GAWDY, Sir Bassingbourne (1560-1606), of Bardwell Hall, West Harling, Norf.

The Gawdy family traced its ancestry to a French knight named Sir Brews Gawdy, who settled in England after being captured during the Hundred Years War. Millican, 336; J. Barnes, Hist. Edward III, 651. The main family originally resided in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, but a junior branch was established in Norfolk in the fifteenth century. The family rose to prominence under the later Tudors, when three of the sons of Thomas Gawdy of Harleston all achieved senior legal positions. The family was inevitably drawn into Court circles, and their enhanced local status saw them conclude various marriage alliances with old East Anglian gentry families, such as the Cokes of Holkham and Bacons of Harleston. Millican, passim.

The West Harling branch of the family was founded by Gawdy’s father, Bassingbourne. As one of Norfolk’s more godly Protestant magistrates, the elder Gawdy was in constant conflict with his neighbours, the pro-Catholic Lovell and Heveningham families, a feud continued by his son after his death. HMC Gawdy, passim. In 1591, Thomas Lovell’s attempt to block the appointment of a precisian as a subsidy collector was thwarted through the Court influence of Gawdy’s younger brother, Philip, and the opposition of the Bacons and Sir Edward Coke*. In this dispute Gawdy may also have benefited from the patronage of the 2nd earl of Essex, for in June 1591 Gawdy appointed Essex’s chaplain, Master Greenwood, minister of West Harling after Essex wrote that he had heard ‘very well’ of Gawdy’s ‘good disposition to honest and godly ministers’. Norf. RO, WLS XVII/1, bk. 1, f. 11. Gawdy’s Court contacts included not only Essex but also the earls of Kent and Sussex. Ibid. ff. 11v, 13v. Moreover, when Gawdy was pricked as sheriff in 1593, he was informed that it was through ‘my lord keeper’s (Sir John Puckering†) aid and Her Majesty’s special own liking and commendation’. Gawdy was also beholden to the lord admiral, the earl of Nottingham (Charles Howard I†), and the lord chamberlain, Henry Carey†, 1st Baron Hunsdon. HMC 7th Rep. 522.

Gawdy remained in close contact with Essex during the late 1590s. In 1599 he sent the earl two geldings as a present, and in reply received a letter of thanks and an offer of future assistance. Norf. RO, WLS XVII/1, bk. 2, ff. 6v-7. Nevertheless, Gawdy was not involved in the earl’s rebellion in 1601, and thus remained in favour with Sir Edward Coke, receiving an invitation to the wedding of Coke’s daughter in 1602. Ibid. ff. 82v-3. He soon found new patrons in the form of the Howards. Appointed master of the game to the earl of Arundel in 1603, he was made a deputy lieutenant by Henry Howard, earl of Northampton two years later. Add. 64868, ff. 66-7; Norf. RO, PHI/583.

Gawdy sat in the Commons twice under Elizabeth, and on the second occasion, in 1601, had served as senior knight for Norfolk. In 1604, however, he was content to let his cousin Sir Nathaniel Bacon take the county seat, while he himself served for Thetford, the borough he had represented in 1593. In the opening session of James’s first Parliament, Gawdy was named to two legislative committees, both of which interested him. The measure to assure the manors of the late Christopher Le Grys (15 May) concerned lands around Thetford, while the bill to restore Lord William Howard (15 May) involved the family of his new patron the earl of Northampton. CJ, i. 210b, 211a. While at Westminster, Gawdy received a letter from Sir Edmund Moundeford* requesting a copy of the ‘statutes as are to be debated upon this present Parliament’. HMC Gawdy, 92.

Gawdy made strenuous attempts to be spared from contributing £40 to the 1604 Privy Seal loan, possibly even to the extent of seeking to become collector of the Loan in Norfolk. Ibid. 94-7. In the second session of Parliament (1605-6), Gawdy again concentrated on local issues, being appointed to the Thetford school bill (23 Jan.) and the measure for the maintenance of Norwich ministers (13 February). CJ, i. 259a, 267b. His other legislative committee was for a bill to naturalize Sir David Foulis (18 April). Ibid. 300a. Ill health probably forced Gawdy to leave Westminster shortly afterwards, as he died at West Harling on 17 May 1606. In his will, dated on the day he died, he left the majority of his goods and property to his eldest son, Framlingham*, who inherited the lands at West Harling as well as other manors and lands in Norfolk and Suffolk. Gawdy’s executors, his uncle Anthony Gawdy and his brother-in-law Edmund Bacon, were instructed to sell Brettenham manor to pay his debts. PROB 11/109, f. 227. An inventory of Gawdy’s goods reveals that Framlingham inherited 5,480 sheep worth £1,390 and Bardwell Hall itself, which contained 26 bedrooms. Add. Ch. 16549. Framlingham continued the family tradition of representing Thetford in Parliament.