The Malebisse Lordship of Scawton lasted for another 70 years and in 1348 John Malebisse settled the manor in tail-mate on his four sons Thomas, John, Richard and Walter. Thomas the eldest son died in 1355 and left an only daughter Elizabeth who married Adam de Beckwith and it is assumed that John and Richard also died as the remaining son Walter wishing to raise money for a journey to Palestine, made Richard Fairfax his heir when the necessary funds were supplied by William father of Richard and his brother John the Rector of Gilling. In 1363 Walter Malebisse gave power of attorney to Sir Thomas de Askham, Rector of the Church of Scalton to give seisin [legal possession with occupation] to Sir John Fairfax, Rector of the Church of Halmeby [Hawnby] of one acre of land adjacent to the Scalton rectory.
Richard Fairfax became Lord of the manor of Scalton after the death of Walter Malebisse in 1369 and was said to possess 8 messuages, 12 cottages with crofts, 300 acres of pasture and 300 of wood. In the previous year William and John Fairfax paid annual rent of £4 to the Abbot of Rievaulx for the land known as Oswaldhenges granted to the Abbey by Hugh Malebisse in 1150 which included Scalton Crofte the tenants of which were paying tithes of sheaves and hay in 1308. The combined acreage of this rented land and that owned by Richard Fairfax seems to equate to the 1,080 acres recorded in the Domesday Survey and after the surrender of Rievaulx Abbey in 1538 the Abbey lands at Scalton passed into the possession of the Fairfax family.
No records have survived of the names of the earliest Fairfax tenants but men listed as jurors on a Scawton Manor Court held in 1588 would have been tenants
There is nothing to connect any of these names with those paying lay Subsidies in 1300 but John and Robert Semer were descendants of Lamberti Semer who was tenant of the Rievaulx Abbey Forge in 1538 and then ran it for the Duke of Rutland, a family named Bell were living at Scawton Brigg Howse [Rievaulx Bridge] in 1630, William Henry Scott was the Rievaulx blacksmith in 1590 and the Wightman connection with Scawton was to continue for another 230 years
