[Thoresby's Ducatus Leod. ed. Whitaker, pp. 179–81; Dugdale's Diary, ii. 278; transcript of Gascoigne's will, kindly supplied by Mr. Gordon Goodwin from Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 30 Bruce.]
GASCOIGNE, RICHARD (d. 1716), Jacobite, was born in Ireland and descended from a good Roman catholic family. His grandfather was killed in fighting for Charles I, and his father fell in the service of James II at the siege of Limerick. On coming into an estate of the value of 200l. a year, he converted it into money and came up to London, where he speedily dissipated his fortune and was reduced to very low circumstances. He recovered his position, however, by his skill and luck at games of cards and dice, and was taken up by the leaders of the tory party, who entrusted him with the management of their affairs at Bath. He was there when the rebellion broke out in 1715, and hearing that his arrest had been ordered, he set out with such forces as he could gather together to join the army at Preston. He proclaimed the Pretender king at the principal towns he passed through on his northern march, and arrived at Preston only in time to be taken prisoner. He was brought up to Newgate with the other leaders, and was put on his trial for high treason. He pleaded ‘not guilty,’ but it was proved that some chests of arms which had been seized at Bath were purchased abroad by him, and he was sentenced to death. He was hanged at Tyburn, 25 May 1716, and ‘died with the greatest unconcernedness of any of the unfortunate rebels’ (Patten, Hist. of the Rebellion). In a paper which he handed to the sheriff on the scaffold, he declared that he was never in his life an agent nor employed by any person in any political design, and he denied all knowledge of the arms that were seized. He further said that he did not take up arms with any view of restoring the catholic religion, but solely on behalf of his lawful king James III. After his death a letter which he had written to a friend the night before his execution was printed.
[Patten's Hist. of the Rebellion of 1716, p. 117, 3rd edit.; New Newgate Calendar, i. 207 (ed. 1818); A True Copy of the Paper delivered to the Sheriffs of London, by Richard Gascoigne; Gillow's Bibliographical Dict. of English Catholics.]
GASCOIGNE, THOMAS (1403–1458), theologian, son and heir of Richard Gascoigne and Beatrix his wife (Dict. Theol. i. 352 a), was born in 1403 (ib. ii. 516 a)—Bale says (Bodl. Libr. Selden MS. supra 64, f. 173 b) on the vigil of the Epiphany, i.e. 5 Jan. 1403–4—at Hunslet (Magd. Coll. Oxf. MS. 103 sub fin., ap. Coxe, Catal. of Oxford MSS., Magd. Coll. 55), near Leeds, of which manor his father was the possessor (Dict. Theol. ii. 592 b; Munim. Acad. Oxon. ii. 671, ed. Anstey). Gascoigne's own mention of his parents' names disproves the correctness of the pedigree attested early in the seventeenth century and printed by Thoresby (Ducat. Leod. p. 177), according to which he was the son of Richard and Ann Gascoigne. This genealogy further makes Richard the brother of Sir William Gascoigne [q. v.], the chief justice; but had so near a relationship existed it is difficult to believe that Thomas, whose self-conceit was notorious, would have omitted to inform us of the fact. It is, however, most likely that he belonged to the same family.
Gascoigne seems to have lost his father in his youth (Dict. Theol. ii. 539 a), but he was left well provided for and able to live on his own means for the whole of his lifetime (ib.; cf. i. 352 a). He entered Oxford at a date which, computing backwards from his degree of doctor of divinity in 1434, and taking into account the periods required for that and his previous degrees, Mr. J. E. Thorold Rogers fixes as ‘not later than 1416’ (Loci, intr. xviii); but since we know that Gascoigne obtained a dispensation as to time with respect to his degree in 1434 (Magd. Coll. MS. 103, l. c.), it is probable that he matriculated some time after 1416, though hardly, as Tanner implies (Bibl. Brit. p. 311), so late as 1420. From his lifelong residence in Oriel College it may be inferred that he was a member of it from the first, though the circumstance that he was a benefactor of Balliol College has led to the unproved and improbable supposition that he once belonged to that society (Wood, Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, Colleges and Halls, ed. Gutch, p. 90). His private fortune made him ineligible to a fellowship at Oriel College, but he rented rooms there until 1449, when, in acknowledgment of his liberality in contributing towards the college buildings and giving books to the library, the provost and scholars granted him the use of his rooms rent free for the rest of his life (Rogers, l. c.).
The respect in which Gascoigne was held at Oxford is shown by the frequency with which he was called upon to fill the offices of chancellor of the university, of commissary (or vice-chancellor), and of ‘cancellarius natus.’ Mr. Rogers's suggestion (intr. lxxxiii) that this last title, which designates simply the senior doctor of divinity acting as chancellor during a vacancy (cf. Munim. Acad. Oxon. ii. 553), was an ‘exceptional title’ conferred
