[2] By his matriculation at Michaelmas 1619, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography gives him a birth year 1599/1600;[3] whereas A Cambridge Alumni Database gives 1605.

Apparently, his views changed as the revolutionary tendency of the Presbyterian party became more pronounced, for in 1649 he addressed to Lord Fairfax A Religious and Loyal Protestation... against the proceedings of the parliament.

He immediately began to complain to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, of the poverty of the See, and based claims for a better benefice on a certain secret service, which he explained in January 1661 to be the sole invention of the Eikon Basilike, The Pourtraicture of his sacred Majestie in his Solitudes and Sufferings, put forth within a few hours after the execution of Charles I as written by the king himself.

His widow died in 1671: Samuel Pepys, a close friend of John's brother Sir Denis Gauden, the Navy Victualler, praised her charm and conversational skills.

The evidence in favour of Gauden's authorship rests chiefly on his own assertions and those of his wife (who after his death sent to her son John a narrative of the claim), and on the fact that it was admitted by Clarendon, who should have had means of being acquainted with the truth.

[5] The argument is that Gauden had prepared the book to inspire sympathy with the king through a representation of his pious and forgiving disposition, and so to rouse public opinion against his execution.

[5] Doubt was thrown on Charles's authorship in John Milton's Eikonoklastes (1649), which was followed almost immediately by a royalist answer, The Princely Pelican.

Royall Resolves Extracted from his Majestys Divine Meditations, with satisfactory reasons that his Sacred Person was the only Author of them (1649).

This theory would reconcile the conflicting evidence, that of those who saw Charles writing parts and read the MS. before publication, and the deliberate statements of Gauden.