View Item

The Irishman Richard Gascoigne was living in England when he joined the military forces raised in 1715 in support of the exiled James Francis Edward Stuart, who was known to his supporters as King James III and dismissed by his enemies as ‘the Pretender’. 

Gascoigne was captured by government forces at the Battle of Preston in November 1715, and was hanged, drawn and quartered in London on 25 May 1716.

Gascoigne’s speech from the scaffold expressed his devotion to the Roman Catholic Church and the exiled Stuarts. He asserted that only James III ‘succeeding to the Throne of his Ancestors’ could bring peace and prosperity to these islands.

The publication of this sheet by the reputable printer-bookseller Thomas Humes may have been motivated less by politics than its commercial potential, but it must certainly have caused raised eyebrows among sections of the Dublin public.

Citation:
The Speech of Mr. Richard Gascoigne, who was Drawn Hang’d and Quarter’d at Tyburn, for High Treason against His Majesty King George (Dublin, 1716).,
Marsh's Library Exhibits,
accessed September 26, 2025,
https://web.marshlibrary.ie/digi/items/show/482