Richard Gascoigne

Richard Gascoigne ( 27 May 1579 – 23 August 1661 24 March 1664) was an English antiquarian.

Biography

Gascoigne was baptised on 27 May 1579 at St Mary the Virgin, Shenfield, Essex. He was the fourth son of George Gascoigne (1531?–1620), a barrister and his wife Mary (; daughter of John Stokesley). At one point George had been of Old Hurst, Huntingdonshire. His family was ultimately descended from one Nicholas Gascoigne, younger brother of Chief Justice Sir William Gascoigne (c. 1350–1419). Richard Gascoigne was also distantly related to Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford, a relation he took some pride in.

Gascoigne attended Jesus College, Cambridge as a pensioner, admitted on 21 October 1594 and graduating in the Lent term of 1599. He was forced to leave in September 1599 due to health troubles, later claiming he would have stayed on otherwise and become a fellow. that Watson-Wentworth committed. Of the "six or seven great chests full of the said deeds, &c, some of them as old as the conquest", Oldys managed to rescue a small number of rolls and manuscripts, and a smaller number of these have survived to the present day, held among collections in Yorkshire, London, and Oxford.