SOURCE: Oldfield, Genevieve Ambrose. “New Light on the Life of George Gascoigne.” The Review of English Studies 13, no. 50 (April 1937): 129-38.

[In the following essay, Oldfield focuses on Gascoigne's marriage and apparent disinheritance and how these events are reflected in the poet's writings.]

Although many facts in the life of the Elizabethan poet George Gascoigne are obscured by the lapse of time and disputed by his biographers, it is my intention to consider now only two of these matters, i.e. (1) the so-called “disinheritance theory,” which presupposes that Gascoigne was legally disinherited before his father's death; and (2) the poet's marriage, which long has been enshrouded in mystery and which still presents its baffling points.

First of all, in considering the disinheritance theory, the poet's own words should have some weight in the matter, though, unsupported by other proof, they would avail but little. However, it is as well at least to glance at his prose preambles and the prose introductions to his poems. In these prefatory remarks, which are cast in the form of letters, his attitude should be sincere, and in all of them one notices that he often refers to his misspent youth. For instance, in his “Epistle to the Reverend Divines,”¹ written in 1574, he writes “whatsoever my youth hath seemed unto the graver sort, I woulde bee verie loth nowe in my middle age to deserve reproch. … For if I shoulde nowe at this age seeme as carelesse of reproche, as I was in greene youth readie to goe astray, my faultes might quickely growe double, and myne estimation shoulde bee woorthie too remayne but single.” Later in the same he refers to the “oversight of my youth” which “had brought me far behind hand and indebted unto the world.”

Again the following year, in an “Epistle to the Young Gentlemen of England,”² in apologizing for his poems he attests that “a man of middle yeares, who hath to his cost experimented the vanities of youth, and to his perill passed them: who hath bought repentance deare, and yet gone through with the bargaine: who seeth before his face the tyme past lost, and the rest passing away in post: Such a man had more neede to be well advised in his doings, and resolute in his determinations. For with more ease and greater favour may we answere for tenn madde follies committed in grene youth, than one sober oversight escaped in yeares of discretion.” And of his poems he says, “for the most of them being written in my madnesse, might have yeelded then more delight to my frantike fansie to see them published, than they now do accumulate cares in my minde to set them forth corrected: and a deformed youth had bene more likely to set them to sale long sithence than a reformed man can be able now to protect them with simplicitye.” And later, “being indebted unto the world (at the least five thousand days very vainly spent) I may yeeld him yet some part of mine account in these Poemes.”

And, again, to account for publishing his poems, he states “bicause I have (to mine owne great detriment) mispent my golden time, I may serve as ensample to the youthfull Gentlemen of England, that they runne not upon the rocks which have brought me to shipwracke.” He adjures his readers to “beware … and learn you to use the talent which I have highly abused. Make me your mirrour. And if hereafter you see me recover mine estate, or re-edify the decayed walls of my youth, then begin you sooner to build some foundation which may beautify your pallace.”

Once more, in “The general advertisement” of his poems “to the reader,”³ the following passage is suggestive of the same regret or disappointment: “yet wit and I did (in youth) make such a fray, that I fear his cozen wisdom will never become friends with me in my age.” He excuses himself with these words, “Well though my folly be greater than my fortune, yet overgreat were mine unconstancy if in mine own behalf I should compile so many sundry songs or sonnets.” “For,” says he, “in wanton delights I helped all men, though in sad earnest I never furthered myself any kind of way.”

All these references and innuendoes surely at least bespeak some serious thought in the poet's mind, something that might well have been otherwise.

To include as evidence autobiographical material gleaned from his poems would perhaps be treading on dangerous ground, since it has been claimed recently that Gascoigne's Hundreth Sundry Flowres⁴ is but an anthology of verses written by various poets of the period,⁵ so the evidence of his verses will be left until later. But even if the author himself cannot be relied upon for facts concerning his own life, it would seem indeed strange if a contemporary and friend during his lifetime should feel called upon to write untrue things of the poet's life immediately after his death. And yet Arber's reprint of the Stationers' Register for the year 1577 contains the entry, under the name of Aggas: “Licenced unto him a Remembraunce of the well employed lief and godlie ende of George Gascoign esquier who deceased at Stamford in Lincolnshire the vij of October, 1577, the reporte of George Whetstons gentleman.” It will be realized that George Whetstone was really a friend, for it was at his home in Stamford that Gascoigne died in the presence of his wife and son, and was buried in the family vault of the Whetstones.

The pamphlet containing the “reporte” (Malone 593, in the Bodleian) is in verse and tells of the life and death of the poet. It is written partly in the first person, as though Gascoigne himself were the writer, and between the verses are interspersed several interesting annotations in prose, as though Whetstone had added these, such as “He was Sir John Gascoigne's sonne and heire disinherited,” and “he thought he could succeed dispite his disinheritance.” It does not seem probable that at such a time a friend would make false statements about the poet's disinheritance if some such thing had not occurred. But to turn to more authoritative proof in the legal documents.

As early as June 1, 1562, Sir John had disposed of the capital house and site of his manor of Cardington with appurtenances, by “sale, bargaine, enfoeffment,”⁶ etc., of the same to Edward Gilbert, alderman of London, after having recovered the same to the use of himself and wife “and their heirs forever” from Francis Earl of Bedford and Sir George Converys, less than a month previously on May 12, 1562.⁷ And in both these documents the name of his son and heir do not occur, though in similar documents “his son and heir, George” together with the father, are named as party of the one part, especially in deeds pertaining to property.

However, one would pass by this fact most innocently if Sir John Gascoigne's will⁸ did not very clearly indicate that the relation between himself and his son George was far from harmonious. The will was made on April 2, 1568, two days before Sir John died. In it he left to his wife household effects to the value of 300 marks, to be appraised by “four indifferent persons,” according to the terms and meaning of a promise conveyed in a pair of indentures between Francis, Earl of Bedford and Sir George Conyers on the one part, and himself and son, George, on the other part, with his wife to have her choice of the goods. Other bequests followed, including the lease of the parsonage of Fenlake Barnes in Cardington to his younger son, John. And all his manors, lands, etc., not before granted he left to his son George and his heirs, “upon one condition only, and not otherwise,” that his executor should be allowed to take sufficient of the profits therefrom to satisfy all debts, legacies and bequests as set forth in the will, including one annuity of £20 for life to a servant, Anne Drewry.⁹ Or, alternatively, he ordained that his son, George, should discharge the terms of the will within one year of his father's death, and if this were not done all his lands, tenements, etc., not included in his wife's jointure and £16 per annum out of the profits of her jointure, were to go to Sir John's executor to enable him to carry out the terms of the will, including also the payment of funeral charges, etc. A list of the debts followed, including a recognizance in which George was implicated and would suffer.

This recognizance¹⁰ was made on November 12, 1567, only five months before the will was drawn up, and consisted of a pair of indentures between Sir John Gascoigne and his son, George, on the one part, and one Thomas Colby of London on the other part, and discloses the fact that the latter paid to the former the sum of £940 for the manor of “Escottes, alias Cotton,” in Cardington, with all its appurtenances, farms, lands, etc., except several leases of land not yet expired, which were to run until expiry with the profits reserved to Sir John and his heirs.

Then on the security of this recognizance Sir John alone, without reference to his son, accepted from Thomas Colby on December 15 next following the sum of 2,000 marks and again on March 10, 1568, another £200, both of which amounts were to be returned only if the terms of the original recognizance were not kept. Three weeks and two days later, when Sir John made his will—only two days before he died—the terms of the recognizance apparently were still troubling his mind. Probably he feared that his son George would attempt to forfeit the pledge he had made with his father regarding Thomas Colby's “possession and enjoyment of the property unmolested” by claims, for he stipulated that his executor should take whatever steps might be necessary to prevent such forfeiture of the recognizance, even to “the prosecuting and serving of execution of a bond” against his son.

This left matters so that George, if he had wished to recover the premises involved, not only would have had to repay the original sum of £940 received from Colby for the manor and appurtenances, but also the additional 2,000 marks and £200 advanced to his father by Colby. And Sir John in his will, to further ensure that all the tangle was carried out, appointed this same Thomas Colby supervisor of his will, to confer with and advise the executor. And if his executor, a nephew through his wife's connections, William Curson, refused to act as executor, Thomas Colby should assume that office as well.

In this manner, with his property all tied up or disposed of, except that which was apportioned to his wife and his younger son, Sir John practically disinherited his son and heir, George, without publicly announcing the fact, though if the Inquisition Post Mortem¹¹ can be relied upon for accuracy, and it was taken April 2, 1569, long enough after Sir John's death for the matter to have become obscured and misrepresented, George did acquire a “manor and fourth part of the barony and other premises” which were worth by the year £20 14s. 11d. and 12s. respectively. However, in view of subsequent events, it does not seem likely in this instance that the Inquisition Post Mortem can be strictly relied upon.

The first question that arises is why Sir John chose this manner of disinheriting his son when he might as easily have publicly announced the disinheritance if the son had displeased or disgraced his father. The answer to this question is not far to seek. On July 10, 1563, only nine months after the marriage of George to Elizabeth Breton, Sir John appeared in the Queen's Chancery Court¹² and acknowledged that he owed his son George £1,000 if the property due to descend to him and his heirs were otherwise disposed of, except to descend to the rightful heirs of Sir John in case George lacked issue. But Sir John, rather than fulfil the terms of this recognizance and pay his son £1,000 for the inheritance which he was not to receive, preferred to dispose of the bulk of the estate through the recognizance for Thomas Colby of London, and even had the audacity to secure his son's connivance in the plan. It was a bold enterprise and apparently succeeded, for his son's verdict was recorded in Whetstone's “Remembrance”:

First of my life, which some (amis) did knowe,
          I leve mine armes, my actes shall blase the same,
Yet on a thorne a grape will never growe,
          No more a Churle, dooth breed a childe of fame.
But (for my birth) my birth right was not great
          My father did his forward son defeat.
This froward deed could scarce my hart dismay …

So, apparently, he understood the cause of his father's bitterness that resulted so woefully for him. And later he was to feel the echo of the “froward deed,” when his mother, Lady Margaret, whose will was made on April 16, 1574, did not even mention George, though she left property and money to her younger son, John Gascoigne. But George was better placed then and dared to dispute her will. On the same day that it was proved, March 10, 1575, George attempted to have it broken legally,¹³ but this was not accomplished. Her executor, John Conyers—a nephew—carried out the provisions of the will, sentence definitive was passed on the lady's sanity and her son George, for his trouble, only incurred the expenses involved.

Now what could have caused such bitterness, such animosity, such retaliation on the part of the father, Sir John Gascoigne, that his son George would feel it for the rest of his life? In the first place he deserted the law for a Court life, though it is true that later he returned to Gray's Inn to practise law. But surely this would not cause a father to disinherit his son. George was a bold courtier; he envied those higher placed and aspired to service for the Queen. His ambition knew no bounds, and neither—we surmise—did his prodigality and extravagance. A “young blood” of Elizabeth's age usually lived a fast, quick, and short life, and evidence is not lacking that George did all three of these superlatively, which may not have pleased even an Elizabethan father. But in addition to incurring enormous debts, squandering his time, his money, brains, and health, he made a marriage under circumstances which probably added the last drop to his father's cup of bitterness.

Within the very year of this marriage, possibly acting under coercion of his son, who wanted to be assured of his future inheritance from a father who had already perhaps very patently expressed his opinion of his son's wife, Sir John made the promise in the Chancery Court that he would forfeit £1,000 to George if the lands, manors, etc., were not allowed to descend to him and his heirs;¹⁴ but how easily Sir John circumvented this promise!

The marriage of the poet, George, to Elisabeth, widow of William Breton and daughter of John Bacon of Bury St. Edmunds, was celebrated at Christ Church, Newgate Street, on November 23, 1562, according to the Church Register of Christenings, Marriages and Burials from 1538 to 1588.¹⁵

Now William Breton in his will, dated February 12, 1557, expressed his confidence in his wife, for he left to her his capital mansion in St. Giles parish without Creplegate, as well as property and houses in Barbycan and Redcross Streets in the same parish, and also his quay and wharf called “Dyse Key” which he had bought of Thomas Bacon and then let to the same Thomas and James Bacon, his brother, to the use of Elisabeth during her life, and after her death to the use of his eldest son, Richard. But in his bequests to his sons, Richard and Nicholas, and to his daughters, all of which he left in the custody of his wife until they attained their majorities, he took the further precaution of providing in the event of her remarriage, in which case, or, if she died before the bequests were made, he ordained that his father-in-law John Bacon and Lawrence Eresby, or the longer liver of them, should assume the custody of and dispose of their profits to the good up-bringing of the children.¹⁶ He must have been motivated therefore by some suspicion that if his wife remarried the custody of his children's heritage might be better left in other hands. He died on January 12, 1559, and his father-in-law, John Bacon of Bury St. Edmunds,¹⁷ did not long survive him. His will was made on April 7, 1559, and proved on March 10, 1560.¹⁸ When the will was made his daughter was already remarried and, we assume, not quite to his liking, since he left to her, whom throughout the will he designated as “Boysse,” only one-third of a gold chain which was to be equally divided between his three daughters, whereas to his other two unmarried daughters he left money and property as well. The will also mentions his son-in-law, “Mr. Boyse,” to whom he left gold for a ring.

The will of James Bacon of London¹⁹ was dated April 22, 1573, and mentions the quay called “Dice Keye,” in the parish of St. Dunstan in the East, “late purchased of Richard Britein” for the sum of £900, “whereof £450 is already paid, and £450 is due after the death of Elizabeth Gascoyne, mother of the said Richard Britteine, and to her for life there is to be paid £50 a year.” He also ordained that £450 should be realized of his goods, etc., to remain in the hands of his wife for the discharge of his “heir,” after the death of the said Elizabeth Gascoyne, or if his wife died before Elizabeth the £450 was to be delivered to William Webb, citizen and salter of London, to discharge to the same effect.

The next bit of evidence in this unusual case is an excerpt from a diary of Henry Machyn, which has been published in the Camden Society publications under date of September 30, 1562, as follows: “The same day at nyght bi-twyn viij and ix was a grett fray in Redcrosse Stret betwyn ij gentylmen and ther men, for they dyd maree one woman and dyvers wher hurtt; these were ther names, Master Boysse and master Gaskyn gentylmen.”²⁰

Apparently George Gascoigne landed in prison over this strange affair. For Edward Boys of London brought suit in the Queen's Court against “George Gascoyn of London esquire in the custody of the marshal,” for the sum of £500 regarding the inheritance of the Breton children. Thus it seems that each man was quite willing and eager to claim the widow of William Breton as his wife, and each was equally willing to act as custodian of the bequests left by William Breton to his children.

All of the documents in the case have not been forthcoming, so it is with great difficulty that the intricacies of the affair are patched together; but there was claim and counterclaim by each man in the Chancery Court²¹ and the Court of Wards and Liveries.²² However, the matter was finally adjusted to the satisfaction of Gascoigne, for the Queen on February 17, 1569,²³ took the case out of her court of Wards and Liveries, and herself granted to “our beloved George Gascoyne” the custody of the life and marriage of Richard Breton during his minority, together with an annuity of £15 out of the proceeds from the property left by William Breton to his son, Richard. This annuity was to run from the day when Breton died²⁴ (January 12, 1559) until the then present time, and to continue until such time as Richard might attain his majority.

How Gascoigne succeeded in gaining the favour of “good Queen Bess,” is problematical; but it is not unlikely that influence was exerted by reason of the kinship between Gascoigne's wife, Elisabeth, and the Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, Sir Nicholas Bacon, who was a distant cousin of her father's.

At last the poet's fortunes seem to have changed. He was assured of an income of at least £15. By being made legal custodian of William Breton's children by his wife Elisabeth, the recognition of Gascoigne's marriage to her was achieved. Thus the matrimonial tangle was solved to the poet's satisfaction.²⁵ But there was still the financial embarrassment visited on George by his father's avaricious though possibly justifiable act. This too, however, was at length adjudicated favourably for George when, on June 1, 1569,²⁶ by gracious act of the Queen, entry was granted to George and his heirs forever, to all the lands, manors, tenements, farms, etc., which should have come to him on the death of his father.

With the revelation of these facts in the matters of his disinheritance and marriage, it is not difficult to believe that the poet was thinking of his plight in one or both cases when he wrote the following verse:

One onely dismall day, suffised (with despite)
To take me from my carvers place, and from the table quite.
Five hundred broken sleepes, had busied all my braynes,
To find (at last) some worthy trade that might increase my gaynes:
One blacke unluckie houre my trade hath overthrowen,
And marrde my marte, & broke my bank, & al my blisse oreblowen.
To wrappe up all in woe, I am in prison pent,
My gaines possessed by my foes, my friends against me bent.
And all the heavy haps, that ever age yet bare,
Assembled are within my breast, to choake me up with care.

This verse was chosen more or less at random from “The Complaint of the Greene Knight,” an autobiographical poem; but its like in grief, woe, and disappointment may be seen in many other pieces in Gascoigne's Posies. But enough of poetry, since, as in the Bible, a verse can always be found to prove any doubtful point.

Notes

1. Used as introduction to the second edition of his works, appearing in 1575 under the title The Posies.

2. Also included in introduction of the second edition of his collected poems, 1575.

3. Prefatory to second edition.

4. This is the title of the first edition of Gascoigne's collected works published in 1572/3.

5. The anthology theory is repudiated by the present writer, who bases her belief, among other things, on the fact that the so-called anthology, reprinted by the Haslewood Press for Mr. B. M. Ward in 1926, contains only half the original volume, which is divided by a break in pagination at p. 201. The latter half is called the original first edition by Mr. Ward, despite the fact that of the six known copies of this volume none contains only this portion without the first part consisting of the two plays, The Supposes and Jocasta, both of which are referred to by the Printer in his foreword “to the Reader” occurring in the first edition of Gascoigne's poems.

6. Public Record Office, Patent Roll, 4 Elizabeth, Part 10, mem. 30 (29).

7. P.R.O., Patent Roll, 5 Elizabeth, Part 10, mem. 3 (56).

8. P.C.C., Babington 12, preserved in Somerset House, London.

9. This is the Anne Drewrie who appeared in the Queen's Court on January 23, 1585, and pleaded herself satisfied with the “outlawry” of Sir John Gascoigne, who had been imprisoned for refusing to pay her the sum of £200, with 68s. damages, awarded her previously in the same Court. The Queen therefore, “in her piety” pardoned Sir John his “outlawry” and he was forthwith released from prison. P.R.O., Patent Roll, 7 Elizabeth, Part 8, mem. 1 (45).

10. P.R.O., Patent Roll, 10 Elizabeth, Part 11, and Close Roll, Part 13.

11. P.R.O., Chancery Inquisition, Post Mortem, Series II, vol. 151, (3).

12. P.R.O., Close Roll, 5 Elizabeth, Part 21.

13. P.C.C., Carew 4, preserved in Somerset House, London.

14. P.R.O., Close Roll, 5 Elizabeth, Part 21, No. 98.

15. In the list of marriages, however, the year 1538 in the original—which was written in 1586, evidently a transcript of an earlier register—has been altered by a later hand to 1542, with a corresponding alteration in subsequent years until 1587. And the Harleian Society, by whom the registers were published in 1895, adhered to the years as altered in the original. If the date had not been altered the marriage of Gascoigne to Elisabeth must have occurred on November 23, 1558; but her first husband, William Breton, did not die until January 12, 1559, so 1558 is untenable.

16. Taken from the Memorial Introduction to Rev. Alexander B. Grosart's Complete Works in Prose and Verse of Nicholas Breton, London, 1879, pp. xii-xvii.

17. Up to this time it has been impossible to substantiate the statement frequently made that her father was one John Bacon of London. If such were the case this second John Bacon with a daughter and son-in-law, Boyse, must have caused all the confusion in Gascoigne's life; but the legal documents do not allow of such an interpretation, and it is therefore assumed that her father, while not of London, was confused with his brothers, Thomas and James, who were of London.

18. P.C.C., Chayney 16. Preserved in Somerset House, London.

19. P.C.C., Peter 28.

20. Inasmuch as the marriage of Gascoigne and Elizabeth occurred on November 17, 1562, it is small wonder that this ante-nuptial presumption of his caused a great uproar and “fray in Redcrosse Stret.”

21. P.R.O., Chancery Proceedings, Series II, 71/71; Chancery Proceedings, Series II, 78/55; Coram Rege Roll, 1206.

22. The matter before this court is known only by reference occurring in other documents, as search failed to trace the W. & L. documents.

23. P.R.O., Patent Roll, 11 Elizabeth, Part 8, mem. 10.

24. The fact that the annuity was to run from the date of William Breton's death may imply that the marriage of George Gascoigne to Elizabeth occurred shortly thereafter, but this is only conjecture.

25. The discrepancy of dates still excites doubt, especially in view of the Queen's grant of custody running from the death of William Breton, January 12, 1559, but the final outcome was satisfactory: date of marriage, November 17, 1562; fray in Redcross Street, September 30, 1562; date of Chancery and other Court proceedings re Breton children, October 7, 1562, and some time between October, 1562, and Easter, 1563.

26. P.R.O., Patent Roll, 11 Elizabeth, Part 4, mem. 26.