SIR WILLIAM GASCOIGNE.
It is not unusual to find amongst ancient families that the same Christian name is retained from generation to generation, constantly descending for centuries in unbroken succession.
Sometimes this name is preserved in memory of a distinguished ancestor. Sometimes from respect to some prince or powerful patron who had conferred honour or lands upon the family.
Many have supposed that the name of William came to this country at the time of the Norman Conquest. It has been ascertained, however, that long before that date it was in common use in Saxon families, especially amongst those who inhabited the Northern Counties.
This name William is a German word, and, according to Martin Luther, of compound meaning.
Helm, signifying "defence;" and Kenhelm, "Defence of kindred."
Willy, Villi, or Billi with the Germans, like Poly amongst the Greeks, before several names indicates "many," consequently Wilhelm, now softened into William, means "Much defence" or "Defence of many."
Not only did the Normans, who had settled here when their Duke became King of England, call their sons after their victorious sovereign, but many of the old lords of the soil, who, wearied with Harold's tyranny, had gladly welcomed the advent of the foreign prince, gave their children the name now so much in vogue. In addition to this compliment to their new King, some of the Saxon Thanes and great landed proprietors moulded their rougher Northern surnames into courtly Norman terminations.
Thus Gaskin, an old West Riding family, Normanised itself into Gascoigne.
As time went on, this Royal name of William was regularly transmitted from father to son amongst those families who depended upon the Conqueror or his line, or who had received gifts of offices, lands, seignories, or privileges, until in a few years it became so common amongst those of high rank, that at a certain festival given at the Court of King Henry II., when Sir William St. John and Sir William Fitz-Hamon, two especial officers, commanded that none "but those of the name of William should dine in the Great Chamber with them," they were accompanied by a hundred and twenty Williams, all knights.
Sir William Gascoigne, Chief Justice of the King's Bench in 1401, the second year of the reign of King Henry IV., was the eighth Sir William in lineal descent, and was succeeded, as we learn from Dugdale and Fuller, by seven more Sir Williams, all knights.
The Chief Justice was born in 1350, temp. Edward III., at Gawthorp, in the parish of Harwood, between Leeds and Knaresborough.
Sir William was the eldest of five brothers. He married twice: first, Elizabeth, daughter and heiress of Alexander Mowbray, and by her had an only son, Sir William Gascoigne, of Gawthorp, a brave commander in the wars under King Henry V. His descendant, the last Sir William of this branch, married Beatrice, daughter of Sir Richard Tempest, and had four sons, all of whom died young, and one daughter, Margaret, his sole heir, in whom the Gascoignes of this line terminated. This daughter married, in 1552, Thomas Wentworth, of Wentworth Woodhouse, in Yorkshire, and brought great estates into that family. Thomas Wentworth was Sheriff for Yorkshire in the twenty-fourth year of Queen Elizabeth, and had, besides four daughters, an only son, who became afterwards Sir William Wentworth, and was the father of Thomas, first Earl of Strafford.
The Chief Justice married, secondly, Joan, daughter of Sir William Pickering, and widow of Sir Ralph Graystock, Baron of the Exchequer. By this marriage Sir William had also an only son, James Gascoigne, settled at Cardington, in Bedfordshire. A descendant of this James Gascoigne, the inheritrix of Cardington, married her distant cousin William, a younger son of the Gascoignes of Gawthorp.
This William Gascoigne was Sheriff for Bedfordshire in 1506, temp. King Henry VII., and was Sheriff for Buckinghamshire in the fifth year of King Henry VIII. He was subsequently knighted by Henry VIII., and became Comptroller of the Household to Cardinal Wolsey; for the great Cardinal in many respects affected Royal state, and succeeded in having the chief offices of his household held by nobles, or by men of gentle birth. This branch of the Gascoignes also terminated in a daughter, Dorothy, who married Sir Jarrett Harvye; thus the direct descendants of the famous Chief Justice became merged in other families. Of collateral descendants, however, there are many; Nicholas Gascoigne of Lavingcroft, Sir William's next brother, having left a numerous family of sons and daughters, who married amongst the Percys, Latimers, Vavasours, etc.
From the eldest son of this Nicholas descended a somewhat celebrated man, Richard Gascoigne, who was not only a learned antiquary and collector, but who has done good service to the history of this country by having brought before the public in 1638 Mr. Dugdale, whose writings have given much interesting and important information.
The greater part of the valuable collections made by Richard Gascoigne is now at Wentworth Woodhouse, Yorkshire. There are also relics of the Gascoigne family at Ickwellbury, Bedfordshire.
William Gascoigne became a student of the Law at Gray's Inn, and was early enrolled a member of that learned Society. His career was both brilliant and rapid. Towards the end of the reign of King Richard II. he was already so eminent in his profession that, in 1398, he was made one of the King's Serjeants.
There are records of many transactions at this period, all of which give proof, not only of Gascoigne's great abilities as a lawyer, but also testify to the esteem in which he was held on account of the fidelity and uprightness of his advice, and the invariable justice of his decisions. His great merits caused him to be appointed one of the Commissioners for Henry of Lancaster, Duke of Hereford, when this Prince was about to go into banishment.
Gascoigne had to watch over the interests and receive all moneys that might come to the Duke during his absence from England. A most onerous appointment, involving not only considerable difficulty but also no inconsiderable danger, for in those turbulent days the law of might frequently warred most successfully against the law of right.
So early as the second year of the reign of King Henry IV., Gascoigne was made Chief Justice of the King's Bench, and we find that in 1403 Judge Gascoigne and Ralph Nevill, Earl of Westmoreland, were commissioned by the King to levy and assemble forces in the counties of York and Northumberland in order to quell the insurrection of Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland.
Somewhat later these Commissioners were also empowered to treat with this same rebellious Earl.
When Archbishop Scrope and others were taken in arms against the King, His Majesty would have had Gascoigne immediately to give sentence of death against the contumacious Archbishop; but the Chief Justice refused, resolutely declaring he would not pronounce such a sentence in so irregular and illegal a manner. This refusal brought upon him the King's high displeasure, but the people praised him much for his justice and his moderation.
Again, when certain abbots, priors, knights, esquires, and other persons of distinction had been wrongfully accused, and were suffering imprisonment in consequence of the evidence of a perjured witness, Sir William detected the fraud. He then caused the false witness to be exposed and condemned, and obtained the release of the guiltless persons.
About this time, also, attorneys, by reason of their multitude, and from their malpractices, had grown to be a public nuisance. Chief Justice Gascoigne caused an Act to be passed limiting their number in every county. They had also to swear every Term that they would deal faithfully and truly by their clients, and could it be proved that they had not done so they were liable to be imprisoned for a twelve-month and condemned to pay a ransom according to the King's pleasure.
In the abstract of the Parliament rolls there is a lone insertion made of a curious and important case referred in part to the judgment of the Chief Justice. William, Lord Roos of Hamalake, brought an action against Sir Robert Therwit, one of the Justices of the King's Bench, inasmuch as he had withheld certain manors and commons in the county of Lincoln, and that he had lain in wait with five hundred men to seize or apprehend the said Lord. Sir Robert confessed his fault before the King, and offered to abide by the award of two Lords of the complainant's kindred.
These two Lords made a long judgment, and amongst other items enjoined that Sir Robert should make a great feast at Milton-le-Roos. That for this feast he should prepare two fat oxen, twelve sheep, two tuns of Gascon wine, and other provisions. That he should then assemble there all such knights, esquires, and yeomen as had been his accomplices. That they should then confess their fault to Lord Roos, craving his pardon, and offering him five hundred marks as compensation. Lord Roos should refuse this sum, but he should pardon them, and partake of their dinner.
The arbitration respecting the land however, which was the point of the greatest difficulty, was to be referred to Sir William Gascoigne, the Chief Justice.
But the event which became so noticeable in legal and in historical annals, is a remarkable circumstance that has been described by many writers, namely, his having committed the Heir Apparent to the Throne, Prince Henry, to prison for contempt of Court.
A story so extraordinary has of course been seized upon by dramatists and poets, who have so embellished the original history, that they have caused the fact to be doubted by some. However, the affair has been too simply related by some of our best historians and other grave writers to permit reasonable doubts that the circumstance did actually take place as recorded.
It appears that a servant of Prince Henry's being arraigned at Westminster before Chief Justice Gascoigne for felony, the Prince, hearing of the matter, came hastily into Court, and commanded that his follower should be unfettered and set at liberty immediately.
This demand was refused, the Chief Justice exhorting the Prince to be patient, for his servant was to be tried according to the ancient laws of the realm, adding that even in case the rigour of the law should condemn the accused, His Highness might still obtain the gracious pardon of the King, his father.
Far from being appeased by this answer, the anger of the Prince seemed only the more inflamed, and striding fiercely to the Bar, he endeavoured to rescue the prisoner by force.
Thereupon the Judge, with admirable courage and intrepidity, commanded the Prince to forbear and to depart on his way; but the Prince's rage at being thus thwarted made him quite beside himself, and, turning hastily towards the Bench, he either struck, or endeavoured to strike, the Chief Justice.
At so unparalleled an insult the Court was stricken with horror, and many threw themselves around the Judge, fearing the Prince was about to slay him, but Sir William, nothing moved by the affront that had been offered to him, nor by the peril in which he was placed, never stirred from his seat, and with dignified calm, and with a bold and assured countenance, said to the Prince:
"Sir, remember yourself. I keep here the place of your Sovereign Lord and father, to whom you owe double obedience. Wherefore in his name I charge you, desist from your wilfulness, and from this unlawful enterprise. From henceforth give good example to them, who hereafter will be your own subjects. And now, for your contempt and disobedience, go you to the prison of the King's Bench, whereunto I commit you, and remain there a prisoner, until the pleasure of the King your father be further known."
So dignified was the Judge's bearing, so noble and calm were his few coercive sentences, wherein were combined the paternal authority of the King, and the awful gravity of the Judge, that the Prince was instantly subdued.
His Highness at once laid aside his weapon, and doing reverence to the Court, he straightway withdrew, and submitted to the disgraceful punishment—a punishment degrading indeed to a Prince, the Heir Apparent to the Throne, but well merited from the outrageous insult that had led to it.
When some officious persons represented the affair to the King in such a manner that His Majesty might well have taken offence at it, the wise monarch, the wise father, defeated the ill-will of the informers by "thanking God, who had given him not only a judge who could minister, but also a son who could obey justice."
Prince Henry had been carefully educated and governed at the University of Oxford, and was afterwards for some years engaged with his father's armies in stilling the commotions constantly taking place on the borders of Wales. He seems to have done well also when first appointed President of the Council, for again our old chronicler tells us that the Commons voted him thanks for his good employment of the treasure; but, unhappily, before his Royal father's death he abandoned himself to dissolute courses, and made discreditable associates his intimate companions and friends.
After his father's death, however, on ascending the throne as Henry V., he discarded his unworthy followers, and applied himself with both assiduity and talent to the government of his kingdom.
We learn from Tressel's continuation of "Daniel's Collection of the History of England, 1641," that the King, addressing himself to his former friends, said:
"It was sufficient that for many years he had fashioned himself according to their unruly dispositions, and had wandered with them in a wilderness of riot and unthriftiness; whereby he had made himself almost an alien to the hearts of his father and allies, and had so disparaged himself, that in the eyes of mankind his presence was grown vulgar and stale, and like the cuckoo in June, was heard but not regarded." The King then proceeds to relate in brief, that when one of his associates was summoned before the Lord Chief Justice he had interposed, and had even struck the Judge, and that for this offence he had deservedly been committed to prison by the Chief Justice. The King thus terminates his speech: "For which act of justice I shall ever hold him worthy of the place and of my favour. I wish all my judges to have the like undaunted courage to punish offenders of what rank soever."
It is greatly to the honour of Henry V. that the brave and good old Chief Justice retained his post until age and infirmities compelled him to relinquish it.
Sir William Gascoigne appeared in his place in Parliament and sat in Court in Westminster Hall during the first year of the reign of King Henry V. But his long and arduous career had aged him before the allotted threescore years and ten that are given to man, and in 1413 he quitted public life.
He did not long survive his retirement, but, after a short illness, expired within a year of his resignation.
His funeral was celebrated with the magnificence due to his eminent dignity, his honourable family, his large fortune, and his exalted fame.
On a stately monument in Harwood Church, Yorkshire, where he was interred, he is represented lying at full length, attired in his judge's robes, with a hood drawn over his head. At his right side is a long dagger; on the left, a purse fastened to his girdle. One of his wives lies beside him. There are the remains of an inscription cut in brass around the edge of the tomb. Unfortunately, during the Civil Wars much of this brass-work was torn away.
In the east window of the same church there still remain some portions of the ancient glass, and in this glass can be traced the figure of a man arrayed in the scarlet robes of a judge. Both on his right hand and on his left is the figure of a kneeling woman, and above these three figures are the arms of the Gascoigne family, and also those of the Mowbrays and of the Pickerings.