William Skrene

He was probably born in County Meath, to a family which derived its name from the village of Skryne, or Skreen, in that county.[2] He was later described as being "of Dundalk", and presumably grew up there.[3]He had two sisters: Christina, whose descendants ultimately inherited her brother's lands in England, and Isabel, whose heirs also unsuccessfully claimed the Skrene inheritance.[4] By his own account he endeavoured for several years to study law in Dublin, but was prevented by the fact that Ireland, until the sixteenth century, had no formal law school, and students could not travel abroad without leave. In 1380 he obtained the necessary permission to go to England to study law at Clifford's Inn.[5] He was called to the bar and became a Serjeant-at-law in 1396.[6]

In 1394 he obtained permission to settle in England permanently, and he was exempted from any requirement to contribute to the defence of Ireland. He did however return to Ireland as part of the entourage of King Richard II, on the King's only visit to that Kingdom, in the autumn of 1394. He was appointed Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer in 1395, but he seems to have served in that office for only two years, before returning to England, where he remained for the rest of his life.[7]

He acted regularly as a justice of the peace, and sat on numerous commissions for the peace, especially in Essex, where he became a major landowner, acquiring the manors of Writtle, Great Finborough and Stanford Rivers.[8] He also had a London house in the parish of St Mary le Strand. He died in 1421.[9]

Half-timbered house in Writtle, Essex: Skrene was Lord of the Manor here.

He married Alice, daughter of Sir William Rykhill and his wife Rose, and sister of William Rickhill MP, and had three children: William, his heir, who died in 1431, Thomas and Margaret. The younger William married Alice Tyrrell, daughter of John Tyrrell, three times Speaker of the House of Commons of England and his first wife Alice Coggeshall, and widow of Hamo Strange. Sir John Skrene (died 1475), the younger William's grandson, was the judge's last male heir.[10] He was killed in a brawl, which he had apparently provoked, by his cousin Edward Tyrrell. His death resulted in Skrene's case, which was of some importance on the law of wardship; it involved a dispute over the inheritance of Sir John' s grandmother, Alice, widow of the younger William.[11]

The ultimate beneficiaries from Sir John Skrene's death were the heirs of the elder William's sister Christina, her great-grandchildren John Clerk and Christina Colton. [12]In the winter of 1476/7 they submitted a joint petition to the Irish Parliament asking to have their right to the Skrene lands recognised. As they were able to prove that their mothers were the daughters of Christina's only surviving daughter Margaret, the claim was successful, and an Act of Parliament was passed recognising their rights.[13]A rival claim to the estate by Richard Ayston of Colchester, who was apparently the son of another sister of William Skrene, Isabel Ayston, was unsuccessful. [14]