Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/53

 phin. An act of parliament was passed in 1698, declaring null and void the power to make a posthumous will, and enabling his relations to carry out the later disposition. They were also to pay a sum of 3,000l., which he had left for charitable purposes in Cornwall on becoming ambassador. A printed copy of the act, with many documents relating to the business, is in the British Museum. His fortune, valued at 80,000l., was in Spain, Rome, Venice, and Amsterdam (Addit. MS. 28,942, ff. 250–4), and the heirs, with Lord Godolphin's help, appear to have recovered the money in the two latter places (, Great Britain, i. 208).

Many of Godolphin's official letters (including those above mentioned) are published in ‘Hispania Illustrata,’ 1703. This is identical with the second volume of ‘Original Letters of Sir R. Fanshawe … and Sir W. Godolphin,’ 1724. The first volume is identical with a volume bearing the same title, ‘Original Letters,’ &c., published in 1702. A few letters are also in Temple's ‘Memoirs.’ He contributed a poem to the Oxford complimentary collection of verses on Cromwell in 1654, and an answer to Waller's ‘Storm’ upon Cromwell's death. The last is in Nichols's ‘Select Collection,’ 1780, i. 116–19, where it is erroneously ascribed to Lord Godolphin, the treasurer. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society 23 Nov. 1663. He must not be confounded with Sir William Godolphin (d. 1710), elder brother of Sidney, lord Godolphin.

[Wood's Fasti (Bliss), iv. 229, 275; Welch's Alumni Westmon. pp. 136–8; Pepys's Diary, 1877, v. 174, 179, 183, 226, 367, 447; Birch's Royal Society, ii. 297, 331; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. i. 182, 183; Echard's Hist. of England, 1718, iii. 231, 478; Collins's Peerage, 1779, vii. 295.]  GODRIC (1065?–1170), the founder of Finchale, was born ‘in villula Hanapol,’ or, according to another account, at Walpole in Norfolk (Reg. c. 2;, fol. 167, b 2). His father's name was Ailward, his mother's Ædwin; and Godric, their first-born son, was called after his godfather. After a boyhood spent at home, Godric began to peddle small wares in the neighbouring shires (Reg. c. 2). Later, as his gains increased, he took to frequenting castles and the town and city markets. A narrow escape from drowning while he was attempting to capture a stranded ‘dolphin’ or porpoise near the mouth of the Welland (c. 1082) seems to have given a serious turn to his thoughts (ib. c. 3;, c. 1). Four years later, after a preliminary visit to St. Andrews and Rome, he took to the sea (c. 1086), and for several years sailed as a merchant or shipowner between England, Scotland, Denmark, and Flanders. He owned the half of one vessel, and was partner in the cargo of a second. So great was his nautical skill that his fellows made him their steersman, and his quickness in forecasting weather changes not unfrequently saved his ship from damage (Reg. c. 4; cf., fol. 168, a 1).

After sixteen years of seafaring life he determined to visit Jerusalem (Reg. c. 6), which had just been won by the first crusaders; and, when we consider the close relationship that in those days existed between piracy and commerce, there is no need to doubt his identity with the ‘Gudericus, pirata de regno Angliæ,’ with whom Baldwin I of Jerusalem, after his great defeat in the plains of Ramlah, sailed from Arsuf to Jaffa on 29 May 1102 (ib. c. 6;, c. 1; cf. , ix. c. 9; iv. 134; , ii. c. 20; for the exact date see Chron. Malleac. p. 217). On his return he visited St. James of Compostella, and then, after a stay in his native village, became ‘dispensator’ to a rich fellow-countryman. Shocked at having unwittingly partaken of stolen banquets with his fellow-servants, he threw up his post and went on a second pilgrimage to Rome and St. Gilles in Provence (Reg. c. 6;, c. 1). On his return he stayed a while with his father and mother, after which the latter accompanied him to Rome. Near London the travellers were joined by an unknown woman ‘of wondrous beauty.’ Every evening, as Godric himself told Reginald, the stranger would wash the travellers' feet; nor did she leave them till they neared London on the way back (Reg. c. 8;, c. 1).

While a sailor Godric had made offerings at St. Andrews, had constantly prayed at St. Cuthbert's Island of Farne (Reg. c. 5), and ‘had worn a monkish heart beneath a layman's clothes’ (ib.) He now settled at Carlisle (c. 1104), where he seems to have had some kinsmen, one of whom gave him a copy of Jerome's psalter, a book which he constantly read till the end of his life (ib. c. 9; cf. cc. 92, 100). To avoid his friends he withdrew to the neighbouring woods, having taken John the Baptist for the model of his wandering life. At Wolsingham (ten miles north-west of Bishop Auckland) an aged hermit, Ælrice, allowed him to share his dwelling. Some two years later, when Ælrice was dead, a vision bade Godric visit Jerusalem a second time (c. 1106): on his return St. Cuthbert would find him another hermitage, Finchale, in the woods round Durham (ib. cc. 11–13). Not till he had worshipped in the holy sepulchre and bathed