Sir Francis corresponded with Cecil Lord Burleigh, and we thus get from the Hatfield MS. a faint, blurred picture of the soul of this brave Cornish squire. In his last letter to Cecil, dated Tavistock, 8th October, 1601, he speaks of his "project as touching the wars in Ireland."[47] He married first Margaret, daughter of John Killigrew, of Arwenack, and secondly Alice, daughter of John Skerrit, and widow of John Glanville, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. Of one of these ladies the following quaint story still survives: Sir Francis had taken into his confidence an attorney of Ottery St. Mary, named John Cole, and ultimately employed him as his agent. This person embarked in mining speculations on his own account with disastrous results, which soon hurried him into the paths of fraud. John Cole's blocks of tin bore for purposes of identification the figure of a cat stamped upon them, whilst those of his master bore the impress of a dolphin. Emboldened by successful peculations, the sign of the cat appeared in ever-increasing numbers where the sign of the dolphin should have been displayed. The suspicions of Lady Godolphin, more shrewd in this respect than her husband, were aroused. Accompanied by a maid, she repaired to the Godolphin Blowing House on foot, where she found numerous blocks of tin unlawfully stamped with the sign of the cat. On her return to Godolphin House, she found Sir Francis and a number of friends wondering at her absence, prolonged long past the appointed hour of dinner. She explained that during her absence she "had been watching a cat eating a dolphin." The Breage registers record the burial of Sir Francis Godolphin on 23rd April, 1608.
Sir Francis was succeeded by his son, Sir William Godolphin, educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, the home in those days of Puritan learning. Sir William also had distinguished himself under Essex in Ireland ere he succeeded his father; tradition says that he had been knighted for his bravery on the field of battle. In 1606 he was employed by the Government on a mission to Paris, the object of which is unknown. In an extant letter to Cecil[48] he complains that his means were inadequate to meet the expenses of the mission. He represented Cornwall once, if not twice, in Parliament. He married Thomasina, the daughter of Thomas Sidney, of Wrighton, in Norfolk. It was thus that the Christian name of Sidney was introduced into the Godolphin family. The Breage registers record his burial on 5th September, 1613. His eldest son William died whilst still a youth, when on a visit to Bruton Abbey, in Somersetshire; he was thus succeeded by his second son Francis, a boy of fourteen at the time of his father's death.
It was during the lifetime of this Sir Francis that Charles II., then Prince of Wales, took refuge at Godolphin House, on his flight to the Scilly Islands on the complete collapse of the Royal cause. Charles remembered the services of his faithful Cornish squire, and at his accession made him a Knight of the Bath, and entrusted to his charge the State prisoners, Sir Harry Vane and General Ireton; at the same time the foundation of the fortunes of his third son, Sidney, was laid by admission to the Royal household. Sir Francis represented St. Ives and other constituencies in Parliament. He and his wife, Dame Dorothy, daughter of Sir Henry Berkeley, of Yarlington in Somerset, were both buried in Breage Church. Sir Francis was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir William, who died without issue, and is buried at Breage. His fourth son, Henry Godolphin, D.D., was Provost of Eton for thirty-five years, and ultimately became Dean of St. Paul's. The silver-gilt Communion services still in use at both the Churches of Breage and Germoe were the gift of Henry Godolphin, whilst Dean of St Paul's. The record of his baptism occurs in our registers on 15th August, 1648.
No account of the house of Godolphin would be complete without mention of the brave and debonair Sidney Godolphin, poet, soldier and philosopher, brother of the foregoing Sir Francis Godolphin, K.B. He was the trusted friend of the statesman Clarendon, Hobbes the philosopher, and Waller the Cavalier poet. These three friendships in themselves made clear the temper of his mind. He sat in three Parliaments as member for Helston. He espoused in Parliament the cause of Strafford, and when peace seemed hopeless, he withdrew to the King at Oxford. The Earl of Clarendon in his history of the Great Rebellion has left a vivid portrait of his character and personality. He describes him as of small stature, but of sharp and keen wit, with a mind tinged with melancholy and fitfulness. He tells us that he would scarcely stir out of doors in windy or rainy weather, and that at Court he mingled freely with the greatest of the realm. He died fighting for his King at Chagford, in Devonshire, in an obscure skirmish, and lies buried in Okehampton Parish Church. It is evident that he had inherited the nature of his mother, and was a Sidney both in mind and in person rather than a Godolphin. Sidney Godolphin was before his age, and his philosophic mind revolted at the miserable tangle of religion and politics, and the degrading spirit of religious intolerance and persecution manifested by all parties. Of him it might have been well said: "Qui n'as pas l'esprit de son âge, de son âge a tout le malheur." On his tomb are inscribed the following pathetic lines by his friend Hobbs:
"Thou art dead, Godolphin, who lov'dst reason true,
Justice and peace, soldier belov'd, adieu."
The following entry in the Breage registers, which casts a sidelight on the story of the Godolphin family, has a pathos all its own: "Franciscus Berkeley, filius Caroli Berkeley militis, sepultus fuit 27 Septembri, 1635." The mother of the child whose death is thus recorded was Penelope, daughter of Sir William Godolphin, and the sister of Sir Francis and Sidney Godolphin. Penelope Godolphin had been married to Sir Charles Berkeley in Breage Church, September, 1627. Possibly the rapid rise of the Godolphin family was due to some extent to this marriage into the powerful family of Berkeley. Sir Charles Berkeley afterwards became Viscount Hardinge, and ultimately Earl of Falmouth, and is said in the main to have been responsible for the failure of the negotiations between Cromwell and Ireton on the one hand, and Charles I. on the other, for the restoration of Charles once more, to a peaceful, if a more limited authority over his people.
The child whose death the entry records had doubtless come with his parents to his mother's ancestral home. Penelope Berkeley no doubt returned to the old home of her childhood full of dreams of the renewal of the life of her girlhood, proud of her firstborn, heir to a great name. It all ended, alas! in the laying of the body of her babe in the old grey Church on the hill, overlooking the sea, 'midst the dust of his maternal ancestors.
The parish has produced only one great man of the first rank, Sidney Godolphin, Earl of Godolphin, third son of the Sir Francis honoured by Charles II. Our Church registers record the baptism of Sidney Godolphin in the following words: "Sidoni, the son of Francis Godolphin and Dorothy his wife, was baptized 15th day of June, 1644." Sidney Godolphin almost immediately after the Restoration became a page in the Royal household, and it was not long before the King conceived a strong personal liking for the son of the Cornish squire with whom he had found a refuge in the darkest hour of his fortunes. The regard of the merry Monarch made smooth the path of rapid advancement for Sidney Godolphin. Like his uncle of the same name, at an early age he entered Parliament as member for Helston. It is said that he very seldom spoke in the House of Commons, but quickly earned a reputation as a man of keen financial grasp and insight, and that his opinion on matters of finance soon came to be regarded as of great weight. In 1679 he was promoted with Viscount Hyde, afterwards Earl of Rochester, and the Earl of Sunderland to the chief management of affairs. In September, 1684, he was created Baron Godolphin of Rialton, and succeeded the Earl of Rochester as First Lord of the Treasury. James II. extended to him the same favour and confidence that King Charles had given to him. He was one of the Council of Five to whom James left the management of affairs when he left London to meet the advancing forces of the Prince of Orange. On the utter collapse of the cause of James II. he was one of the Commissioners appointed to negotiate with William Prince of Orange. He continued in office under William III., whilst at the same time, like his friend the Duke of Marlborough, he carried on a secret correspondence with James at St. Germans. No doubt all his real sympathies were with the cause of the exiled Monarch. In the reign of Anne he was largely instrumental in bringing about the Act of Union with Scotland; and by his great ability as a Minister of Finance he alone rendered possible the victorious prosecution of the war with France. He was created Earl of Godolphin in 1706. His position as a Minister of Finance in a venal age gave him unlimited opportunities for peculation, which others would have unblushingly seized, but he remained incorruptible, and at his death in 1712 was found to be worth only £12,000. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
The life of Sidney Godolphin was early clouded by a great sorrow. At the age of thirty he had married Margaret Blague, daughter of Colonel Blague, of Horningsheath. Three years after their marriage, in 1678, Margaret Godolphin's saintly life came to an end. John Evelyn has rendered the story of her short life in a sense the common heritage of all English men and women. By her purity and simple goodness of character she came to exercise an influence upon an evil and licentious Court, and for posterity she stands out as one of its brightest ornaments. I extract the following fragment from Evelyn's memoir of her: "She died in the 26 yeare of age, to the inexpressible affliction of her deare husband. She was for beauty and good nature, wit, fidelity and discretion the most incomparable person. Her husband, struck with the unspeakable affliction, fell down as dead. The King himself and all the Court expressed their sorrow. To the poore and miserable her loss was irreparable, for there was no degree but had some obligation to her memorie. She desired to be buried in the dormitorie of her husband's family, neere 300 miles from all her other friends. So afflicted was her husband at this severe loss that the entire care of her funeral was committed to me. Having closed her eyes, and dropped a teare upon the cheeke of my deare departed friend, lovely even in death, I caused the corpse to be embalmed and wrapped in lead, with a plate of brass soldered thereon, with an inscription and other circumstances due to her worth, with as much diligence and care that my grieved heart would permit me. She was accordingly carried to Godolphin, in Cornwall, in a hearse with six horses, attended by two coaches of as many, with about thirty of her relations and servants. There accompanied the hearse her husband's brother, Sir William, two more of his brothers and his three sisters; her husband was so overcome with grief that he was wholly unfit to travel so long a journey till he was more composed. I went as far as Hounslow with a sad heart, but was obliged to return on some indispensable affairs. The corpse was ordered to be taken out of the hearse every night, and decently placed in ye house, with tapers about it, and her servants attending to Cornwall; and then was honorably interr'd in the Parish Church of Godolphin. This funeral cost not much less than £1000. With Mr. Godolphin I looked over and sorted his lady's papers. We found a diary of her solemn resolutions, all tending to practical virtue. It astonish'd us to see what she had read and written, her youth considered."
A brass with the following inscription marks the spot in Breage Church, in front of the altar in the south aisle, beneath which the earthly remains of Margaret Godolphin lie: "Beneath this brass repose the mortal remains of Margaret Godolphin, daughter of Colonel Blague, of Horningsheath, Groom of the Bedchamber to King Charles I.; the wife of Sidney Godolphin, afterwards Earl of Godolphin; and the friend of John Evelyn, who has told the story of her noble life. She wished to rest at Breage, the cradle of her husband's race. Born 2nd August, 1652. She died in London 9th September, 1678. This brass was placed to her memory by George Godolphin Osborne, 10th Duke of Leeds."