Bernard Gascoigne

Sir Bernard Gascoigne , April/May 1614 to 10 January 1687, was an Italian mercenary from Florence in Tuscany, who served with the Royalist army during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Captured at Colchester in August 1648, he was initially condemned to death but released, since Parliament wished to avoid antagonising a foreign power. After the 1660 Stuart Restoration, he held a number of minor diplomatic roles and died in London on 10 January 1687.

Early life Bernard Gascoigne, or "Bernardo Guasconi", was born April/May 1614 in Florence, son of Giovanni Batista di Bernardo Guasconi (d. 1614) and Clemenza di Lorenzo Altoviti (d.1634). His father died when he was four months old, and Gascoigne was brought up by his maternal uncle, Alessandro Altoviti. He became one of the men-at-arms in the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and distinguished himself in an action in Casentino. He then served in Lombardy, Piedmont, and Germany.

In England Gascoigne met Henry Neville on his 1643–4 Grand Tour in Italy. Coming to England, he took up arms for Charles I, and obtained a commission in the regiment of horse of Colonel Richard Neville, Henry's elder brother.

Return to Italy Gascoigne was given a pass to Tuscany for himself, his servants, and nine horses, on 4 January 1664. In 1664 he wrote from Florence to Secretary Henry Bennet, about an intelligence contact at Venice, a year, and suggesting Vittorio Siri as a source on the French court. When Sir John Finch went to Florence in 1665 as English minister, he was entertained in Gascoigne's house.

A royal warrant was issued for the assignment of the yearly pension granted to him in 1663. Gascoigne was in constant attendance on Cosimo, Prince of Tuscany, during his visit to England in 1669. In the following year he took part in a frolic at Audley End, where the queen, the Duchess of Richmond, and the Duchess of Buckingham disguised themselves as country lasses and went to see the fair.

Mission to Vienna In 1672 Gascoigne was sent to Vienna as English envoy to conduct the negotiations for a marriage of James, Duke of York with Claudia Felicitas of Austria, daughter of Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria. Eventually the negotiations were broken off, and in May 1673 orders were sent to Gascoigne to take his leave from the court.

Death Gascoigne received two sums from the royal bounty in 1686. He died in the Haymarket, in the parish of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 10 January 1687.

Works Gascoigne wrote: Relazione della Storia d' Inghilterra del mdcxlvii, scritta dal Colonello e Residente in Londra Bernardino Guasconi ed inviata a Ferdinando II in Firenze; published Florence, 1886, with a brief notice of the author by Gargano T. Gargani. A Description of Germany: its Government, Manner of Assembling Diets, Ceremony of Electing and Crowning the King of the Romans: as also an Account of their present Imperial Majesties Houshold. This was sent to Charles II in 1672, when Gascoigne was envoy at Vienna. It was printed in Tom Brown's Miscellanea Aulica, or a Collection of State Treaties, London, 1702.