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