nephew and executor, William Skerne, was still bringing law-suits against his debtors as late as 1459 – 22 years after his death. CP40/795, rot. 358.