Progr. (Eliz.) ii. 225; }Metcalfe, Book of Knights). Disputes being chronic between Great Yarmouth and the Cinque ports as to fishing rights, which not unfrequently led to a kind of private warfare, a royal commission was appointed in 1575 to investigate and if possible adjust them, over which Gawdy presided (Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. App. 307 a, 316 b; Manship, Yarmouth, ed. Palmer, i. 186–9). On 9 Oct. 1578 he was nominated one of a commission to inquire into certain matters in controversy between the Bishop of Norwich and his chancellor, Dr. Becon; in 1580 he gave an extra-judicial opinion in a case between the Earl of Rutland and Thomas Markham ‘touching the forestership of two walks in Sherwood’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 601; Addenda, 1580–1625, p. 23). He was one of the commissioners who tried Dr. Parry for conspiracy to assassinate the queen in February 1584–5, and William Shelley for the same offence a year later. He also sat at Fotheringhay in October 1586 on the commission for the trial of the Queen of Scots on the charge of complicity in Babington's conspiracy. He assisted at the trial of the Earl of Arundel on 18 April 1589 for the offence of intriguing with foreign catholics to subvert the state (Fourth. Rep. Dep. Keep. Publ. Rec., App. ii. p. 273; Cobbett, State Trials, i. 1095, 1167, 1251). He amassed a large fortune, which he invested in the purchase of land, chiefly in his native county. In 1566 he bought the manors of Saxlingham and Claxton, and in 1582 that of Coldham, all in Norfolk. At his death, which took place on 4 Nov. 1589, he held besides Claxton, where he usually resided, and Gawdy Hall in Harleston, some twelve other estates in different parts of Norfolk, and also estates in Suffolk and Berkshire. He was buried in the north chapel of the parish church of Redenhall, near Harleston.
Coke describes Gawdy as ‘a most reverend judge and sage of the law, of ready and profound judgment, and of venerable gravity, prudence, and integrity’ (Reports, pt. iv. p. 54 a). He was succeeded on the bench by his half-brother Sir Francis Gawdy [q. v.] Gawdy married first, in 1548, Etheldreda or Awdrey, daughter of William Knightley of Norwich; secondly, Frances Richers of Kent (Hist. MSS. Comm., Rep. on Gawdy MSS. 1885, p. 2). By his first wife he had issue one son, Henry, who survived him, was high sheriff of Norfolk in 1593, and was created a knight of the Bath by James I in 1603. Many letters of Sir Henry Gawdy to his cousin Sir Bassingbourne and others are calendared in the report on the Gawdy MSS. issued by the Historical Manuscripts Commission. The judge also left three daughters, Frances, Isabell, and Julian, of whom the last named married Sir Thomas Berney of Park Hall, Reedham, Norfolk, and died in 1673.
[Foss's Lives of the Judges; Blomefield's Norfolk, ed. Parkin, iii. 269, 277, 358, v. 215, 364, 370, 499, x. 115, xi. 128.]
GAWEN, THOMAS (1612–1684), catholic writer, son of Thomas Gawen, a minister of Bristol, was born at Marshfield, Gloucestershire, in 1612. He was admitted a scholar of Winchester School in 1625, and in 1632 was made perpetual fellow of New College, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. and M.A. After taking orders he travelled abroad, and at Rome made the acquaintance of Milton. On his return he became chaplain to Curle, bishop of Winchester, who in 1642 appointed him tutor to his son, then a commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford. That prelate also collated him to a benefice—probably Exton, Hampshire—and in 1645 to a prebend in the church of Winchester. Afterwards Gawen visited Italy a second time with the heir of the Pierpoints of Dorsetshire. At the Restoration he was presented to the rectories of Bishopstoke and Fawley, Hampshire, though he was never inducted into Fawley. He resigned all his preferments on being reconciled to the Roman catholic church, and to avoid persecution he withdrew to France, and through the interest of Dr. Stephen Goffe and Abbot Walter Montagu was admitted into the household of Queen Henrietta Maria. Subsequently he paid a third visit to Rome, married an Italian lady, and had a child by her. Wood says that because his wife had no fortune he deserted her and the child, and returned to England, ‘his wealth being kept for the children of his brother.’ Although living in retirement, he was in some trouble in 1679 over the popish plot. He died in Pall Mall on 8 March 1683–4, and was buried in the church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
Wood, who describes him as a learned and religious person, states that he was the author of: 1. ‘A brief Explanation of the several Mysteries of the Holy Mass, …’ London, 1686, 8vo. 2. ‘Certain Reflections upon the Apostles' Creed touching the Sacrament,’ London, 1686, 8vo. 3. ‘Divers Meditations and Prayers, both before and after the Communion,’ London, 1686, 8vo. These three treatises were issued and bound together. He was author of other works, apparently unprinted, including a Latin version of John Cleveland's poem, ‘The Rebel Scot,’ and a translation from the Spanish of the life of Vincent of Caraffa, general of the jesuits.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iv. 130; Dodd's
