Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/51

 of the sixth baronet, Sir Thomas, 11 Feb. 1810. The second daughter, Catherine, became prioress of the Benedictine convent at Paris, and the youngest, Frances, was a nun at Cambray.

Dr. Oliver describes a portrait of Gascoigne in oils at the Chapel House, Cheltenham.

[Gillow's Bibl. Dict. of English Catholics; Thoresby's Ducatus Leodiensis, ed. Whitaker, pp. 179–81 (pedigree); Dodd's Church Hist. iii. 327; Howell's State Trials, vii. 959–1044; Oliver's Collections of English Benedictine Congregations, p. 494; Foley's Records of Soc. Jesus, iii. 103–4n., v. 580; Luttrell's Brief Relation, i. 17, 22, 23, 35, 37, 51, 113; Depositions from the Castle of York (Surtees Soc.) 1881. The falsity of the charges against Gascoigne is exposed in An Abstract of the Accusations of Robert Bolron and Lawrence Maybury, servants, against their late master, Sir Thomas Gascoigne … with his trial and acquittal, Feb. 11, 1679–80, Lond., for C. R., 1680, fol. Bolron's fabricated story is told in the Narrative of R. B. of Shippen Hall, gent., London, 1680, fol.; in the Papists' Bloody Oath of Secrecy, London, 1680, fol. (reprinted in Harl. Miscellany, vii.), and in Animadversions on the Papists' … Oath of Secrecy given to R. B. by W. Rushton, a Jesuit, London, 1681, s. sh. fol. See art. .]  GASCOIGNE, WILLIAM (1350?–1419), judge, eldest son of William Gascoigne, by Agnes, daughter of Nicholas Frank, was born at Gawthorpe, Yorkshire, about 1350. He is said to have studied at Cambridge and the Inner Temple, and he is included in Segar's list of readers at Gray's Inn, though the date of his reading is not given. From the year-books it appears that he argued a case in Hilary term 1374, and he figures not unfrequently as a pleader in Bellewe's ‘Ans du Roy Richard le Second.’ He became one of the king's serjeants in 1397, and was appointed by letters patent attorney to the Duke of Hereford on his banishment, for whom he also held an estate in Yorkshire in trust. His patent of king's serjeant was renewed on Hereford's accession to the throne in 1399, and he was created chief justice of the king's bench on 15 Nov. 1400 (, Chron. Ser. p. 55;, Gray's Inn, p. 45; , Testamenta Vetusta, p. 144). He was a trier of petitions in parliament between 1400–1 and 1403–4. In July 1403 he was commissioned to raise forces against the insurgent Earl of Northumberland, and in April 1405 to receive the submission of the earl's adherents, with power to impose fines. The prime movers in the insurrection were put to death, among them being Thomas Mowbray, the earl marshal, and Richard Scrope, archbishop of York, both of whom were executed on 8 June 1405 at Bishopsthorpe, near York. Walsingham, who records the fact of the execution, is silent as to the constitution of the court by which sentence was passed (Hist. Anglic. Rolls Ser. ii. 270). Capgrave, however (Chron. of England, Rolls Ser. p. 291), states that it consisted of the Earl of Arundel [see ], Sir Thomas Beaufort [q. v.], and Gascoigne, and this statement is to some extent corroborated by a royal writ dated Bishopsthorpe 6 June 1405, by which Arundel and Beaufort are commissioned to execute the offices of constable and marshal of England (, Fœdera, ed. Holmes, viii. 399). The author of the ‘Annales Henrici Quarti’ (Trokelowe et Anon. Chron. Rolls Ser. p. 409) makes no mention of Gascoigne, but states that sentence was passed by Arundel and Beaufort. According to the ‘English Chronicle,’ 1377–1461, Camd. Soc. pp. 32–3, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Arundel, advised Henry to reserve Scrope for the judgment of the pope, or at least of the parliament; the names of the judges are not given. Clement Maidstone (, Anglia Sacra, ii. 369–370) asserts that Gascoigne was to have tried the archbishop, but that he refused to do so on the ground that he had no jurisdiction over spiritual persons; that therefore the king commissioned Sir William Fulthorp, ‘a knight and not a judge,’ to try the case; and that he it was who passed sentence on the archbishop. With this account Sloane MS. 1776, f. 44, agrees, adding that Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, concurred with Gascoigne, and that one Ralph Everis, also a knight, was joined with Fulthorp in the special commission. The life of Scrope, printed in ‘Historians of the Church of York’ (Rolls Ser.), ii. 428–33, is silent as to Gascoigne's refusal to sit, but states that the trial took place before Sir William Fulforde ‘juris et literarum peritus.’ This account appears to be of later date than any before cited, and is the one which was followed by Stow and most subsequent historians. That Sir William Fulthorp, though not a regular justice, nevertheless tried some of the insurgents, is clear from ‘Parl. Roll,’ iii. 633, but it is extremely unlikely that he should have tried a spiritual peer on a capital charge, and the evidence of clerical chroniclers must be received with caution on account of the strong temptation under which they lay to falsify facts in order to obtain the high authority of Gascoigne for the privileges of their order. Moreover, if Gascoigne had really made the signal display of independence attributed to him, he would probably have been punished either by removal or suspension from his office. That he was not removed