'A Godolphin was never known to want wit; a Trelawny, courage; or a
Grenville, loyalty.'--_Old Cornish Saying._
'Certes,' says Hals, 'from the time that this family was seised of
Godolphin, such a race of famous, flourishing, learned, valiant,
prudent men have served their prince and country, in the several
capacities of members of parliament, justices of the peace,
deputy-lieutenants, sheriffs,[146] colonels, captains, majors, and
other officers, both military and civil, as scarce any other family
this country hath afforded; which I do not mention (for that my
great-grandmother on the one side, the wife of Sir John Arundell,
of Tolverne, knight, was daughter of Sir Francis Godolphin, knight,
sheriff of Cornwall, 21st Elizabeth), but as their just character and
merit; and I challenge the envious justly to detract from the same.'
Without stopping to inquire whether or not Hals's great-grandmother
was not Ann the _sister_ of Sir Francis Godolphin (instead of his
daughter), that gossiping historian's claim on behalf of his ancestry
may at once be conceded; indeed, it is very singular that he did not
specify one of the family who lived much nearer his own time, and
whose illustrious name makes those of the other Godolphins 'pale their
(comparatively) ineffectual fires.' We shall, however, come to treat in
his proper place of Sidney Godolphin, the friend of Marlborough, the
trusted Prime Minister (for so he might be called) of James II., of
William III. and of Anne, and for many years the moving though almost
silent spirit of English politics.
It will be convenient to commence our remarks by a description of the
family seat where they had settled for so long a period that Colonel
Vivian, in his genealogical table, has been obliged to commence the
pedigree with John, Lord of Godolphin, 'sans date;' but probably he
flourished about the time of Henry III. or Edward I.
Godolphin, which gives its name to a high hill about half-a-mile to the
south-west of the house, is situated in the parish now called Breage;
and in the parish church, so named after the Irish St. Breaca, as well
as in numerous other churches and churchyards of western Cornwall,[147]
lie the bones of many a Godolphin, while their helmets--one of them
surmounted by the 'canting' crest of a _dolphin_--hang rusting 'in
monumental mockery' over some of the tombs. The remains of the mansion
(now occupied as a spacious and comfortable farmhouse), the many
roads of approach to it, the antique gardens, and the broad, terraced
hedges, still testify to its ancient importance. For a place of much
consideration it evidently was, even down to the time of Sidney
Godolphin, and later. Those were days when the only newspaper which
came to so remote a corner of England--and which was procured weekly,
together with his despatches (whilst he was in Cornwall), by the Lord
Treasurer's own special messenger to Exeter--lay on the table in the
hall at Godolphin, now called the King's Room, for the benefit of
the neighbouring clergy and gentry. Dr. Borlase gives a more or less
conjectural view of the house in its glory, surrounded by its park and
groves; and what is supposed to have been a view of it was found on a
panel in Pengerswick Castle; but its glories have long departed. Yet,
although Godolphin has not vanished from off the face of the earth,
like Killigrew, the early abode of the Killigrews in St. Erme, and the
two Stows, the residence of the Grenvilles of Kilkhampton, sufficient
remains to indicate to the passerby that here may once have lived a
family as distinguished as that to whom Hals so proudly refers. The
surface of the surrounding landscape is now scarred by mines and
clay-works; and the little stream, crossed just below the house by
Godolphin Bridge, is discoloured by mine-refuse, disfiguring instead
of beautifying the scene.
'No greater Tynne Workes yn al Cornwal then be on Sir Wylliam
Godolcan's ground,' wrote Leland, and his statement long held true.
It was remarked by the late W. J. Henwood in 1843, that in eighteen
years Wheal Vor, an adjacent mine, had raised tin to the value of a
million and a quarter sterling, of which £100,000 was profit to the
adventurers. To be a steward of the Godolphins was held to be a sure
method of attaining wealth and influence; indeed, there is a humorous
story told of one of the Godolphin ladies' excusing her late appearance
at the dinner-table one day by saying that she had been down to the
smelting-house 'to see the cat eat the dolphin;' the allusion being to
the respective marks on the Godolphin tin and that smelted at the same
time by Coke, the steward, who bore _cats_ on his coat-of-arms. The
Godolphin of the period thereupon introduced some much-needed reforms
in the management of his tin business.
About a mile to the south of the house, and rising nearly 600 feet
high--a considerable elevation in western Cornwall--rises Tregoning
(or more properly, Treconan) Hill--the dwelling of Conan--from whose
summit, looking to the south-west, the eye commands a vast stretch of
waters, over which the sailor might pass to the West Indies without
seeing land, unless he chose to touch at the Azores. Nearer at hand,
and seeming almost under our feet, lie the noble curves of the Mount's
Bay, with, for a central feature, the rocky islet--'both land and
island twice a day,' as Carew says--on which stand the Castle and Chair
of St. Michael--'Kader Mighel'--still looking
'Tow'rd Namancos and Bayonas' hold.'
Turning our gaze towards the north-west, we see sapphire waves roll on
the golden sands which fringe the shores of St. Ives Bay; and, towards
the west, the Land's End district so melts into the grey haze of the
Atlantic, that it would be as hard to say where the land ended and the
sea began, as it would be now to gather the whole truth as to the lost
land of Lyonesse, traditionally reported to have been submerged between
Bolerium and the Isles of Scilly.
Such were the surroundings of Godolphin. The building itself,
originally a castle or fortified residence of some sort, was in ruins
in the days of Edward IV. William of Worcester, in 1478, says of it:
'Castellum Godollon dirutum in villa Lodollon'; and Leland, in the days
of Henry VIII., describes it in the following words:
'Carne Godolcan on the Top of an Hille, wher is a Diche, and there
was a Pile and principal Habitation of the Godolcans. The Diche yet
apperith, and many Stones of late Time hath beene fetchid thens. It is
a 3 Miles from S. Michael's Mont by Est North Est.'
Rebuilt as Godolphin Hall in the days of Elizabeth, it appeared as a
quadrangular mansion, with a fine portico of white granite along the
north front, constructed by Francis, the second Earl; but this was
the last flickering of its lamp. The rooms over the portico were, it
is said, never fitted up, and the mansion of the Godolphins is now
occupied by Mr. Rosewarne, a zealous guardian of its crumbling walls.
Concerning the etymology of the name there has been much dispute.
Some have claimed for it a Phœnician origin, and said that the word
signifies 'a land of tin'--certainly a not inappropriate derivation.
Hals is not very dogmatic (as he often is) as to the meaning. He thinks
it may mean 'God's Downs,' an 'altogether wooded down or place of
springs,' and utterly repudiates Carew's suggestion that it means 'a
white eagle.' Others have suggested 'Goon Dolgan'--Dolgan's Down. This,
at least, is clear, that the name, as applied to persons, has had more
than one narrow escape of becoming extinct. Once, towards the close of
the fourteenth century, or early in the fifteenth century, when Ellinor
Godolphin married John Rencie; but her husband assumed the patronymic
of his wife. Up to that time, and, indeed, for many generations
afterwards, we constantly find the Godolphins intermarrying with good
old Cornish families, many of whom are now extinct. I find in their
family tree such names as Trevanger, Trewledick, Antrewan, Prideaux,
Tremrow, Carminowe, Erisey, Bevill, Killigrew, Trenouth, Cararthyn,
Carankan, Tredeneck, Pendarves, Carew, Grenville, Arundell, St. Aubyn,
Boscawen, Hoblyn, Molesworth, etc. In short, there are very few Cornish
families of any distinction in whose veins the blood of the Godolphins
of Godolphin did not mingle.
The first Godolphin of note (although, according to Lipscombe, they
came in with the Conqueror) would seem to have been one who also bore
the ill-omened name of Knava; and who, in 1504, was, as Hals tells us,
'struck Sheriff' of Cornwall. King Henry VII., Hals goes on to say,
'declared his great liking of that gentleman in all circumstances for
the said office, but discovered as much dislike of his name after the
English,--not understanding the import thereof in Cornish,--and so
further said, that as he was _pater patriæ_, he would trans-nominate
him to Godolphin, whereof he was lord; and accordingly caused or
ordered that in his letters-patent under the broad seal of England, for
being Sheriff of Cornwall, he should be styled or named John Godolphin
of Godolphin, Esq^{re}, and by that name he accounted at the year's end
with that King for his office in the exchequer, and had his acquittance
from thence, as appears from the record in the Pipe office there.'
Another Cornish gentleman who bore the name of Erisey was, it will be
remembered (see the story of the Killigrews), also considered, by James
I., to be unfortunate in his patronymic; but in his case the family
name remained unchanged until it became extinct.
Sheriff John's son, Sir William, Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, was
also sheriff of the county in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI.,
and Elizabeth. He was a warrior of note, and a favourite of bluff King
Hal, 'who,' Polwhele says, 'for his services conferred on him the honor
of knighthood, and constituted Sir William warden and chief steward
of the Stannaries. He lived to a great age, and was several times
chosen one of the Knights of the Shire for Cornwall in the Parliaments
of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. He likewise acquired much fame by his
conduct and intrepidity in several military commands, particularly at
the siege of Bologne.' Carew ranks Sir William among the Worthies of
Cornwall, saying: 'He demeaned himself very valiantly beyond the seas;
as appeared by the scars he brought home; no less to the beautifying
of his fame, than the disfiguring of his face.' Thomas Godolphin, his
brother, was also present at the above-named siege, 'and on Thursday,
the 14th August, 1544, he, Mr. Harper, and Mr. Culpepper were hurt with
one shot from the town.'
Whether it was this Sir William, or his son (who bore the same name and
title), who distinguished himself by his 'valiant carriage' against
the Irish rebels towards the close of Elizabeth's reign, is not quite
clear; but I am inclined to think it must have been the latter, as the
first Sir William was gathered to his fathers in the year 1570, and was
buried at Breage.
It was the former Sir William's brother Thomas who took for his first
wife a Grenville, and from them descended, for three generations, those
Godolphins who probably led happy lives--for (so far as I am aware)
they have 'no history'--and whose Christian name at least would imply
their peaceful careers,--for there were three Gentle Godolphins in
succession. But from Thomas's second union, with Katherine Bonython,
sprang the more famous members of the family. One of these was Sir
Francis,[148] Vice-Warden of the Stannaries, who was knighted in 1580:
he was with his father and uncle at Boulogne, and was the contemporary
and friend of Richard Carew, whom he helped in writing the 'Survey of
Cornwall.'
Carew thus refers to his colleague:
'This Hill (Godolphin) hath, for divers descents, supplied those
gentlemen's bountiful minds with large means accruing from their
tin-works, and is now possessed by _Sir Francis Godolphin_, knight,
whose zeal in religion, uprightness in justice, providence in
government, and plentiful house-keeping, have won him a great and
reverent reputation in his country; and these virtues, together with
his services to Her Majesty, are so sufficiently known to those of
highest place, as my testimony can add little light thereunto: but
by his labours and _inventions_[149] in tin matters, not only the
whole country hath felt a general benefit, so as the several owners
have thereby gotten very great profit out of such refuse works, as
they before had given over for unprofitable; but Her Majesty hath
also received increase of her customs by the same, at least to the
value of £10,000. Moreover, in those works which are of his own
particular inheritance, he continually keepeth at work 300 persons,
or thereabouts; and the yearly benefit, that out of those his works
accrueth to Her Majesty, amounteth, communibus annis, to £1000 at
least, and sometimes to much more.'
And there is one other little episode of Cornish history with which the
name of Sir Francis Godolphin will always be associated: the repulse of
the Spaniards from Penzance in 1595.
There was an old Cornish prophecy which ran thus:
'Ewra teyre a war meane Merlyn
Ara Lesky Pawle Pensanz ha Newlyn,'
signifying that there should land upon the rock of Merlyn (at
Mousehole), those that would burn Paul Church, Penzance, and Newlyn.
And so it fell out that, during a fog, at dawn on the 23rd July, four
Spanish galleys landed 200 men, armed with pike and shot, who burnt
all the houses at Mousehole as they passed, and at length set fire to
Paul Church itself. The peaceable inhabitants, being then only about
100 in number, and 'meanly weaponed,' as Carew says, 'fled on the
approach of the buccaneers, but were rallied by Sir Francis Godolphin
on Penzance Western Green, and proceeded to attack the enemy, who,
however, managed to regain their boats, in which they now anchored off
another little fishing-village--Newlyn. Here they landed 400 pike and
shot, and marched upon Penzance, Sir Francis endeavouring to intercept
them. But the flanking fire from the galleys was too galling for the
poor Cornish folk, and (though none were seriously hurt) they gave way,
dispersing in various directions, and some of them flying into the
town of Penzance. At the market-place, which is in about the centre
of the town, Sir Francis ordered them to make their stand--'himself
staying hindmost, to observe the enemy's order, and which way they
would make their approach:'--but only about a dozen men could be got
together, and Sir Francis had to take to flight, the Spaniards setting
fire to Penzance also, and then again returning to their galleys.
Meanwhile, the story of the attack got wind, and increased numbers of
Cornishmen assembled on the open spaces near Marazion, when they drove
the Spanish galleys from the shore. Succours from Plymouth arrived on
the 25th July; and the English ships, having also heard of what had
happened, were on the look-out; but a favourable breeze from the N.W.
set in, and the enemy were unluckily enabled to make good their retreat.
Like his father, Sir Francis married twice: his second wife was
Margaret Killigrew, and thus he became identified more closely than
ever with Royalist interests. The Godolphins had obtained from
Elizabeth a lease of the Scilly Isles, and more than one member of the
family had acted as a sort of little viceroy there; 'Dolphin Town, as
it is now called, on the island of Trescaw, still bears witness to
their former sway. Here, at Elizabeth Castle, on St. Mary's Island,
Charles II. found shelter when he sorely needed it; and from the Scilly
Isles the Godolphins and the Grenvilles conducted many a bold exploit
during the Civil War; until at length the fleet of the Commonwealth
compelled the desperate Knights to surrender,--as we shall see further
in the history of the Grenvilles.
The next few years saw a great number of deaths in the Godolphin
family. Sir Francis, the Penzance hero, died, and was buried at Breage
in 1608--his son, Sir William, following him four years afterwards. In
1619 John, who succeeded his father as Captain of Scilly, died too; and
in 1640 the last of the brothers, the second Sir Francis, Recorder of
Helston, a borough with which the Godolphins kept up a parliamentary
connexion, of the old style, for many years.
The story of the Godolphins now conveniently divides itself into two
parts, viz.: first, the history of the descendants of the above-named
John; and secondly, that of the more celebrated line which descended
from his brother Sir William.
John, 'Captain of Scilly,' had married a lady bearing the singular name
of Judith Amerideth, and had by her three sons, and I think as many
daughters. Of their offspring, Sir William and John alone claim our
attention; and the former, solely on account of his being the father of
another Sir William who was Ambassador at Madrid. The Ambassador was
one of John Locke's most intimate friends when they were schoolboys
together at Westminster, but was 'no great scholar;' he went to Oxford,
and only got his M.A. degree by nomination of the Crown, for, truth
to tell, he was too busy about politics to attend to his studies. In
politics, however, he seems to have achieved some distinction, for
he was Lord Arlington's secretary and right-hand man, and was always
a staunch adherent of the Stuarts. He went to Madrid with the Earl
of Sandwich, as his 'assistant;' and Locke joined the Embassy as
secretary, through Godolphin's interest, in March, 1666.
He died without issue, and it was suspected that his religious views
had been tampered with in his latter days,[150] and that he had left
his property to 'superstitious uses;' whereupon the Act 10 William
III. was passed for 'confirming and establishing the administration of
the goods and chattels of Sir William Godolphin, Knight, deceased.' It
recites, that he lived at Madrid 'surrounded by Fryers, Priests, and
Jesuits, as he lay Bedrid,' and that on the 30th March, 1696, he made a
will appointing four of such persons his 'Testamentoros,' and leaving
them legacies. The Act declares this document to be null and void; and
refuses to recognise the clause in which Sir William declares his soul
to be 'his Universal Heir.' But the four testamentoros were to get
their legacies, and the property was then duly allotted amongst those
to whom Sir William had intended it should be left, before he departed
from England, viz., to his brother Francis, of Coulston, and his nephew
Charles. To the poor of Camelford he left £20, and £10 each to the poor
of Liskeard, and of St. Mabyn. The Godolphin school at Salisbury was
founded out of the proceeds of Sir William's estate. The whole of the
details of this transaction may be read in the 'Extractum ex extractu
pacis,' preserved in the British Museum ((514, _k._ 25)/2).
During two or three succeeding generations, this branch of the family
continued to give Governors and Deputy-Governors to the Isles of
Scilly,[151] until at length the male line died out, and the Godolphin
blood became perpetuated by intermarriages with, amongst others,
the eleventh Earl of Huntingdon, and (within the last few years)
by the marriage of the Vicar of Sydenham, in Kent, the Rev. H. W.
Yeatman, with Lady Barbara Caroline Legge, daughter of the fourth
Earl of Dartmouth. At Acton Church, near Ealing, were the tombs of
Sir John Godolphin (1679), and of his daughter and heir Elizabeth,
maid-of-honour to Queen Katharine of Braganza.
One is tempted to linger somewhat longer over John 'of Doctors'
Commons, Doctor of Laws,' the third son of John and Judith Amerideth.
He was born at Godolphin, in Scilly, on 29th November, 1617, and
entered at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, in 1632, taking his Bachelor's
degree in 1636, and that of Doctor in 1642-43. I believe that if
he did not at any time reside at St. Kew, in Cornwall, at least he
must have had some thoughts of doing so, for he held, for some time,
Tretawne,[152] an old Jacobean seat of the Molesworths in this parish;
and he married Honor, a lady of that old Cornish family. A granite
stone, about twelve inches square, let into the wall of the back
kitchen, and inscribed
+---------------------+
| PHIL^A MOLESWORTH |
| |
| 1620 |
+---------------------+
commemorates the connexion of the Molesworths with their quondam
residence of Tretawne.
Polwhele says that Dr. John 'was at first puritanically inclined, but
afterwards took the engagement,' and in conjunction with Dr. William
Clarke and C. G. Cock, Esq., was, in 1653, constituted a Judge of the
Admiralty. He seems to have always had a leaning in the direction of
polemics, notwithstanding his being a member of the legal faculty, and
his having been made one of the King's 'Advocates' at the Restoration;
certainly his works on Divinity are more numerous than those on Law.
His 'Orphan's Legacy, or Testamentary Abridgment,' which is in three
parts--the first treating of Last Wills and Testaments, the second,
of Executors and Administrators, and the third of Legacies and
Devises--was, no doubt, a useful hand-book of the period; and his
'Repertorium Canonicum' (1687)--'an abridgment of the Ecclesiastical
Laws of this Realm consistent with the Temporal: wherein the most
material points relating to such persons and things as come within the
cognizance thereof are succinctly treated'--is a laborious attempt to
exhibit in their legal bearings the relations of Church and State,
especially asserting the King's Supremacy.
But probably he will be better remembered by his 'Holy Limbeck,
or a Semi-Century of Spiritual Extractions,' and by his 'Holy
Arbour' than by either of the foregoing works, or by his 'Συνηγορος
Θαλασσιος [Greek: Synêgoros Thalassios], or a view of the Admiral's
Jurisdiction.' The title of the 'Holy Arbour' runs as follows, in the
fantastical, metaphorical style of the time:
'The Holy Arbour--contayning y^e whole Body of Divinity, or A Cluster
of Spirituall Grapes, gathered from the Vines of certaine Moderne and
Orthodox Laborers in the Lord's Viniard; Pressd For the Spirituall
delight and benefit of all such as thirst after Righteousness.'
And the Dedication, in similar vein, commences thus:
'To the Truly Honorable, the Poor in Spirit.
'Right Humble,
'The mighty Nazarite's Riddle, Out of the Eater came Meat, and out
of the Strong came Sweetness (Judg. xiv. 14) was the second course
served in at his Marriage Feast; which by way of Allusion may not
unaptly be applied to you. Came not the Spirit of God upon you at
the Conquest of that devouring Lyon, in the fierce Assults of his
ingenious Temptations? At your return from which Spiritual Combat,
began you not to feed on the Peace of Good Consciences, when the Word
of the Lord became as Honey in your mouthes? Is not this a Riddle to
the Uncircumcised of the World?
'In congratulation of which no common Victory, is this Address no less
properly then humbly prostrated to you onely, as the most faithful
Guardians of this Holy Arbor; whose unfenced Ambulage, when spiced
at your approach by the fragrancy of your Innocency, craves the
Subterfuge of your Prayers.'
Our author died in 1678, in or near Fleet Street, and was buried in
the north aisle of St. James's Church, Clerkenwell, leaving one son,
Francis, who died in 1695, and who was buried with his wife, Grace,
at St. Columb Major: down to within the last hundred years their
descendants have hovered round the neighbourhood, and found like
resting-place for their remains.
We must now revert to that branch of the family which comprises, as I
have said, its more distinguished members, and which sprang from the
union of Sir William Godolphin (who died and was buried at Breage
in 1613) with Thomasine Sidney, of Wrighton in Norfolk, a lady who
bequeathed her maiden surname to many of her descendants down to the
present day.
One of their sons, Sidney, uncle of a yet more illustrious namesake,
was killed in a skirmish during the Civil War, on Dartmoor, in
February, 1643.[153] The Parliamentary forces had been defeated at
Boconnoc, and Hopton thereupon 'flew with a party volant' towards
Plymouth. His army, however, received a temporary check at Chagford;
but Sir John Berkeley at length drove out the Parliamentary forces
who quartered in that little village; and here the brave young Sidney
Godolphin was slain.
He was, says Clarendon, 'a young gentleman of incomparable parts, who,
being of a constitution and education more delicate, and unacquainted
with contentions, upon his observation of the wickedness of those men
in the House of Commons, of which he was a member, out of the pure
indignation of his soul against them, and conscience to his country,
had, with the first, engaged himself with that party in the west; and
though he thought not fit to take a command in a profession he had not
willingly chosen, yet, as his advice was of great authority with all
the commanders, being always one in the council of war, and whose
notable abilities they had still use of in their civil transactions,
so he exposed himself to all action, travel, and hazard; and by too
forward engaging himself in this last, received a mortal shot by a
musket, a little above the knee, of which he died in the instant,
leaving the misfortune of his death upon a place which could never
otherwise have had a mention to the world.' And Clarendon gives yet
another and more elaborate portrait of him ('Life of Edward, Earl of
Clarendon,' vol. i. p. 51):
'Sidney Godolphin was a younger brother of Godolphin, but by the
provision left by his father, and by the death of a younger brother,
liberally supplied for a very good education, and for a cheerful
subsistence, in any course of life he proposed to himself. There
was never so great a mind and spirit contained in so little room;
so large an understanding and so unrestrained a fancy in so very
small a body; so that the Lord Falkland used to say merrily, that
he thought it was a great ingredient into his friendship for Mr.
Godolphin, that he was pleased to be man; and it may be, the very
remarkableness of his little person made the sharpness of his wit,
and the composed quickness of his judgment and understanding the more
notable. He had spent some years in France, and in the Low Countries;
and accompanied the Earl of Leicester in his ambassage into Denmark,
before he resolved to be quiet, and attend some promotion in the
Court, where his excellent disposition and manners, and extraordinary
qualifications, made him very acceptable. Though everybody loved his
company very well, yet he loved very much to be alone, being in his
constitution inclined somewhat to melancholy, and to retire amongst
his books; and was so far from being active, that he was contented to
be reproached by his friends with laziness; and was of so nice and
tender a composition, that a little rain or wind would disorder him,
and divert him from any short journey he had most willingly proposed
to himself; insomuch as, when he rid abroad with those in whose
company he most delighted, if the wind chanced to be in his face, he
would (after a little pleasant murmuring) suddenly turn his horse
and go home. Yet the civil war no sooner began (the first approaches
toward which he discovered as soon as any man, by the proceedings in
Parliament, where he was a member, and opposed with great indignation)
than he put himself into the first troops which were raised in the
west for the King; and bore the uneasiness and fatigue of winter
marches, with an exemplar courage and alacrity; until by too brave a
pursuit of the enemy, into an obscure village in Devonshire, he was
shot with a musket; with which (without saying any word more than, Oh,
God! I am hurt) he fell dead from his horse; to the excessive grief of
his friends, who were all that knew him; and the irreparable damage
of the public.' In fact the first Sidney Godolphin would seem to have
been a universal favourite.
In the 'Select Funeral Memorials,' pp. 10, 11, by Sir K. J. Egerton
Brydges, Bart., occurs the following passage concerning him:
'He was a person of excellent parts, of an incomparable wit and
exact judgment, did love Hobbes of Malmesbury, in some respects
and exhibited to him, and was entirely beloved by him, who not
undeservedly gave him this character[154] after he had unexpectedly
received a legacy from him of £200: "There is not any virtue that
disposeth a man either to the service of God or to the service of
his country, to civil society or to private friendship, that did not
manifestly appear in his conversation, not as acquired by necessity,
or affected upon occasion, but inherent and shining in a generous
constitution of his nature." In another place also' (p. 390, in his
'Review and Conclusion of the Leviathan') 'Hobbes speaks thus of him:
"I have known clearness of judgment, and largeness of fancy, strength
of reason, and graceful education; a courage for the war, and a fear
for the laws, and all eminently in one man; and that was my most noble
and honoured friend, Mr. Sidney Godolphin, who, hating no man, nor
hated of any, was unfortunately slain in the beginning of the late
civil war, in a public quarrel, by an undiscerned and undiscerning
hand, etc."' And to the foregoing we may add that his elegy was
written by Dr. Donne.
The following lines may serve as an example of his ingenuity whilst, in
1623, a student at Oxford--and it may be added that he also translated
from Virgil 'The Passion of Dido for Æneas,' which Waller published:
'Carolvs Redvx'
'Chronagramme {haVD Ita te a MIsso LVget HIspania,
{Vt I repossesso pLa gestIt AngLIa.
Insolita Angligenas admittere gaudia mentes.
Hesperiam mæstos cogis inire modos.
'SIDNEY GODOLPHIN,
_Equitis aurati filius è Coll. Exon._'
The gallant young Sidney had a brother named William, who was colonel
of a regiment for Charles I., and who died in 1636, aged twenty-four;
and another brother, Francis, who was knighted at the Coronation
of Charles II., in recognition, no doubt, of the 'many acceptable
remittances' which Le Neve tells us he had made to the King when in
exile, as well as of the loyal spirit which his family had always
shown. His loyalty even displayed itself whilst he was yet a student at
Exeter College, Oxford; as is evinced by the following copy of verses
which I find in the same volume as the above:
'Nullum adeò ingenium sterile est, vel barbara Musa,
Cui non materiem gaudia tanta darent.
Hesperiam, _Princeps_, alienumq; æthera, tardo,
Ast fortunato, CAROLVS exit equo.
Et postquam mores multorum vidit, & vrbes,
Spe maior, famâ clarior, en redijt.
Quiq; comes fecum fidissimus exijt, & dux,
Maximus, ae moritò. Dux redit ille Comes.
Hæc inter tantam cecinit mea Musa catervam,
Quâ doctæ magis, haud lætior vna, canunt.
'FRA. GODOLPHIN,
_Equit. Aur. fil. nat. max. è Coll. Exon._'
Sir Francis (to whom Hobbes dedicated his 'Leviathan') was Member for
the little Cornish Borough of St. Ives in 1640. He married Dorothy
Berkeley, and had seven children, most of whom (and _their_ children
likewise) were buried in Westminster Abbey. Three only of Sir Francis's
offspring are, however, known to fame--Sir William, created by Charles
II. 552nd baronet of England, who died unmarried in 1710, leaving
£5,000 a year to his more illustrious younger brother, the celebrated
SIDNEY; and Henry, who became Dean of St. Paul's and Provost of Eton,
dying at Windsor in 1733. We shall get glimpses of the three brothers
in the pages of Evelyn and of Pepys. The Dean and Sidney each married a
Margaret. Dr. Henry's spouse was his cousin, the only daughter of the
first Sidney Godolphin who fell at Chagford; while the great Minister
of State was blessed with the hand of that sweet Margaret Blagge whose
saintly fame has been perpetuated in the pious Evelyn's 'Life of
Margaret Godolphin.'
Before, however, proceeding to sketch the career of the more prominent
SIDNEY, let us look at the memorials preserved of the good Dean. He
was the fourth son of Sir Francis, and was educated first at Eton,
and then at Wadham, and All Souls' Colleges, Oxford. Of the latter
College he became a Fellow, and he took his degree of D.D. in 1685.
Ten years after, having been for some time Vice-Provost, he was made
Provost of Eton, of which he was, according to Maxwell Lyte, 'a kind
ruler;' and on the 23rd of April, 1696, we find Evelyn visiting him
there, and dining with him. A few years before, Evelyn had been to St.
Albans with the two brothers, William and Henry, to see the library of
the Archdeacon, Dr. Cartwrite: 'a very good collection,'--especially
in divinity--as might have been expected. The party visited the
Abbey--which Evelyn calls 'the greate church,' and which, he adds, was
'now newly repair'd by a public contribution.' Nor had the pleasant
diarist omitted to attend on the sacred ministrations of his friend,
for we find it duly recorded that, on March 15th, 1684, 'At Whitehall
preached Mr. Henry Godolphin, a prebend of St. Paules, and brother
to my deare friend Sydnie, on Isaiah lv. 7.' On the 18th July, 1707,
Dr. Godolphin was installed Dean of St. Paul's; and he lived long to
enjoy his dignities, for he reached the good old age of ninety--or,
according to other accounts, eighty-four. He was a most pious and
charitable man, and gave £4,000 to Queen Anne's Bounty--a charity
in which the Godolphins seem to have, from the first, taken much
interest. He was moreover, and so were some others of his family,[155]
munificent benefactors and restorers of Eton College;--the Provost's
Monument, which is on the south side of the chapel, has a long and
highly eulogistic Latin inscription recounting his munificence and his
virtues.
Ecton, in his account of Queen Anne's Bounty ('Thesaurus Eccles.,'
4to., Lond., 1742), mentions that Dean Godolphin gave, in conjunction
with others, 'the sum of £3,910 for the augmentation of small livings
upon the plan of that bounty.' ... 'He gave a £1,000 towards the
alterations of the chapel as it is at present, the which alteration
(made about the year 1700) is widely different from the original plan
given by the Founder, An^{o.} Regni 26^{o.} With this money the organ,
it is said, was purchased, as being charg'd at about that sum. He
adorn'd the outer court with a statue of the Royal Founder, cast in
copper; placed on a marble Pedestal, and fenc'd in with Iron Palisades.
Further, he bequeathed by his last Testament the sum of £200 for the
buying books to the use of the College Library. He built the Alms
Houses for 10 poor women.'--(Huggett's MSS., Sloane, No. 4843, f. 102,
103.) He also built, or rather rebuilt, in 1695, the extensive brick
mansion of Baylis, or Baillis, near Stoke Pogis.
It was reported at the time, according to Luttrell, that on the death
of Dr. New, in 1706, Dean Godolphin was to have succeeded him as Bishop
of Exeter, but this promotion he never received.
The Provost of Eton left two sons and one daughter. Francis, one of
his descendants, and third baron, succeeded to the title of Baron
Godolphin, of Helston, in 1766, on the death of the second earl, when
the earldom became extinct; and as Francis Baron Godolphin died
without issue in 1785, the barony also failed.
But statelier figures are about to appear upon the scene: the solemn,
silent Minister, in whose breast were locked the State secrets and
intricate policies of a succession of English monarchs, and his devout
and spotless wife, who, 'a saint at Court,' verily walked in the flames
of 'the fiery furnace, and felt no hurt, neither did the smell of fire
pass upon her.' Of Margaret, John Evelyn's exquisite 'Life' is familiar
to many; but for her husband's career we have to search the annals of
the Courts of Charles II., of his brother, James, of William and Mary,
and of Anne: favoured and trusted by them all; until at length his
sturdy resistance to the growing tendency of the last of the Stuarts
to accept the counsel of irresponsible advisers instead of that of the
Ministers of her Crown, caused the final rupture between the Queen and
her Lord High Treasurer.
Born about the year 1630, of great natural abilities, educated at
Oxford, and sprung from a family who were loyal to the backbone,
Sidney Godolphin, when only about fifteen years old, was made, on
the Restoration, first Page, then Groom of the Bedchamber. 'Never
in the way, and never out of the way,' as the witty King said of
him. In the following year, and during every Parliament of Charles's
reign, he sat in the House of Commons as Member for Helston, an old
coinage-town, and then the nearest place of importance to the family
seat in Cornwall. In Parliament, though rarely opening his mouth, he
was soon looked upon as a great authority, not only on all questions of
trade and finance, but in matters of high policy as well. In 1668, he
accompanied his brother William on a mission to Spain. Twice, in 1678,
was he an envoy to Holland on the question of the 'separate' peace
proposed by France; and his services on that occasion, when he received
the valuable assistance of Sir William Temple, were rewarded in the
following year by an appointment to the post of Fourth Commissioner of
the Treasury, in the room of the Earl of Derby. It was about this time
that Pepys first became acquainted with him; and Pepys thus records his
impressions:
'February 5th, 1667-8.--Moore tells me what a character my Lord
Sandwich hath sent over of Mr. Godolphin, as the worthiest man, and
such a friend to him as he may be trusted in any thing relating to him
in the world; as one whom, he says, he hath infallible assurances that
he will remain his friend: which is very high, but indeed they say the
gentleman is a fine man.
'10th Feb^{y}, 1667-8.--Made a visit to Mr. Godolphin at his chamber;
and I do find him a very pretty and able person, a man of very fine
parts, and of infinite zeal to my Lord Sandwich; and one that says, he
is (he believes) as wise and able a person as any prince in the world.'
Indeed, Pepys seems to have been on intimate terms with the
Godolphins; witness the following charming account of a dinner-party
which he gave them:
'January 23rd, 1668-9.--To the office till noon, when word brought
me that my Lord Sandwich was come; so I presently rose, and there I
found my Lords Sandwich, Peterborough, and Sir Charles Harbord; and
presently after them comes my Lord Hitchingbroke, _Mr. Sidney_ and
_Sir William Godolphin_. And after greeting them and some time spent
in talk, dinner was brought up, one dish after another, but a dish at
a time; but all so good, but, above all things, the variety of wines
and excellent of their kind I had for them, and all in so good order,
that they were mightily pleased, and myself full of content at it: and
indeed it was, of a dinner of about six or eight dishes, as noble as
any man need to have, I think; at least, all was done in the noblest
manner that ever I had any, and I have rarely seen in my life better
anywhere else, even at the Court. After dinner my Lords to cards, and
the rest of us sitting about them and talking, and looking on my books
and pictures, and my wife's drawings, which were commended mightily:
and mighty merry all day long with exceeding great content, and so
till seven at night, and so took their leaves, it being dark and foul
weather. Thus was this entertainment over, the best of its kind and
the fullest of honour and content to me that ever I had in my life;
and I shall not easily have so good again.'
Shortly after his appointment to the Treasury, Godolphin was made
a Privy Councillor; and, with the Earl of Sunderland and Mr. Hyde,
formed that triumvirate which was so greatly in the confidence of the
King:--indeed he may be said to have already become one of the moving
spirits of the age. Charles was particularly anxious that Sidney
Godolphin should convey to the House of Commons his determination never
to consent to the exclusion of the Duke of York from the succession;
but there was an old, wise head upon Sidney's young shoulders, and,
adroitly evading the task, Sir William Temple became his cat's-paw
on that occasion. For a few months, in April, 1684, he succeeded Sir
Lionel Jenkins, now grown very old and infirm, as a Secretary of State;
and in the August of that year, on the retirement of the Earl of Radnor
(whom the Earl of Rochester succeeded as President of the Council) our
Sidney became First Commissioner of the Treasury. On the 8th of the
following month, he was raised to the peerage, with the title of Baron
Godolphin of Rialton, in Cornwall.
Rialton is an old manor-house on the banks of the little stream which
finds its way into the sea at St. Columb Porth. It formerly belonged
to the Priory of Bodmin, was for a long time in the possession of the
family of Munday, and was granted to Sir Francis Godolphin in 1663.
A great part of it was destroyed by fire towards the close of the
last century, and the remains of it are now occupied as a farm-house.
It was built by the haughty Thomas Vivian, last Prior of Bodmin,
whose initials and arms may still be traced on various parts of the
picturesque remains: C. S. Gilbert, in his 'History of Cornwall' (vol.
ii. p. 673), gives a view of the S.E. entrance.
On the accession of James II., the well-known means by which that
King essayed to bring over to his own creed those by whom he was
surrounded were employed upon Lord Rochester, amongst others. He was
made First Commissioner, in the place of Lord Godolphin, to whom was
confided, in lieu, the post of Chamberlain to the Queen. But James's
tactics failed; and it was not long before the skilled financier was
again at the Treasury--this time as Second Commissioner, with, for
his colleagues, two Roman Catholic noblemen, Lord Bellasis and Lord
Dover--a conjunction which the High Church party could not, for a long
time, forgive their Protestant colleague. What would they have said had
they known that, on the approach of the Prince of Orange, Godolphin was
the man whom James selected to carry on his affairs during the King's
temporary absence in the west; and that to this trusted Minister,
together with the Marquis of Halifax and the Earl of Nottingham, were
confided the proposals for an 'accommodation' which James sent to
William, at Hungerford, on December 8th, 1688? That these proposals
failed in their object is matter of history; but it is, perhaps, not
so generally known that the exiled King, pressed for money whilst at
Rochester, was obliged to have recourse to his Minister for a gift
of a hundred guineas! He is said to have accompanied James to the
coast, and to have kept up a correspondence with that monarch until his
death. Sidney Godolphin was no man of 'mere abstract ideas.' He moved
entirely in the sphere of practical politics; and, notwithstanding his
intimacy with the Stuarts, and his having been one of those who, in
the Convention Parliament, had been in favour of a Regency--perhaps,
indeed, partly because of all this--he soon found favour with the new
King of England.
Can it be believed that throughout a career so rapid and so brilliant,
the powerful Minister was sighing for repose, and retirement to the old
home in Cornwall? Evelyn[156] assures us that such was the case with
his 'deare friend,' at any rate, during the brief years of his happy
married life. But Margaret--his well-beloved Margaret--had died in
giving birth to Francis, their only son.
And now that we have seen her illustrious husband reach the pinnacle
of his ambition, we may turn for a while to the story of his wife.
She was descended from a good family out of Norfolk,[157] and her
father was a Colonel Blagge, Groom of the Bedchamber to Charles I.
and II. She was born on 2nd August, 1652, and reluctantly came to the
court of the then Duchess of York--Anne Hyde--when only about fifteen
years of age, leaving it for that of the Queen on the death of the
Duchess in 1671. She was always of a pious and retiring--not to say
melancholy--disposition, and would have infinitely preferred the quiet
innocence of a country house to the tumult and dissipation of such
a Court as that to which she was now introduced. As an instance of
the almost morbid tendency of her mind, Evelyn's description of her
attitude in the portrait which she gave him may be cited:
'She would be drawne in a lugubrous posture, sitting upon a Tomb stone
adorned with a Sepulcher Urne.'
An engraving of this picture is prefixed to the edition of Evelyn to
which I have just referred. It quite embodies the spirit of Tennyson's
lines to another Margaret:
'O sweet pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,
What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower
Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,
From all things outward you have won
_A tearful grace_, as tho' you stood
Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight
Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round
Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving through a fleecy night.'
It may be easily imagined that with such a temperament she bent her
mind with extreme difficulty to what she considered her duty--namely,
to be in the Court, and yet not of the Court--faithfully discharging
all the duties allotted to her, and preserving a cheerful face, though
her heart was aching at the recklessness and sensuality with which
she was surrounded. And yet, says Evelyn, 'Arethusa pass'd thro' all
those turbulent waters without soe much as the least staine or tincture
in her christall; with her Piety grew up her Witt, which was soe
sparkling, accompanyed with a Judgment and Eloquence soe exterordnary,
a Beauty and Ayre soe charmeing and lovely, in a word, an Address soe
universally takeing, that after few years, the Court never saw or had
seen such a Constellation of perfections amongst all their splendid
Circles.'
But her release from her uncongenial duties was at length, with
difficulty, obtained; and she retired to her friends, Lord and Lady
Berkeley (relatives of her future husband), at Berkeley House.[158]
Evelyn, writing in his usual rapturous way whenever he had anything to
say of his exquisite Margaret, gives the following pretty picture of
her flight from the Court:
'You will easyly figure to your selfe how buissy the young Saint was
the next morning in makeing upp her little carriage to quitt her
prison; and when you have fancied the conflagration of a certain Citty
the Scripture speaks of, imagine this Lady trussing upp her little
fardle like the two daughters whom the angell hast'ned and conducted;
butt the similitude goes no futher, for this holy Virgin went to Zoar,
they to the cave of Folly and Intemperence; there was no danger of
_her_ lookeing back and becomeing a statue for sorrow of what she left
behind. All her household stuffe, besides a Bible and a bundle of
Prayerbookes, was packed upp in a very little compass, for she lived
soe farr from superfluitye, that she carryed all that was vallueable
in her person; and tho' she had a courtly wardrobe, she affected it
not, because every thing became her that she putt on, and she became
every thing was putt upon her.'
She afterwards moved to lodgings which Evelyn himself built for her,
'over against his Majestie's wood-yard in Scotland Yard,' at Whitehall;
settling here, as he says, 'with that pretty and discreete oeconomye
soe naturall to her; and never was there such an household of faith,
never Lady more worthy of the blessings she was entering into, who
was soe thankfull to God for them.' Her housekeeping and the mode in
which she kept her faultless accompts are all lovingly dwelt upon; and,
indeed, she seems to have been a bright example of the Wordsworthian
line, of
'Pure religion, teaching household laws.'
At length, after many tormenting misgivings as to whether she was
justified before God in so doing, she married Sidney Godolphin, 'that
singular and silent lover,' whose gravity and temper at Court all knew
so well, on 16th May, 1675, at the Temple Church. The marriage was a
private one, for reasons which are by no means clear, and for which
even Evelyn can hardly quite forgive her; though he says, 'If ever
two were created for each other, and marriages, as they say, made in
heaven, this happy paire were of the number.' Two or three years after
their marriage she was brought to bed at Whitehall, of her first-born
son, Francis--to the great joy of herself and her husband. But shortly
afterwards a fever with alarming symptoms set in, causing the following
touching letter to be written by her husband to Evelyn:
'My poore wife is fallen very ill of a ffevor, with lightness in her
head. You know who sayes the prayer of the faithfull shall save the
sick: I humbly begg your charitable prayers for this poore creature,
and your distracted servant--London:--Saturday, 9 o'clock.'
The immovable man was moved to bitter agony now; and worse was to
come: for 'sweet, pale Margaret' soon passed away to a world more
worthy of her than that in which her lot had been cast. Evelyn says:
'This fatall houre was (your Ladyshipp[159] knows) about one o'clock,
att noone on the Munday, September the nineth 1678, in the 25 year and
prime of her age. O unparalell'd loss! O griefe indicible! By me never
to be forgotten--never to be overcome! Nor pass I the sad anniversary
and lugubruous period, without the most sencible emotion, sorrow that
draws tears from my very heart whilst I am reciteing it.'
I doubt whether there is anything more tender and dolorous in our
literature than the following letter which she addressed to her
husband--her 'deare man,' 'the husband that above all living I vallue,'
as she used affectionately to call him. The letter was not found till
after her death:
'My deare, not knowing how God Allmighty may deale with me, I think
it my best course to settle my affaires, soe as that, in case I be to
leave this world, noe earthly thing may take up my thoughts. In the
first place, my deare, believe me, that of all earthly things you were
and are the most deare to me; and I am convinced that nobody ever had
a better or halfe so good a husband. I begg your pardon for all my
Imperfections, which I am sencible were many; but such as I could help
I did endeavour to subdue, that they might not trouble you; for those
defects which I could not rectifye in myselfe, as want of judgement
in the management of my family and household affaires, which I owne
myselfe to be very defective in, I hope your good nature will excuse,
and not remember to my disadvantage when I am gone. I ask your pardon
for the vanitye of my humour, and for being often (more) melancholy
and splenetick[160] than I had cause to be. I was allwayes asham'd
of myselfe when I was soe, and sorry for it, and I hope it will come
into the number of those faults which I could not help. Now (my deare)
God be with thee, pray God bless you, and keepe you his faithfull
servant for ever. In Him be all thy joy and delight, satisfaction and
comfort, and doe not grieve too much for me, since I hope I shall be
happy, being very much resign'd to God's will, and leaving this World
with, I hope, in Christ Jesus, a good Conscience. Now, my dear, if you
please, permitt me to ask leave to bestow a legacy or two amongst my
friends and servants.... Now, my dear, I have done, if you please to
lay out about an hundred pounds more in rings for your five sisters,
to remember me by. I know nothing more I have to desire of you, but
that you will sometymes think of me with kindness, butt never with too
much griefe. For my Funerall, I desire there may be noe cost bestowed
upon it att all; butt if I might, I would begg that my body might lye
where I have had such a mind to goe myselfe, att _Godolphin_, among
your friends. I believe, if I were carried by Sea, the expence would
not be very great; but I don't insist upon that place, if you think it
not reasonable; lay me where you please.'
* * * * *
It is scarcely necessary to say that her last wish was religiously
complied with, and in Breage Church her remains lie, under a plain
marble slab, awaiting the Resurrection of the Just.[161] Her husband,
with some of his brothers and sisters, attended the funeral (the cost
of which is said to have been about £1000), and on her coffin was
soldered a copper plate, thus inscribed:
'Here lyes a pearle none such the ocean yields
In all the Treasures of his liquid fields;
But such as that wise Merchant wisely sought
Who the bright Gemm with all his substance bought.
Such to Jerusalem above translates
Our God, to adorne the Entrance of her Gates.'
* * * * *
While I write, I hear of an intention to dedicate the funds collected
at this year's (1881) Harvest Festival at St. Breage, towards the cost
of a spire to surmount the church tower, in memory of the saintly
Margaret Godolphin, and her Ruth-like devotion to her husband and her
husband's people.
But to return to her solemn and now solitary husband--who never married
again--and whom we left installed in the favour of a King almost as
taciturn as his great ancestor, or as the Minister himself. More
troubled times were at hand for him. Party spirit, and, above all,
jealousy at his rise and his secure position close to the throne,
were at work; and we accordingly find him assailed in the House of
Commons by Hambden and others; but, whatever he may have felt, rarely
condescending a reply. He was made Third Commissioner of the Treasury
in 1689, and First Commissioner in each of the three following years;
and, the King, on the death of Mary his consort, going across the sea
to head the Confederate Army in the Netherlands, Godolphin was made
one of the Nine Justices for managing the affairs of the Realm; still,
however, retaining his post at the Treasury. This state of things
continued, with slight variations, till the close of William's reign,
when the astute statesman left his post for a while, in order, as it
was supposed, to facilitate his re-appointment on the accession of Anne.
In 1702, only a few days after she ascended the throne, the Queen
made Godolphin Lord High Treasurer of England. He accepted the post
reluctantly--yet he 'conducted the Queen,' says Sarah, Duchess of
Marlborough, 'with the care and tenderness of a father, or a guardian,
through a state of helpless ignorance'--'the weight of affairs now
lying chiefly on his shoulders;' and those were times when wariness and
courage were as essential as at almost any period in the history of our
country. One of his first steps was to induce Anne, out of her somewhat
scanty resources, to subscribe £100,000 towards the expenses of the
new war; to abolish the sale of Places; and to settle her firstfruits
and tenths for the augmentation of small benefices (the origin of the
well-known Queen Anne's Bounty)--steps which, though they of course
involved heavy pecuniary sacrifice, were highly popular with the
nation, and tended to enthrone a Queen in the hearts of her people.
He was much interested in endeavouring to carry out the Treaty for the
Union with Scotland, and his brother Charles, now M.P. for Helston, and
First Commissioner of Customs, was one of the Commissioners appointed
for the purpose; but their efforts for the time failed; the weight
of the English National Debt, and the repugnance of the Scotch to
Episcopacy, being the main difficulties in the way.
It would occupy too much space to describe in detail--even if it were
now possible to do so--the intricate policy of Lord Godolphin and his
firm friend, the great Marlborough--another West-country man, born
at Ashe in Devonshire--at this juncture. Suffice it to say, that the
famous warrior absolutely refused the command of our armies unless
Sidney Godolphin was at the Treasury: he was the only man in England,
Marlborough said, on whom he could implicitly rely for being punctually
furnished with the indispensable 'sinews of war.' Nor would it be
profitable to enter very deeply into the party politics of the time.
The difficulties which the great general and the skilled financier
had to contend with were legion. Rochester, the Queen's maternal
uncle, had to be got rid of; and afterwards 'the careless Harley,' who
yearned to be independent of Godolphin--a far more difficult task, and
for succeeding in which, I believe, Anne never forgave him. On this
occasion Godolphin wrote to his quondam colleague, 'I am sorry to have
lost the good opinion I once had of you; but I must believe my own
senses. I am very far from having deserved this of you. May God forgive
you for it!' The bitter feelings which these transactions produced
may be seen in the 'Secret History of Arlus (Harley),' and in John
Lydgate's 'The Beasts in Power.'[162] Again, in 1705, Charles Cæsar
attacked Godolphin in the House of Commons for keeping up, together
with Marlborough and others, a treasonable correspondence with the
Court of St. Germains; and the speaker used language so intemperate
that he was committed to the Tower for the remainder of that session.
The fact was that the correspondence had taken place--at least so
it has been said--with the full privity and sanction of William, who
is even reported to have expressed his admiration of the results of
Godolphin's 'coquetting' with the exiled James and his French Court.
Attacks upon his consistency and his principles all failed; for, as
Bishop Burnet has observed, 'The credit of the nation was never raised
so high in any age, nor so sacredly maintained:' and so a new mode of
annoying him was invented in an attempt to depreciate his abilities. He
was thus satirized in 'Faction Displayed':
'_Volpone_,[163] who will solely now command
The Publick Purse and Treasure of the Land,
Wants Constancy and Courage to oppose
A Band of such exasperated Foes.
For how shou'd he that moves by Craft and Fear
Or ever greatly Think, or ever greatly Dare?
What did he e'er in all his Life perform,
But sunk at the Approach of ev'ry Storm?
But, when the tott'ring Church his Aid required, }
With _Moderation Principles_ inspir'd }
Forsook his Friends, and decently retir'd. }
Nor has he any real just Pretence
To that vast Depth of Politicks and Sence;
For where's the Depth, when publick Credit's high,
To manage an o'erflowing Treasury?'
But, notwithstanding all this, the great Minister pursued his
successful career--as a huge mastiff passes on his way regardless of
the yelping curs at his heels. His honours increased. In 1704 he
was made a Knight of the Garter;[164] in the following year he was
appointed Lord Lieutenant of his native county, in the room of John,
Lord Grenville; and about the same time his son, (whose birth, as we
have seen, had cost his mother her life,) being now seven-and-twenty
years of age, became Lord Warden of the Stannaries.
Congratulatory addresses were from time to time sent up to the Throne
on the success of the English arms on the Continent. In some of them
reference is specially made to Godolphin's share in the national
triumph; and when the victory of Ramillies on the 23rd May, 1706,
was celebrated, Godolphin was selected to accompany the Queen to the
thanksgiving service at St. Paul's on the 27th of the following month.
That great battle, which caused the French to evacuate Flanders, and
secured the best part of the Spanish Netherlands to Austria, compelled
France to offer terms of peace, which Godolphin wisely rejected; for
three or four successful sieges were necessary in order to secure
Flanders. But this, too, like almost every other action of his life,
was afterwards brought forward by his enemies as a charge against him.
And here is perhaps a convenient place to refer to another of his acts
as a War Minister. It will be remembered that at the beginning of
the eighteenth century all the seaboard of America north of the St.
Lawrence was in French possession. But in 1710 Godolphin granted six
ships and a few hundred soldiers, with a sort of general commission,
to one Nicholson, who, in May of that year, compelled the garrison at
Port Royal (afterwards known as Annapolis) to surrender; thus acquiring
for England the whole peninsula of Nova Scotia, and giving to the then
capital of the province a name which will always associate the place
with the memories of Queen Anne and her illustrious chief Minister of
State. It cannot be supposed from his silence under attack--and he
almost invariably held his tongue--that he did not writhe under his
oppressors. 'Oh!' he wrote to Marlborough, 'a slave in the galleys is
in paradise compared with me!'
Another object, and one worthy of the great statesman's ambition, was
at length happily accomplished about this time--the union of England
and Scotland;[165] a matter in which he manifested unusual zeal and
activity. The Commissioners, wisely selected by Godolphin--holding
their meetings at his official residence, which stood on the site of
Henry VIII.'s cock-pit at Whitehall--at length happily brought it about
'to her Majesty's great satisfaction.' It was on the occasion of giving
her assent to this Bill that Anne uttered the noble words, which may
have been penned for her by Godolphin himself, 'I desire and expect
from my subjects of both nations that henceforth they act with all
possible respect and kindness to one another, that so it may appear to
all the world that they are heartily disposed to become one people.'
It is pleasant to be able now to quote a friendly critic, and I gladly
avail myself of this opportunity of inserting the following lines
by Dr. Garth, apparently in reply to an attack made upon Godolphin,
entitled 'Arlus and Odolphus,' in which the real names of those alluded
to are easily seen through their thin disguise:
'Ingratitude's a Weed in every Clime,
It thrives too fast at First, but fades in Time.
The God of Day and your own Lot's the Same,
The Vapours you have rais'd obscure your fame,
But, tho' you suffer, and awhile retreat,
Your Globe of Light looks larger as you set.'
We must pass briefly over his share in the Occasional Conformity Bill,
in which he was said by some to have felt in one way and voted in
another; and also his unfortunate attempt to provide for some poor
Palatines both in London and at Godolphin Town in Scilly: at the latter
place he proposed to maintain them as soldiers for the garrison. But,
notwithstanding that the project was abandoned, it raised a hornets'
nest about his ears. Some of his accusers (see the _Medley_, 11th
June, 1711) asserted that Ministers had appropriated to their own use
some of the thirty-five millions voted by Parliament; and more than
one hot-brained partizan even clamoured that Godolphin's head should
pay the price of the maladministration of his office. The _Weekly
Examiner_ (No. 47) stated that the Ministry had borrowed money at 5
per cent., whilst they charged the unhappy creditors upon the bills
assigned to them from 20 to 40 per cent. These and other similar
lying accusations were some of them pronounced by both Houses of
Parliament to be 'false and scandalous;' whilst others were promptly
and thoroughly disposed of in a pamphlet written by Walpole; but the
slanderous scribblers, and still more the irresponsible advisers and
gossips round Anne's toilet-table and at her music-parties, on whom the
Queen had latterly taken a fancy for relying, did to some extent attain
their end by discrediting for a while her responsible Ministers.
And here it should be said that Godolphin, though a Tory at heart--for
'a Whig was his aversion'--at once discerned the rising genius of
Walpole, favoured him with his protection, and recommended him to
Marlborough; and, when our great statesman was dying, he said to the
Duchess of Marlborough, who stood by his bedside, 'If you ever forsake
that young man, and if souls are permitted to return from the grave to
the earth, I will appear to you and reproach you for your conduct.'
Both Marlborough and Godolphin loudly and vehemently protested against
the line of conduct which Anne had adopted in slighting their counsels,
whilst she, with characteristic sturdiness, refused to listen to their
reproofs and entreaties. Wyon gives a letter from Godolphin to the
Queen on the subject of the appointment of the Duke of Shrewsbury
(the 'King of Hearts') _vice_ the Marquis of Kent, as Chamberlain--the
like of which, he thinks, can scarcely ever before have been addressed
to a sovereign by one of her subjects, observing that 'He reproached
her in round terms for permitting herself to be directed by a private
ministry. Her conduct, he said, would draw ruin upon herself and the
kingdom, and would force every man in the Council, except the Duke
of Somerset, to run from it as he would from the plague. He put it
to her what effect an entire change of Ministers was likely to have
upon her allies abroad, and whether the war was likely to be carried
on well by people who had been averse to it from the beginning.'
Nevertheless, Godolphin loyally assured the Queen that, whatever course
she determined to adopt, never would he in any way offer the least
obstruction to her or to her Ministers.
Need it be added that after passages such as these the star of
Godolphin paled? To what avail was it that, in 1706, he had been
made Earl of Godolphin and Viscount Rialton? His life was a burden
to him, as we have already seen; he was sick of the popularity which
Sacheverell's[166] violent diatribes against the Government had
secured for him; and he was weary of the intrigues of the discontented
Whigs, and the taunts and sneers of the ultra-Tories. His nerves were
shattered from constantly walking among many pitfalls; his mind was
distracted by the irksome dilemmas with which he had for so long a
time been compelled to deal; and he could no longer brook the black,
unforgiving looks of his royal mistress. Yet he might have truly
exclaimed, as Sir Robert Walpole did of himself afterwards, 'My crime
is my long continuance in office: in other words, the long exclusion of
those who now combine against me.' Was it a greater relief to him or to
her when, in August, 1710, the Queen dismissed Godolphin from his post,
and desired him, according to one account, that 'instead of bringing
the Staff of Office to her, he would _break_ it, as easier to them
both.' Swift says that in doing so, the Earl flung the pieces into the
fire, an act which greatly annoyed the Queen. And with Godolphin fell
his son--then Cofferer to the Household--and his son's wife, the Lady
Henrietta, one of the Ladies of the Queen's Bedchamber.
The time had come at length for Harley and St. John to reap the
fruits of their triumph; and, though Marlborough[167] had more than
once warded off the blow--not only for the sake of the friendship
and the family ties[168] which had so long subsisted between him and
the Minister, but for the sake of Queen and country--that blow fell
at last. But the result was terrible also to the financial credit
of England. The Treasury was put into commission; and vast was the
commotion in Change Alley. Bank shares at once fell from 140 to 110,
and soon to 106; whilst the Bank refused a loan of £400,000 to the new
Government. 'That Godolphin should retire,' wrote Marlborough to his
Duchess on 1st October, 1706, 'is impossible, unless it be resolved
that everything must go ill abroad, as well as at home; for, without
flattery, his reputation is as great in all Courts as well as at home;
that such a step would go a great way with Holland, in particular, to
make their peace with France, which at this time must be fatal to the
liberties of Europe.'
Then came the Report of the Commissioners of Public Accounts (17th
March, 1711-12), in which they stated, but did not dare to _print_
their statement, that there were certain irregularities in the
dealings of the English with the Scotch Treasury; and Godolphin's oath
was confronted by another to the contrary from the Earl of Glasgow.
Burnet describes this affair as an effusion of 'Tory malice,' and adds
that 'the Earl of Godolphin's unblemished integrity was such that no
imputation of any sort could be fastened upon him.'
To what could all this misery tend but to the breaking up of a
constitution never one of the strongest,--and to the 'last scene of
all, that ends this strange, eventful history'? Sidney Godolphin died,
after a long and excruciating illness, at the Duke of Marlborough's
house near St. Albans, on the 15th September, 1712, in the sixty-eighth
year of his age; and his death so deeply affected Marlborough, that he
left his native country, which had been as ungrateful to him as to his
dearest friend, to live 'beyond sea.'
Four Dukes--namely, Richmond, Schomberg, Devonshire, and
Marlborough--were the pall-bearers when the remains of one of our most
illustrious Cornishmen were interred at night in Westminster Abbey.
Here, in the south aisle of the nave, his monument was raised by his
daughter-in-law, Lady Henrietta Churchill, who, in default of male
issue, afterwards became Duchess of Marlborough, on her father's death
in 1722, and who found a resting-place within the same venerable walls,
twenty-one years afterwards.[169] Of her husband, Francis, the second
and last Earl of Godolphin, there is nothing of much importance to
record;[170] the history of the Godolphins may be said to end with
that of the illustrious Sidney. Yet from the union, in 1698, of the
second Earl and Lady Henrietta, some of our noblest families derive
their ancestry. Anne, then Princess, offered in the most delicate terms
to endow the bride with a marriage portion of £10,000, but could not
prevail upon the Lady Henrietta's parents to accept more than half that
sum; they contributing £5,000 themselves.
One daughter, named after her mother, Henrietta, married Thomas, Duke
of Newcastle, but they had no offspring. The correspondence between
the Duchess of Marlborough and Sir John Vanbrugh on the subject of the
marriage between Lady Henrietta Godolphin and the Duke of Newcastle,
forms an appendix to the second volume of Mrs. Thomson's 'Memoirs
of the Duchess of Marlborough.' Lady Henrietta had £22,000 to her
portion, procured by the Duchess, according to her own account. But
for all sorts of small family gossip, often of an amusing nature,
the Egerton and Additional MSS. in the British Museum should be
consulted--especially Additional MSS. 28,052.
The Lady Mary Godolphin, eventually sole heiress of the family,
married Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds, and from them sprang an
illustrious succession, which it hardly falls within my province to
describe; a similar remark applies to members of other branches of the
family. The name of Godolphin has, however, been carefully retained
by those in whose veins Godolphin blood still flows; as in the cases
of Francis, fifth son of the Duke of Leeds, and Baron Godolphin; Lord
Sidney Godolphin Osborne, who died in 1861; and in those of more
than one Duke of Leeds, including the ninth and present Duke, George
Godolphin.
A portrait bust adorns Godolphin's marble cenotaph in the south aisle
of the nave at Westminster; and there is also a fine portrait of the
Great Minister, by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the collection of the Earl
of St. Germans, of which J. Smith has scraped a mezzotint. They both
convey the impression which the story of his life would lead one to
expect. Thoughtfulness, reserve mingled with sadness, and power, were
the chief characteristics of his countenance as of his career. And a
like reticence seems to have influenced biographical writers; for, so
far as I am aware, there is no good monograph life of Sidney Godolphin.
His gloomy expression was notorious; it procured for him more than one
nickname, and has been handed down to us in grey-eyed, savage-faced,
'miserrimus' Swift's line:
'And wine cheers up Godolphin's cloudy face.'[171]
I do not, however, believe that there is any reason for supposing
that he drank to excess. For literature and the fine arts he cared
little; but he was a devoted and successful admirer of the fair
sex--notwithstanding the personal drawback of his face being much
disfigured by small-pox; and Swift tells us that Godolphin would
'sometimes scratch out a song in praise of his mistress, with his
pencil and card.' His devoted and romantic admiration of Mary of Modena
was a frequent subject of remark; and he was always sending her little
presents 'such as ladies love.' Gamble, he certainly did; but it has
been said, by himself as well as by Burnet, that he took to cards so
much as he did, in order to avoid the necessity of talking--a thing
which he detested having to do. Cock-fighting and horse-racing were
very favourite amusements with him, as with so many others of that
time; and at Newmarket, during the racing season, he used to keep open
house. His son seems to have had a similar love for the turf; and
to the latter we are indebted for the introduction into England of
the famous Godolphin Arab. This horse had a curious history. He was
presented by some Arab chief to Louis XIV., but was not admired by the
French Monarch, and was ultimately condemned to cart-work; but the
keeper of an English coffee tavern recognised the merits of the animal,
brought him to England, and sold him to Godolphin.
The details of the great Minister's sporting expenditure were known
only to himself; it was generally believed that he won, both on the
turf and at the card-table; but this at least is certain, that,
notwithstanding his long tenure of office, and his having been left
£5,000 a year by his brother, Sir William, he died very poor; indeed,
the Duchess of Marlborough endorsed on his letter of dismissal from his
office, that Sidney Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer of England, left
scarcely enough money to pay his funeral expenses. The following is the
endorsement referred to:
'Had not his elder brother happened to die, he had been in very low
circumstances after having been in several reigns for more than twenty
years, though he was a man that never made any great expenses, for he
won at play, and mortally hated all kinds of show and grandeur, but he
was very charitable and generous; and though he had lived so long, and
had great employments, when he died he had not in the world but about
£14,000 in tallies, of which sum seven was mine, three Mrs. Rundal's,
a thousand Mrs. Curtis's (a woman that looked after my two elder
children), and many other small sums that he took of helpless people
who thought themselves safe in his hands; and when all his debts were
paid there could hardly be enough to bury him.'
It may not be out of place to note here, that Mrs. A. T. Thomson has
vindicated, in a most spirited and successful manner, the charge,
brought by some of the scandalmongers of the day, of a liaison between
the Duchess and Godolphin.
And yet, notwithstanding his own poverty, so far as regarded the public
weal hardly ever was there a statesman of more reliable, cool judgment,
or a more skilled political economist; nor did anyone possess in a
higher degree, says Mr. Wyon, the then rare virtue of incorruptible
integrity.
Although Godolphin had been the trusted Minister of Sovereigns of so
various temperaments--holding his own with them all--yet that he was
no sycophant or hypocrite is clear from his having run counter to the
wishes of both Charles II. and James II., by voting for the Exclusion
Bill, and by favouring the suggestion of a Regency even when the
accession of William III. seemed inevitable. Men seemed to have felt
that in Godolphin's hands they were safe. We have seen the effect
which his fall produced amongst the financiers of London; and in the
concluding sentence of one of Evelyn's letters (addressed though it
was to Godolphin himself) we find, what is no doubt a true echo of the
regard in which he was generally held:
* * * * *
'In such a tempest and overgrown a sea, everybody is concerned, and
whose head is not ready to turne? I am sure, I should myselfe almost
despaire of the vessel, if any, save your Lordship, were at the helme.
But, whilst your hand is on the staff, and your eye upon the star, I
compose myselfe and rest secure.
'Surrey Street, 16th June, 1696.'
Well might Swift write in one of his letters to Stella, dated 18th
Sept., 1712: 'The Whigs have lost a great support in the Earl of
Godolphin. It is a good jest to hear the Ministers talk of him with
humanity and pity, because he is dead, _and can do them no more hurt_.'
Lady Henrietta Godolphin never forgave Swift for his way of writing
about her father-in-law. She, as we have seen, cut him at a card-party
at Lady Clarges', just as sturdy, honest Dr. Johnson cut him in the
street.
Godolphin's character has thus been sketched by another hand; and
with it the name and the fame of Sidney Godolphin will always be
indissolubly joined: 'He was of quick apprehension and wonderful
dispatch; almost unerring judgment ... of few words, but great Truth:
few promises but strict performance ... by nature grave, reserved and
taciturn, but without arrogance or scorn of others; and when he most
relaxed and let himself into the greatest freedoms, they were such as
might be told abroad without any hazard of his fame or Virtue.'
Bishop Burnet has thus summed up his character and career:
'He was a Man of the clearest Head, the calmest Temper, and the most
incorrupt of all the Ministers of State I have ever known. After
having been thirty Years in the Treasury, and during Nine of those
Lord Treasurer, as he was never once suspected of Corruption, or of
suffering his Servants to grow rich under him, so in all that time his
Estate was not increased by him to the Value of 4000_l_. He served
the Queen with such a particular Affection and Zeal, that he studied
to possess all People with great personal esteem for her: And she
herself seemed to be so sensible of this for many Years, that if
Courts were not different from all other Places in the World, it might
have been thought that his wise Management at home, and the Duke of
Marlborough's glorious Conduct abroad, would have fixed them in their
Posts, above the little Practices of an artful Favourite.'
But Courts _are_ different from other places; and we have seen that in
the Court of Anne, the memory of Godolphin's virtues was 'written on
water.' Had he lived but two years longer he might, like Marlborough,
have once more been restored to Royal favour at the Court of George
I., and in yet another reign have been again the First Minister of the
Crown of England.