The Strange Death of Edmund Godfrey

by Alan Marshall

  By the next year the couple had the beginnings of a young family to support and Thomas was already deep into local politics. As a Northampton client he had become a freeman and jurat of Winchelsea in 1609, and together with one Thomas Greene, he was sent up to London to deliver a petition to his patron the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports (Northampton) concerning the election of the mayor of the town. It must have seemed to the citizens of the town that with Thomas Godfrey as their representative their relationship with the Lord Warden would prosper accordingly, and Thomas subsequently held various other offices there. Naturally he gained some social distinction from these professional connections.12

  Thomas’s first wife Margaret died, muttering of angels, in 1611, apparently from complications during childbirth. By the following May the somewhat sentimental, but still business-like Thomas had tired of being a widower and like so many of his contemporaries he remarried, aged twenty-seven. His new wife was Sarah Isles, a young daughter of Thomas Isles of Leeds who had recently relocated to London from Yorkshire.13 Now living in Hammersmith and Fulham, Thomas Godfrey’s new father-in-law was one of the Procurators of the Arches, a high-sounding title masking a minor functionary’s position, but the match was another good one for Godfrey. He took his new wife to live in Halling. There in October 1612 Thomas and Sarah set up home in a house located next to the ferry and soon began to create a prolific family. On 23 July 1613 the couple produced twins, who unfortunately died the same day. Sarah also endured a series of miscarriages in 1613 and 1614, but thereafter she continued to produce children for the rest of her life. All told, eighteen children were born to Thomas and Sarah Godfrey.14

  In his public life, Thomas was successful enough. In April 1614, he was chosen as Member of Parliament for Winchelsea, with his patron Northampton as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, using his influence to find his client a seat. Thomas was apparently moderate in his politics and, being of an old country family, his clientage won him some local recognition. In fact, this was the last favour Northampton would do for Thomas because the earl died a few months later, and the parliament itself proved to be a rather abortive affair. Indeed, it went down in history as the ‘Addled Parliament’, although Thomas Godfrey was not a very prominent figure during its existence and his influence on national events was negligible. In the meantime, however, Thomas had acquired a taste for London life and after a year in Paternoster Row, he and his family finally settled in Grub Street in July 1614.15

  In March 1615 a break in the routine of the family’s social climbing occurred. Thomas Godfrey, with his half-brother Richard, his cousin William Epps and one Adrian Reade (to whom after some discussion, Thomas and Richard lent money in order that he could join the party) organized a visit to northern France and the Netherlands. They obtained their pass from Lord Zouch, the new Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and set off for France. They landed at Calais on 16 March 1615 and toured various sites. In particular, they stopped off at St Omers, where they spent Easter day at the Jesuit college and then moved on to Flanders and Douai; the latter was a noted English recusant haunt. They also visited ‘Nôtre Dame de Hale’, a pilgrimage site, and finally Louvaine, where Thomas Godfrey reacquainted himself with his former tutor Peter Benlos, now a Jesuit priest going by the name of Father Benson. The party then moved through Flanders and into the United Provinces, before returning home to England on 25 April 1616.16

  Why Thomas and his friends undertook such a visit is not very clear from his ‘Domestic Chronicle’. It may have been in part a holiday, or in part a business trip. Perhaps significantly, he does not say. The peculiar aspect of the trip, especially given his son’s future history, was, of course, the visit to the Jesuits and Benlos. Naturally, Thomas Godfrey was neither the first nor the last Protestant to be entertained by Jesuits in these parts, but it is clear that none of the Godfreys were particularly hostile to Roman Catholicism, which, given most Englishmen’s attitudes to Roman Catholics (as we shall see), at least marked them out as atypical.17 Thomas Godfrey, Lambarde (his eldest son by his first marriage) and his most troubled offspring, Edmund, all had fairly amicable relations with Catholics both at home and abroad. We might also reflect that Thomas had served in a Catholic household, his former tutor at Cambridge had converted to Catholicism, and his patron was also a Catholic nobleman, albeit one who kept his Catholicism private. Lambarde Godfrey went on to become a lawyer, recorder of Maidstone, served on the county committee for Kent and was a member of parliament for the county in the 1650s. He went so far as to openly defend the rights of Roman Catholics in one of the Cromwellian parliaments. It may well be that some of Thomas Godfrey’s apparent liberalism in religion and his religious tolerance were passed on his sons; if so, his views were taken to heart. Thomas also seems to have been something of a compromiser in his politics, coming down neither on one side nor the other in the great debates of the day, but his generous attitudes do not appear to have prevented his further election to parliament in 1627.18

  Not that Thomas was above acquiring minor court office. Ten years earlier, in 1617, he had become a ‘Sewer’ of the Chamber Extraordinary. In July 1618, however, he again went abroad, this time taking his wife, her friend Mrs Anne Whetenhall and his friend Edmund Harrison with him. Again they visited St Omers, returning to England in August. Thomas then started to busy himself with land speculation. This mainly consisted of the purchase of marsh and woodland in the districts of West Hith, Hopton and Standford, as well as a house and land at Braband Lees. In December 1621 Edmund Bury Godfrey was born and in the same year his grandfather, being decayed in memory and body, finally left Lydd and went to his son Richard’s home to live out his last years. As the eldest son, Peter Godfrey took much of the estate, but the three halfbrothers (Peter, Richard and Thomas) agreed to split some of their father’s estate in return for his maintenance.

  As the round of births and deaths in Thomas and Sarah Godfrey’s family continued unabated, the young Edmund Godfrey witnessed what appeared to be an endless succession of family celebrations followed by family funerals, as each child was born and more often than not died. The psychological effects of this upon the young child are difficult to assess. Social historians have argued for years over the nature of the early modern English family.19 The growth of affective individualism (an interest in the self with a recognition of individuality and a growth in affectionate relations within the nuclear family), the pattern of child rearing and the nature of relationships within it have all been pursued with equal vigour, as we learn ever more about the internal workings of the family structure of the day. In reality, there seems little doubt that despite its share of tragedies and Thomas’s travels, the Godfrey family was a relatively stable unit. Thomas would on occasion have appeared a harsh and authoritarian figure to his children, a patriarch, but he did his best for them in terms of affection, setting them up for life with as good an education and patrimony as possible. Edmund’s mother, however, remains a shadowy figure, even, one suspects, to her husband, and she must unfortunately remain so, for we know little about her other than that she suffered through the birth and death of her children on a regular basis. In short, in many ways the Godfreys were a fairly typical gentry family.20

  In 1627 Thomas once more found himself in parliament, this time for the New Romney constituency.21 As before, although he did not excel as a parliamentarian his presence in the House eventually led to other gains. In May 1632 he was made Scout Master throughout the lath of Shepway and he was also sworn in as a justice of the peace in 1630. His last attendance in parliament was to be in April 1640. In the Short Parliament (lasting three weeks) of that year Thomas once again sat for New Romney until parliament itself was hastily dissolved in May 1640 by Charles I. Thereafter Thomas Godfrey did not seek or was not given a chance to sit in the Long Parliament that was to shape England’s destiny for the next ten years.22

  What then can we make of Edmund Godfrey’s family background? It is clear that the family was apparently solid an
d respectable, albeit with what at the time would be seen as some slightly dubious religious leanings. Led by the enterprising Thomas, his sons made their own way in the world and chose their offices and allegiances in the conflicts of the 1640s with some care. Following the death of Edmund Godfrey in 1678, some questions about the mental health of his father were to be raised. It was said that Thomas was subject to moods of depression and as a consequence even prone to violence. Indeed his church memorial noted the ‘Christian courage [with which] he overcame many infirmities of his life’. There seems little to suggest any problems in his ‘Domestic Chronicle’, but this document ends in the 1650s and we do know that his own father’s mind had deteriorated in old age. Despite Thomas Godfrey’s apparently busy life and prosperity, he may well have harboured deeper problems and secrets that the family, if they knew of them, kept to themselves.23

  THE EARLY LIFE OF EDMUND GODFREY

  Among the surviving children of Thomas and Sarah Godfrey, Edmund Berry Godfrey did not stand out as unusual except in his possession of two Christian names. Edmund was born, as already noted, on 23 December 1621 and baptized in the established church on 13 January 1622.24 The cold winter weather and the dangers of a seventeenth-century childhood not having killed him off, he grew to be, as far as we know, a healthy child. Edmund’s full and uncommon name (which was to cause such problems for writers after his death) was the result of his father’s combining the names of Edmund’s godfathers – Captain John Berrie, a cousin and a foot soldier in a garrison at Lydd, and a former neighbour and Thomas Godfrey’s ‘faithful loving friend’, Edmund Harrison. Two Christian names were relatively uncommon in that period. (Indeed it seems that as an adult Edmund himself always eschewed the second one, for he would commonly sign his name ‘Edmund Godfrey’, rarely ‘Edmund Berry Godfrey’, and never ‘Edmundsbury Godfrey’ – as some of his early biographers would have it.) Given Thomas Godfrey’s interest in fostering his children’s early education, young Edmund, like his brothers before him, was launched as a boarder into the world of that ‘prime nursery’ of Englishmen: Westminster school.25

  As an educational establishment, Westminster school was soon to reach its pinnacle of achievement under the headmastership of Richard Busby. However, Godfrey himself was at the school under the controversial figure of Lambert Osbaldeston.26 In many ways Osbaldeston proved a difficult man for his superiors to deal with. In 1638, the year Godfrey finally left the school to go up to Oxford, Osbaldeston had been discovered referring to William Laud (the high and mighty Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Charles I’s right-hand man) as a ‘little meddling Hocus-Pocus’ in a letter. As a result the headmaster was brought before the Star Chamber and, perhaps to the joy of his pupils, sentenced to have his ears nailed to a pillory while standing before his own school. Fortunately for Osbaldeston, he was able to slip away before the sentence could be carried out and hid himself until the Long Parliament took its own form of revenge on Laud.27 Nonetheless, as an educator Osbaldeston was apparently sound enough and made Westminster school a noted place for the education of young gentlemen.

  Edmund’s arrival at Westminster may well have been his first real view of the bustling metropolis that was to dominate his life. Although there is little doubt that the comings and goings of the Godfrey family in and out of London must have given Edmund some sight of the capital, for the next few years he concentrated on what was happening within the school walls and in the classroom. The significance of Westminster school in the seventeenth century in educating the English élite for the professions and government cannot be underestimated.28 In between the birch, in common use at Westminster, and the book, Edmund’s education would have proceeded apace. Of his schoolfellows Edmund later only spoke of the future Lord Conway, who was his ‘fellow boarder’ there. We do not know whether the schoolboy Edmund was either shy or boisterous in his dealings with others, but it is clear that he was a bright pupil. Education at Westminster was well suited to fit out any young gentleman for his future life. Most of the daily routine at the school was spent upon grammar and translation, some extemporary versifying, a little geography, syntax and classical history. The school also fostered a spirit of competition. Rewards and prizes were given to the best scholars, and classical and Christian ideals were inculcated at a school that on occasion also revealed its darker side. Hard knocks, bribery between the boys and their superiors, as well as moral corruption, were not uncommon.29

  Having completed his time at Westminster, the young Edmund Godfrey was ready for the next stage of his education. In November 1638, aged sixteen, he went up to Oxford to attend Christ Church. Oxford or Cambridge and the Inns of Court were the traditional route for any young man with ambition to make something of his life. For the aristocracy, residence at a prestigious university would enable them to become more polished and refined, and for those of less wealth or a lower social standing it allowed them to place themselves among their peers with some confidence. A career in the church, at the Bar, or as an amateur gentleman administrator in local or central government beckoned for most students. By the age of seventeen Edmund Godfrey had proved himself ‘diligent and industrious’.30 He had also begun to indulge a youthful loyalism towards a monarchy that in his later life he was to view at first hand and about which he was to be less than complimentary. Like many another young man, this early loyalty took its form in poetry and it is here we catch the first real glimpse into the character of the young Edmund Godfrey. He made a contribution to a volume of verses written to congratulate Charles I on the birth of his daughter Anne in 1637.31 It must be said that Edmund’s attempts at poetry were no worse than those of many others at a time when poetry was seen as one of the accomplished arts of a gentleman. To be able to versify for friends and relatives alike was a skill, but Edmund’s contribution to the collection – a doggerel verse blandly replete with clichés and catchphrases – was at least his own work, even down to the awful pun:

  No little stone, but on these happie days

  A pyramid of marble lett men rayse;

  That should you chaunce to leave us, it might be

  A faithful STEUART of your memoire[,]

  But if at last old age consume the same,

  Weele have a grater monument; your name.32

  It is interesting that the metaphor of birth and death, two elements common to his own siblings and family life, were mixed in his verse, but one can say little more about his poetic impulse.

  Of Edmund’s life at university we have few clues. Had he chosen to do so, the ever-inquisitive John Aubrey might well have revealed more, for he at least knew some of Edmund’s chamber fellows; but in fact he gives little away about Godfrey’s university life.33 It is not even clear whether Edmund took his degree. It was not uncommon for men of his social status not to take a degree for a number of reasons, but there is no evidence to prove that Edmund left Oxford either disappointed or in disgrace. Perhaps both he and his parents felt that the young man had acquired sufficient polish to be going on with. In the event, he was next found in Europe completing his education on a continental tour. After his death in 1678, it was alleged that while abroad at this time Edmund had kept himself free of immorality and vice, although he associated with Catholics and had Catholic friends.34 It was also claimed that he was true to the Protestant religion. There seems no reason to doubt this claim, but given his father’s liberal attitudes, Edmund’s opinions on Roman Catholicism were very likely to have been formulated at this time and were certainly more liberal than most of his class. Nor in his later life, as we shall see, could he keep these opinions hidden.

  Whatever the future held for Edmund, in 1640 home beckoned him once more and he returned to an England on the eve of civil war. Yet here again there is little evidence to suggest that he took any interest in the great events of the turbulent 1640s. Instead, Edmund entered Gray’s Inn at the Inns of Court in 1640, where a promising career at the Bar seemed the most reasonable prospect for this younger son of the gentry
. According to one source, he stayed there long enough to arrive at that ‘mature proficiency as gave him a good title’ to the lawyer’s garb.35 Unfortunately, at this point he was also struck down by a serious infirmity. It was later claimed that Edmund had been forced to abandon his legal studies because of ill health and increasing deafness. How serious the latter was remains open to doubt. Was this, as some have speculated, an excuse to cover up a more serious breakdown in his personal life? One early biographer claimed that his deafness ‘though not very great was always natural to him’. John Aubrey, on the other hand, claimed that Godfrey had given up the Bar because he ‘conceived he should gain more by turning woodmonger’, but whatever the true nature of his problem Godfrey’s ailment may have been sufficiently serious to prompt his association in the 1660s with the Irish healer Valentine Greatrakes.36 In the 1640s at least, Edmund evidently thought his deafness precluded all thought of a career at the Bar, where indeed a man needed to have all of his wits about him, and he left Gray’s Inn without assuming a ‘graduates robe’.37 Yet his contemporaries make little mention of his deafness in the later stages of his life. If it did remain troublesome, then Edmund’s partial loss of hearing could perhaps account for some of the character traits that soon began to be observed in him. He became a rather straightlaced and melancholy young man who favoured solitariness over ‘good company’. Later on, some contemporaries began to think his disposition odd if not downright peculiar, and his appearance was to be memorably described by Roger North as ‘black, hard favoured, tall, stooping . . . and . . . commonly wiping his mouth and looking [up]on the ground’.38 For whatever reason(s), Edmund in his maturity became a very grave, gloomy and somewhat querulous individual, who may have believed that he had inherited his father’s tendency towards depression.