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: