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.