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.'