Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 1 (of 2)Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
History
Cornish Worthies: Sketches of Some Eminent Cornish Men and Families, Volume 1 (of 2)
Tregellas, Walter H. (Walter Hawken)
Cornwall (England : County) -- Biography
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).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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