STATESMEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES.
THE GODOLPHINS OF GODOLPHIN,
STATESMEN, JURISTS, AND DIVINES.
'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, Esqre, 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
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, 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 ye 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, Ano. Regni 26o. 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 Feby, 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 4000l. 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.