“To that virtue which for a series of years resisted oppression”

In 1784 Sir Thomas Gascoigne, baronet, got serious about one of the principal responsibilities of a titled British gentleman: producing an heir to inherit his estate, centered at Parlington Hall in Yorkshire.

In November of that year he married the young widow Lady Mary (Shuttleworth) Turner, becoming stepfather to her children by Sir Charles Turner, a York politician. In January 1786 the couple’s first son, Thomas Charles Gascoigne, arrived. Sadly, only a month later, Lady Mary departed at age thirty-four.

Sir Thomas Gascoigne had been commissioning plans for a new mansion, having stone hauled in from his quarries. According to tradition, after his wife died he decided instead to use that stone to build a memorial.

Except it didn’t turn out to be a memorial to a lost wife. Instead, it was a triumphal arch modeled on the Arch of Constantine, which Sir Thomas had seen in his travels to Rome. The architect, Thomas Leverton, had exhibited plans for such an arch as early as 1781.

The triumph this arch commemorated was the 1783 Treaty of Paris with America. It thus implicitly praised the Rockinghamite Whig faction in Parliament that had pushed to end the war (including Sir Thomas Gascoigne himself).

Originally, according to archived plans, Sir Thomas wanted this statement on the structure:

To that virtue which for a series of years resisted oppression and by a glorious race rescued its country and millions from slavery

That was deemed too long to be visible in the available space and edited down to:

Liberty in N. America Triumphant MDCCLXXXIII

The result is Britain’s first and biggest monument to the American War for Independence. The Parlington Arch still stands on a hill in Yorkshire, though Parlington Hall fell down over the 1900s.

As for Sir Thomas Gascoigne, he continued his aristocratic life. He stayed wealthy by developing the coal mines on his land, as did his son and heir. However, Thomas Charles Gascoigne died in a hunting accident in 1809, and Sir Thomas passed away four months after his son in February 1810.

The baronetcy therefore died with them. Their properties descended to Lady Mary’s descendants by her first husband on condition that those lines took the Gascoigne name.