He was a soldier-adventurer in
Lithuania,
Italy and
France, where he served with
John of Gaunt. Gaunt made him
seneschal of
Aquitaine in 1383. He was made vice-chamberlain of the household of King Richard II in 1393 and granted the
castle and manor of Marlborough in Wiltshire. In the same year his father purchased for him the Isle of Man from the
earl of Salisbury, giving him the nominal title
Dominus de Man or
King of Mann. In 1394 he became a
Knight of the Garter. He was created
Earl of Wiltshire in 1397 and became
Lord High Treasurer in 1398. He became effective head of the government in Richard's absence. He benefitted from the confiscated estates of
Thomas de Beauchamp, 12th Earl of Warwick, who was kept for a time under his care in the
Isle of Man, and of
John of Gaunt; he also accumulated control of a number of strategic castles. He was left 2,000
marks in King Richard's will in April 1399. He had been closely involved in Richard's second marriage to the six-year-old
Isabella of Valois in 1396 and was made Isabella's guardian at
Wallingford Castle, of which he was
castellan, when the King went to
Ireland in 1399. Together with Sir
John Bussy, Sir
William Bagot and Sir
Henry Green he had been made responsible for assisting
Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, in the defence of the realm during Richard's absence, when the exiled
Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford, seized his chance to invade. Scrope was captured with Bussy and Green when
Bristol Castle surrendered to Henry on 28 July 1399. He was executed without trial at Bristol Castle, together with Bussy and Green, and his head carried to London in a white basket to be displayed on
London Bridge. After Hereford's ascendance to the throne as
Henry IV, Parliament confirmed the sentence and determined that all his estates and title were to be forfeit to the crown. ==Family==