General Notes

SCOTT, SIR WILLIAM (d. 1350), judge, and reputed founder of the Kentish family of Scot's Hall, is said to have been son of John Scott who resided at Brabourne, Kent, apparently as seneschal of the manor. But the pedigree of the Scot's Hall family has not been traced with certainty before the fifteenth century. The judge, according to a wholly untrustworthy tradition, was descended from a younger brother of John de Baliol [q.v.], king of Scotland, and also of Alexander de Baliol [q.v.], lord of Chilham, Kent. William Scott makes his first appearance as a pleader in the year-book for 1330 (Michaelmas term). He was made serjeant-at-law in 1334/5, and on 18 March 1336/7 justice of the common pleas, having been knighted the day before, when the Black Prince was created Duke of Cornwall. In December 1340, with Chief-justice Sir Robert Parning [q.v.] and other judges, he sat at Westminster to try their delinqquent colleague, Sir Richard de Willoughby [q.v.] He has been doubtfully identified with William Scott, who was knight marshal of England, and is said, according to an epitaph recorded by Weever to have been buried in Brabourne church in 1350. But there was a William Scott who purchased land at Brabourne between 1352 and 1396, and was assessed to the sixteenth from 1349 to 1372. There is no proof, as is commonly stated, that the judge was father of Michael Scott, who in 1346/7 was assessed to the sixteenth in Bircholt.  [Life Sketch of Sir William Scott & Selected Descendants, www.burgoyne.com]