William de Skipwith

He suffered temporary disgrace when he was removed from office for corruption, but he was restored to favour, became Lord Chief Justice of Ireland 1370-2,[1] and later returned to the English bench.

In 1360 he sat on a judicial commission in Northumberland to inquire into serious allegations against Sir Adam de Heton and his associates of murder, felony and trespasses.

[1] In 1372 he was on anassize in Kilkenny, hearing a complex inheritance dispute, and 1373 he is recorded as sitting on a commission of gaol delivery in Dublin.

[4] When Richard II summoned the High Court judges in August 1387 to give their opinion on the lawfulness of the actions of the powerful commission of nobles known as the Lords Appellant, Skipwith pleaded illness as an excuse for non-attendance.

[4] As a result, he avoided participating in the judgment against the Lords Appellant, condemning them for treason and authorising their arrest, which the judges later claimed they had been coerced into giving.

His decision not to attend was a wise one since when the judges were impeached by the Merciless Parliament in 1388, Skipwith escaped censure (his son-in-law Sir Robert Constable was an MP in that session, and no doubt he had other supporters).