Godfrey Goodman
Godfrey (also called Hugh} was born on 28 February 1583, the son of Gabriel Goodman's brother Godfrey therefore nephew of Gabriel Goodman. His parents were Godfrey Goodman senior and his second wife, Jane Croxton, Ruthin gentry. He was educated at Ruthin School and Westminster School where he remained seven years under the protection of his great uncle, Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster. He was an earnest student and when only seventeen won a scholarship at Trinity College, Cambridge. He graduated there in 1604 and shortly after was ordained at Bangor, Wales.
This portrait is believed to be of Godfrey's father, Godfrey Goodman senior, (Gabriel's brother) in 1600 when he would have been about 40 years old.
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He too attended Trinity College Cambridge and was ordained a priest in the diocese of Brecon.
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He is shown wearing a ruff and holding a dog rose, a family symbol. At the top left are the Goodman Arms and a crest of a double-headed eagle
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His contemporaries describe him as being a hospitable, quiet man, and lavish in his charity to the poor.
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Through the favour of his uncle's friends, and of James I and his queen, he was presented to a number of livings in England and Wales. Goodman's first appointment was to the rectory of Stapleford Abbotts, Essex, in 1606. He made rapid progress in the Church, and was made successively prebend of Westminster in 1607; Rector of West Isley, Berkshire, in 1616; Rector of Kinnerton, Gloucester; Canon of Windsor and prebendary of Hatherton, Staffordshire in St Peter's Collegiate Church, Wolverhampton in 1617; Dean of Rochester in 1621; and finally Bishop of Gloucester, 1625–1646. His election to the See of Gloucester was confirmed on 5 March 1625 and he was consecrated a bishop the following day. In addition, he held two livings in Wales, at Llandyssil and Llanarmon. Even as a bishop, he was allowed to retain most of these appointments. In late 1633/early 1634, he was elected Bishop of Hereford, but refused the election and continued in Gloucester..
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Goodman became one of the Court preachers and was chaplain to Queen Anne, wife of James I. His leaning towards Roman Catholicism made enemies for him at Windsor, and he was reprimanded by the King over Court sermons. A few years later, he was severely reprimanded for having erected a crucifix at Windsor and using altar-cloths with a cross design in his own cathedral at Gloucester, and further for having suspended a minister who insisted on preaching "that all who die papists go inevitably to hell".
With the accession of Charles I in 1625 he found himself increasingly out of sympathy with the king's religious policy.
It is likely that doubts were arising in his mind about the legitimacy of the Church's separation from Rome, and he sought the society of Catholic priests who were in hiding throughout the country. He was frequently at variance with Archbishop Laud, and in 1640 refused on conscientious grounds to sign the seventeen Articles drawn up by the Archbishop. He was thereupon arrested, but after five weeks in prison he overcame his scruples and signed the Articles. This, however, availed him little,as he was soon impeached by Parliament along with Laud and the ten other signatories of the Articles and was sent to prison for treason in the Tower of London for four months.
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In 1643, Goodman's episcopal palace was pillaged by parliamentarian soldiers and over the course of a couple of years he was stripped of all his emoluments. He withdrew from public life to his small Welsh estate near Llanberis, and it is likely that he converted to Catholicism at this time. He was deprived of his See by Parliament on 9 October 1646, as episcopacy was abolished for the duration of the Commonwealth and the Protectorate.
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In about 1650, he went to London, and gave himself up to study and research; he was befriended by some Catholic royalists and lived in close connection with them until his death at Westminster on 19 January 1656. Father Davenport OSF, former chaplain to Queen Henrietta, was his confessor and attended him in his last illness. He died, aged 62 or 63, at Westminster.
In his will, he made an equivocal recognition of the supremacy of Rome. Modern research tends to suggest that he was never formally converted, but that he sincerely desired a reconciliation of the English Church with Rome.
He left most of his property to Ruthin, his native town; his manuscripts and books, however, were given to Trinity College, Cambridge.
He died at Westminster on 19 January 1656.