General Notes

BARONY OF SCALES (I)

ROBERT DE SCALES IV, son and heir, had order for seisin of his lands, 14 August 1275, having done homage. On 18 July 1277 he was given protection, having gone to Wales with Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. Before 14 January 1281 he granted to the prior and convent of Holy Trinity, Norwich, a messuage &c. in Gateley, Norfolk. In 1282 he was summoned to serve against the Welsh; in 1287 he was going to Gascony and Wales; in 1288 he complained of flooding of his lands in Marshland (near Lynn). In 1291 he was going beyond seas; 1294 summoned to perform military service in Gascony; 1298 against the Scots. In 1298, having been in Flanders with the King, he lost custody of lands during vacancy of priory of Royston; summoned to Parliamentby writs directed Roberto de Scales 30 December 1299 to 22 January 1304/5, whereby he is held to have become LORD SCALES. He was summoned to serve against the Scots in 1299, 1300, 1301, 1303. His signature as " Robertus de Scales Dominus de Neuseles " appears on the Barons' letter to the Pope in 1301.

He married Isabel.[l] He died before 4 September 1305. Isabel survived him and died before 26 July 1333. [Complete Peerage XI:499-500, (transcribed by Dave Utzinger)]

[l] G.E.C. states that she was of the family of Burnell, relying apparently upon Chester Waters (Chesters of Chicheley, vol. i, pp. 253-55), who cites the Scales Peerage Case, which, however, provides no surname. There are numerous references to Isabel under that name, but nothing has been printed which affords any proof of her parentage. From a note left by the late Miss Ethel Stokes, however, it appears that in the course of the claim for the right to the arms of Burnell (Lovell v. Morley, P.R.O., G.D. 26/69) in 1396 or 1397, it was stated in evidence that "in the church of Austin Friars', London, there was a chasuble with these arms, formerly in the nunnery of Blakebergh, and the ornament of a vestment with the same, formerly in the church of Middleton, which were given to the friars by a Dame de Scales, who was daughter of a Sieur de Burnell." Another deponent called her Isabel, said that she died about 56 years previously, and that the vestment lay on the tomb of the said Dame, which was in the said monastery, on her anniversary. Robert Burnell, Bishop of Bath and Wells, had had the wardship of her husband during his minority (Rot. Hundr., vol. i, pp. 16 1) 193), presumably having bought it from Clemence (see P. 499, note " n " above).