GASCOIGNE, William II

Gascoigne was the nephew of one of the most eminent parliamentarians of the first quarter of the fifteenth century. His uncle and namesake is known to have represented Bridgwater in at least 12 Parliaments between 1406 and 1422, and the loss of the election returns for a further five assemblies in this period may disguise the fact that he saw unbroken service in the Commons during these 16 years. The younger William’s own parliamentary record was less impressive. Unlike his uncle he did not, apparently, ever take up residence in Bridgwater, and he secured just three elections for the borough. Nor is there any other evidence to suggest that he took particular interest in parliamentary affairs. His presence at the Somerset shire elections is first recorded in 1427, the year of his second return, and after that he set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture just twice, in 1431 and 1447. Moreover, he was never among the burgesses attesting the Bridgwater indenture, or indeed among those who witnessed the election in the city of Wells where he resided for at least part of his career.

As Gascoigne’s father was a younger son, he had no immediate expectation of succeeding to any of his family’s landholdings, and instead acquired an estate by a marriage to the widow of the Somerset landowner John Scoville. Among her dower lands was the Scovilles’ seat at Brockley, where William and his wife took up residence.5 CP40/654, rot. 403; Reg. Bekynton, i. 210, 221. On the childless death of the elder William Gascoigne in 1423 his brother, Thomas, inherited his property, with the exception of certain holdings in Bridgwater, which stayed in the hands of the deceased man’s widow, Maud, for her life.6 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1400-45 (Som. Rec. Soc. lviii), no. 609. Within a year, and probably in line with his late brother’s instructions, Thomas transferred his holdings in Bridgwater, Newton Plecy and Exton to his son, who already possessed an interest in their remainder. Among Gascoigne’s properties in the borough that he went on to represent in the Commons were a house in ‘Damyet’ and another on the corner of St. Mary Street.7 CPR, 1422-9, p. 135; CFR, xv. 41-42; HMC Wells, ii. 81, 651-2, 665-6; CP40/687, rot. 177; E159/220, brevia Mich. rot. 10d; Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1400-45, nos. 625, 630-1; Reg. Stafford, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxi), 5; ii (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 275; Reg. Bekynton, i. 714. Other interests temporarily augmented these holdings: in December 1429 Gascoigne shared with Walter Portman* (a fellow Member of the Parliaments of 1425 and 1427) an Exchequer lease of a moiety of the Somerset manor of Orchardleigh during the minorities of the successive heirs of Sir Walter Romsey, an acquisition which saw them embroiled in a Chancery dispute over the descent of the property in the following year.8 CFR, xv. 288, 303; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 123-4; C44/26/19. The combined value of Gascoigne’s holdings is uncertain, but his third of the manor of Newton Plecy alone was said to return in excess of £17 in annual rents.9 Parker, 59.

A lawyer like his uncle, Gascoigne established an extensive private practice in his native Somerset. Among those whom he served as a feoffee or attorney, or whose property deeds he attested, were prominent local gentry, including Sir Theobald Gorges*,10 CP40/682, rot. 463; KB9/105/1/15, nos. 46-50; C1/32/222; C140/35/59; C241/232/20; Reg. Bekynton, i. 336. Sir Thomas Brooke*,11 CFR, xv. 165. William Carent*,12 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68 (Som. Rec. Soc. lx), no. 744. William Paulet of Melcombe and his son, (Sir) John*,13 C139/88/49. the abbot of Glastonbury,14 CP40/654, rot. 128. leading men-of-law, like the future chief justice John Juyn,15 CCR, 1429-35, p. 162; CFR, xvii. 39. and a range of other men.16 Bristol RO, Ashton Court mss, AC/D/1/63; Som. Feet of Fines (Som. Rec. Soc. xxii), 81, 85, 86, 88, 90; HMC Wells, ii. 673; CCR, 1429-35, pp. 117, 131; 1447-54, p. 442; C241/215/24, 228/37. It was as a result of his service as one of the arbiters in the dispute between the heirs of Roger Walsh of Hutton over the partition of the Walsh estates that early in 1441 he became embroiled in a protracted lawsuit with his fellow lawyer William Dodesham *.17 CP40/723, rot. 480; Ashton Court mss, AC/D/11/17, 23; Som. Feet of Fines, 189-90. Gascoigne’s principal employment was, however, found in the service of successive bishops of Bath and Wells (above all Bishop Bekynton) and the chapter of their cathedral church at Wells. Even in his father’s lifetime, he was retained as the chapter’s attorney at an annual fee of 6s. 8d.; by 1449 he was serving as the bailiff of Bishop Bekynton’s liberty; in 1453 he was styled the bishop’s ‘domicellus’, and both that year and in 1454 he witnessed grants of property to the college of vicars choral at Wells.18 JUST1/1540, rot. 32; E368/221, rot. 9; 224, rot. 4; HMC Wells, i. 435; ii. 60, 671, 680, 681, 682; Reg. Bekynton, i. 714; CPR, 1446-52, p. 516; CCR, 1435-41, p. 185. Individual members of the chapter also called upon his services. Among the most protracted of the tasks this involved him in was the execution of the will of Nicholas Calton (or Carlton), the archdeacon of Taunton, who had died in 1440, leaving numerous and tangled financial affairs.19 CPR, 1441-6, p. 211; CP40/723, rots. 36d, 331, 413; HMC Wells, ii. 673. Already well established in the city of Wells, in late April 1444 Gascoigne was admitted as a freeman, with two leading citizens, William Vowell* and John Godwin alias Glasier*, acting as his sureties. Later in the same year, he joined the city council, on which he would continue to serve until his death 13 years later.20 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 312, 314.

It had been one of the conditions of Gascoigne’s acquisition of his uncle’s lands that he would make provision for his soul, but it was not until July 1446 that he finally established a chantry in Bishop Bubwith’s almshouse at Wells, as well as an annual obit in the neighbouring church of St. Cuthbert, funded from the revenues of the lands in Newton Plecy which the elder William Gascoigne and the latter’s associate Master Richard Bruton, the former chancellor of Wells cathedral, had purchased. Gascoigne specified in particular that the chantry chaplain should daily before beginning his mass admonish the congregation in English, saying ‘Ye shall pray for the good estate of the kynge, peas and prosperite of this reame, William Gascoigne of Welles and Johane his wyfe, Hugh Kene and Auneys his wyffe, the deane and chapitre of Welles, the maister and cominalte of Welles, John Reynalde, John Storthwayte and Richard Chocke and for the souls of bisshop Nicholl Bubwith foundour of this place, Richard Bruton and William Gascoigne of Bruggewater foundours of this masse, Thomas Gascoigne, Richard Penyfader, William Poulet, Robert Burgh, her fader and moder soules, brether and suster soules and all the good doers soules of this place, and all cristen soules, Pater noster and Ave Maria’. In his lifetime, Gascoigne himself would choose the chantry chaplain, and after his death the presentation to the chantry was to fall to the dean and chapter of Wells.21 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 403-4; Parker, 57-58. In 1455 Gascoigne established a further chantry at the Trinity altar of Bridgwater’s parish church. Once again, the beneficiaries included not only Bruton and William Gascoigne I, but also William and Sir John Paulet and their respective wives.22 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, nos. 777-83.

Gascoigne died in or shortly before December 1457, when a writ of diem clausit extremum in his name was issued to the escheator of Somerset.23 CFR, xix. 194. He was succeeded by his only daughter, Christine, the wife of John Keynell. Gascoigne’s will is not known to have survived, but he may have left provisions for the transfer of his holdings at Newton Plecy to the college of vicar choral of Wells cathedral, to whom his heirs duly granted it in 1467.24 HMC Wells, ii. 683-5; Som. Feet of Fines, 125, 206.