William Gascoigne (justice)

Sir William Gascoigne (c. 1350 to 17 December 1419) was an English judge who served as Chief Justice of the King's Bench under King Henry IV, appointed soon after Henry's accession in 1399 and holding the post until 1413. Descended from an old Yorkshire family, he studied law at the Inner Temple and became known for his integrity and independence, including his refusal in 1405 to sentence the leaders of a northern rebellion against Henry IV, among them Archbishop Richard le Scrope of York, without a trial by their peers. He is also remembered, though likely apocryphally, for having committed the young Prince Hal to prison for contempt of court, a story that later helped make him a byword for impartial justice and led Shakespeare to give him a role in Henry IV, Part 2. He died in 1419 and was buried at All Saints' Church in Harewood, Yorkshire.