John Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Masham
John Scrope, 4th Baron Scrope of Masham was an English peer, Privy Councillor and Treasurer of England.
He was the fourth son of Stephen le Scrope, 2nd Baron Scrope of Masham and Margery, daughter of John Welles, 4th Baron Welles. He inherited his title in 1415 when his elder brother Henry Scrope, 3rd Baron Scrope of Masham was executed for his part in the Southampton Plot.
In 1424 he was knighted, made a Privy Councillor and appointed to Commissions of the Peace of Essex, Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire. He was on the Council of Regency for the young Henry VI. In 1426 he had the attainder on his title reversed, bought back the Scrope lands confiscated following his brother's execution, and was summoned to the House of Lords.
In 1428 he acted as an Ambassador to the Pope, the King of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire, and then to Scotland in 1429. In 1432 he was appointed Lord High Treasurer of England. Scrope's tenure as Lord High Treasurer occurred during the Great Bullion Famine and the beginning of the Great Slump in England. He again acted as ambassador, to the Grand Master of the Order of St John of Jerusalem in Rhodes in 1435 and the Archbishop of Cologne in 1439.
He died 15 November 1455 and was buried in the Scrope Chapel in York Minster. He had married twice; firstly Maud Greystoke, daughter of Sir John Greystoke and secondly Elizabeth Chaworth, the daughter of Sir Thomas Chaworth, of Wiverton, Nottinghamshire, with whom he had three sons and five daughters. he was succeeded by his third son Thomas, later 5th Baron Scrope.
