Gascoigne, SIR WILLIAM (1350-1419) judge, was appointed on the accession of Henry IV. a justice in the Court of Common Pleas, and in November 1400 was raised to be Chief-justice of the King's Bench. He was evidently a fearless judge, as he refused to obey the king's command to sentence to death Archbishop Scrope and Mowbray after the northern insurrection in 1405. Nine days after the death of Henry IV. a successor was appointed to his office, which disposes of the fiction that Henry V. continued him in it (Shakespeare's Henry IV., V. ii. 102-121). The famous story of his encounter with the dissolute young prince Hal lacks historical support. Mr Croft and Mr Solly Flood believe it originated in the Rolls entry under Edward I., that the prince, afterwards Edward II., was expelled from the court for half a year, for insulting one of his father's ministers. The story as ascribed to Prince Hal first appears in Elyot (1531). Hall has the story also, and after him Holinshed, although none of the three, like Shakespeare, mentions the judge by name.
See Croft's edition of Elyot's Boke named the Governour (1880), and Church's Henry V. (1889).