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MEMOIR

OF

Doctor Godfrey Goodman,

BISHOP OF GLOCESTER.

IT is with a degree of confidence very inferior to that which attended the preceding Memoir, that an Account of Doctor Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Glocester, is commenced. His name has been transmitted under such a load of obloquy, as the only Bishop of the English Reformation who apostatized to the Church of Rome, that the task requires the pen of an Apologist. It is, however, presumed that the following short and unadorned detail of such passages in his life as are on record, may, in a great measure, serve the office. Should this, in any degree, be the case, it will afford satisfaction to the Writer, who has for so many years been an Administer of the Charities he left behind him, which should preserve a respect for his memory, when the errors of his faith (if he be truly charged with them) have ceased to be pernicious, and have fallen into oblivion.

This singular Prelate was the second Son of Godfrey Goodman, mentioned in the foregoing Memoir as the younger Brother of the Dean, by his second Wife Catherine, Daughter and Heiress of Simon Croxton of Merllyn, near Ruthin, in which Town our Bishop was born, February the 28th, in the first Gregorian year, 1582-3. He was sent to Westminster School at the early age of ten, under the tuition of William Camden, the celebrated Antiquarian, then become Head Master, who, as

stated in the former Memoir, was the friend of his Father and Uncle, from whence he was elected a Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge, in the year 1600, and subsequently Fellow of that Society. From the very early date of his first preferment, he must have entered into Deacons Orders immediately on attaining his degree of Bachelor of Arts, and principally, it may be supposed, as being the representative of the late Dean of Westminster, his highly venerated Uncle, he soon, as well as by his own merits as a scholar, found zealous friends disposed to advance his interests. Accordingly, it appears, that Doctor Morgan, Bishop of St. Asaph, gave him the Sinecure of the first portion of Llansannan Rectory in the year 1605. Bishop Parry, his fellow townsman and intimate friend of his family, who succeeded Doctor Morgan in the See of St. Asaph, conferred on him successively the Sinecures of Llandyssil, the second portion of Llansannan, Skeiviog and Llanarmon in Yale, the last of which he obtained in 1621, and resigned to Doctor Peter Du Moulin, Son of the famous Protestant Writer of the same name, who took refuge in England. At the same time he enjoyed the patronage of other eminent Prelates, who were zealously attached to the memory of the late good Dean of Westminster. Lloyd, the Author of the Memoirs, who was brought up at Ruthin School, was the Bishop's Contemporary and well acquainted with his early history, informs us, these were Bishops, Launcelot Andrews, Vaughan, and Williams, Lord Keeper, the first being his Uncle's Successor in his Deanery, the second the Dean's Associate in promoting the Welsh Translation of the Bible, and the last a grateful Scholar of the Foundation at Ruthin. Through the joint influence of these Prelates he became Chaplain to the Queen, and obtained from the Crown, successively, the Rectory of Stapleford Abbots, in Essex, in 1607, and a Canonry of Windsor in 1617, from which Church he held the Rectory of West Ildesley, in Berks. He succeeded to the Deanery of Rochester in 1620, and lastly to

*

* Doctor Richard Vaughan was a native of Carnarvonshire, of St. John's College, Cambridge, Chaplain to Elizabeth, and successively Bishop of Bangor, Chester, and London. His merit was universally allowed to be equal to his dignity in the Church, but none of his Writings were ever printed. Fuller tells us, in his usual style, that he was a very corpulent man, but spiritually minded; and Owen, his Country man, has addressed to him one of his best Epigrams,―[Granger quoted by Yorke's Royal Tribes.]

Præsul es (O Britonum decus immortale tuorum)

Tu Londinensi piimus in urbe Brito.

the Bishoprick of Glocester, in 1624, with permission to hold his Canonry of Windsor and West Ildesley in commendam. By the Register of Kemerton, in the County of Glocester, it appears he was at the same time Rector of that Parish, having purchased the Advowson which, as will hereafter appear, he bequeathed to the Corporation of Glocester, in trust principally for his own Family and Kin. Such rapid advancement to wealth and dignity, and, comparatively speaking, at so early a period of life, must be accounted for, in a great measure, by his connexion with the departed worth we have recorded. The debt of preferment which was so justly due to the Dean seems to have been paid to the Nephew. Not but what he early distinguished himself as a Writer, and in this respect shewed he had talents for sustaining with credit the dignity he obtained. In the year 1616 he published a Work entitled "The Fall of Man, or the Corruption of Human Nature, proved by natural reason." A Copy of this Work in small quarto, which is now scarce, is in Ruthin School Library, and evinces considerable talents in the Writer. We are told by Doctor Samuel Johnson in his life of Milton, "there prevailed at that time an opinion, from which prepossession the Poet seems not to have been free, that the World was in its decay, and that we have the misfortune of being born in the decrepitude of Nature. It was suspected that the whole Creation languished, that neither trees nor animals had the height or bulk of their predecessors, and that every thing was daily sinking by gradual decay." Mr. Murphy subjoins a Note to this passage, and observes that "this opinion is with great learning and ingenuity refuted, in a book now very little known, "An Apology or Declaration of the Power and Providence of God in the Government of the World," by Doctor George Hakewill, in answer to the Work of Bishop Goodman, who was the first who ventured to propagate this notion in England, and which he clearly and unanswerably refuted." To this Goodman replied with "Arguments and Animadversions on Doctor G. Hakewill's Apology." His Writings in this controversy are remembered principally by means of this refutation.

Not long after his elevation to the Bench he obtained an unhappy celebrity by the suspected Doctrines he preached in a Sermon at Court, and is plainly accused by Walker of having broached Popish Heterodoxies. This accusation, however, appears to rest on insufficient grounds. What the Doctrines were which he preached at Court we

censure.

are not precisely informed, but we may safely affirm they deserved not so strong a In Laud's Diary, (26th March, 1626) it is said, "In the Convocation held that day, there was much debating concerning the Sermon which Godfrey Goodman, Bishop of Glocester had preached before the King on the Sunday preceding, being the 5th Sunday in Lent, and, April 12th Wednesday at 9 in the forenoon, we met together, viz: the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Winchester, Durham, and St. David's, being commanded by the King to consult together concerning the Sermon. We advised together, and gave this answer to the King-that some things were therein spoken less cautiously but nothing falsely, that nothing was innovated by him in the Doctrine of the Church of England,—that the best way would be that the Bishop should preach the Sermon again at some time to be chosen by himself, and should then shew how and wherein he was misunderstood by his Auditors. Whether this or any other step was taken, except that the Archbishop made his report of their opinion, does not appear. After this we learn but little of his proceedings for some years. Antony Wood says, that in 1633 he endeavoured to obtain the Bishoprick of Hereford on the death of Doctor Godwin. But it seems probable that his further advancement was effectually stopped by the remembrance of his Sermon. There had never been much cordiality subsisting between Laud and our Bishop, for the latter being an elevè of the Lord Keeper Williams, would feel a prejudice against his Patron's Supplanter, and this would naturally become mutual. Certain it is that the King and Archbishop were never after at all partial to him, as the following particulars will evince. In his annual returns to his Majesty, Laud repeatedly complains that he could get no account from Glocester. This was the case in 1633, but the next year Bishop Goodman was more complying. He then certifies that he is forced to ordain some very mean Ministers in his Diocese to supply Cures as mean, yet he professeth that, to his knowledge, he never gave Holy Orders to any unworthy person. And, further, he saith that he had put down some Lecturers and set up other some, which he conceives he did without offence, being done on different occasions; (on this sentence His Majesty makes this pithy Note,-"I must be satisfied that the occasions were very necessary, otherwise he shall answer for it,") but saith that he doth not know nor can probably conjecture there is any one unconformable man in his Diocese, which, if it be true, is a great clearing of those parts which

have of late been so much suspected.

In the report of 1635, the Bishop informs that the County is very full of Impropriations, which makes the Ministers poor, and this poverty makes them fall upon popular factious courses.* Whether this state of the Clergy occupied all his time, or whether he was unwilling to publish it, is not known, but the two next years he sent no report. The next year, 1638, he confesses that he had been absent from his Diocese a good part of the year, "being kept from his Dwelling House by the infection at Glocester, which just cause of absence he most humbly submits to His most gracious Majesty." The King writes in the margin, "This is well enough if he have left his desire of further absenting himself." These Notes shew that he was completely out of favour, and never likely to advance to higher emoluments.-[Laud's Try. and Troub. page 533–8.]

Nothing more is to be gleaned of the History of this singular Prelate till the year 1640, when he again brought himself into notice, and not without some reason, revived the suspicion of a leaning to Popish Heterodoxy by his refusal to subscribe

* To explain this jealousy about Lecturers, it may be observed, that there was a very strong and a very just suspicion entertained by the King, Bishop Laud, and the friends of the Established Church, of these novel Institutions, which were then set up in all parts of the Kingdom, in the Borough Towns in particular which sent Members to Parliament, the History of which is this:- Large sums of money were subscribed to a self-constituted Corporation, consisting of Laity and Clergy, whose declared object it was to purchase up the Lay Impropriations of Tithe, which had passed from the dissolved Monasteries into private hands, and settle them according to their original purpose on the Ministers of the Gospel. In consideration of the deplorably impoverished state of the Parochial Clergy at that period, the design was for awhile generally approved by the friends of the Church, and even the orthodox and excellent Fuller declares "My pen may safely salute them with a God speed, as neither seeing or suspecting any danger in the design." But it was soon observed by the King and the vigilant and active Laud that these Feoffees were untrue to their declared intentions. For instead of settling the Tithes they had purchased on an established Rector, Vicar, or perpetual Curate, under the exclusive control of the Ordinary, they employed them on the maintenance of Lecturers and Schoolmasters, removable at their own will and pleasure. The Conductors of this design being all of the Puritanical School, their insidious design was soon made manifest, and in consequence this Corporation was dissolved by a decree of the Court of Exchequer, which expressed "His Majesty's pleasure, that whatsoever had been thus bestowed should be employed wholly to the good of the Church and the maintenance of conformable Preachers in the right and best way." The suppression of these Lectureships by any other Prelate than Bishop Goodman would have been greeted by the Royal approbation, but the "other some" he set up were no doubt suspected of being leavened in the opposite extreme. This incident is a clear proof, if any were wanted, that the King and his favourite were both firmly attached to the happy medium of the Establishment.

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