Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet

[2] As was common with Yorkshire recusant families then, nearly all of Thomas's younger siblings entered the religious life, apart from his sister Anne, who married George Thwing, and was the mother of the martyr Fr.

[5] After succeeding to the title in 1637 Sir Thomas spent much of his life quietly managing his estates and his lucrative colliery: during the Popish Plot, a major part of his defence against the charge of conspiracy was that he almost never left home, and had not been in London for many years, so that his value as a conspirator was non-existent.

[7] As J.P. Kenyon remarks, even in the general atmosphere of anti-Catholic hysteria created by the Popish Plot, it is difficult to see how the authorities could have taken seriously such accusations against a man who was nearly 85, deaf and almost blind, who rarely visited London and indeed had scarcely left his own estate for the past 30 years.

As Kenyon notes, it is interesting that the Court heard evidence about the Franciscan house at Mount Grace, Thirsk, of which Gascoigne was patron, and a great deal was said about the convent at Dolebank, near Ripon, founded by his daughter Anne Tempest, but it seems that the judges did not regard this promotion of the Catholic faith as treasonable (as the related trial of Mary Pressicks also suggests).

In theory, it was a serious offence to give money for the support of a Catholic house of religion, but in practice, the Crown would generally turn a blind eye to it: the monastery at Mount Grace even survived the Plot.

In the case of Gascoigne's neighbour and co-accused Mary Pressicks, the Court gave an interesting ruling that she was legally entitled to publicly advocate the conversion of England to the Roman Catholic faith.

The prosecution made much of a so-called "list of conspirators", which in reality were individuals who had subscribed to support the new convent at Dolebank which Gascoigne's daughter Lady Tempest had recently founded, and where three of Thwing's sisters were nuns.