Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 22.djvu/56

 buried with her husband in St. Stephen's, Norwich. John Godsalve was clerk of the signet (appointed before January 1531) to Henry VIII. He was present at the operations at Boulogne in 1544. In November 1532 a grant in survivorship of the office of common meter of all cloths of gold and silver tissue, &c. in the city of London was given to him and William Blakenhall. In 1547 (Edward VI) he was created knight of the Carpet, and was appointed one of the crown visitors to inquire how far the bishops had obeyed the orders of Henry VIII. During the third year of Edward VI he was comptroller of the mint (RUDING, i. 37). In 1555 he is mentioned as belonging to the St. George's Company at Norwich. He died on 20 Nov. 1556, seised of the Norfolk manors of Loddon, Inglose (in Loddon), Hockingham, Minyet's in Sething, Cautley, Thurton, Langhale, Sething, Hasingham, and Bokenham Ferry. He married (before 1531) Elizabeth Widmerpole. They had two sons. The eldest son William died without issue; their second son Thomas (d. 1587) had a son and heir Roger.

A miniature representing Sir John Godsalve armed with spear and shield, and inscribed, ‘Captum in castris ad Boloniam’ [1544?], at one time belonged to Christopher Godsalve, clerk to the victualling office under Charles I, and is now in the Bodleian Library. Blomefield (Norfolk, vii. 214) mentions a portrait of John Godsalve as being 'in the closet' at Kensington Palace.

[Blomefield's Norfolk, v. 268, 426, vii. 213, 214, &c.; Froude's Hist. of Engl., iv. chap. xxiv.; Ruding's Annals of the Coinage, i. 37; Norfolk Tour, i. 3; Letters and Papers of Henry VIII (Brewer and Gairdner), vol. iv. pt. iii. p. 3048, vol. v. Nos. 302 (ii), 348, 514, 641, 743, 1118, 1245, g. 364(33), 1598(12), and p. 753; vol. vi. No. 299 (ii) and No. 576.] 

GODWIN or GODWINE (d. 1053), earl of the West-Saxons, was the son of Wulfnoth, and may probably be identified with the Godwine, son of Wulfnoth, to whom the ætheling Æthelstan [d. 1016? see under ] left certain land which his father Wulfnoth had held (Codex Dipl. iii. 363). Who this Wulfnoth was is uncertain. Florence (i. 160, an. 1007) makes Godwine the son of a Wulfnoth who was the son of Æthelmær, the brother of Eadric Streona [q. v.] This seems almost impossible for chronological reasons. Another account (Canterbury Chronicle, an. 1008) represents Godwine as the son of Wulfnoth, child of the South-Saxons, who plundered the south coast in 1009. It is possible that Compton, the estate which Æthelstan left to Godwine, Wulfnoth's son, may have been confiscated after this treason; it appears to have remained the property of Godwine the earl or of his son Harold (, Norman Conquest, i. 641). Some late but independent traditions make Godwine the son of a man of churlish condition, and the ‘Kyntlinga Saga’ (Antiqq. Celto-Scandicæ, p. 131) says that he was the son of a wealthy farmer living near Sherstone in Wiltshire, and that after the battle there earl Ulf met with him, stayed a night and a day at his father's house, and then took him to Cnut's fleet, gave him his sister in marriage, and obtained for him the rank of earl. The widespread story of his low birth is curious, but seems to be of no historical value; it is in flat contradiction to the words of William of Jumièges (vii. 9). On the whole the safest theory is that Godwine was the son of Wulfnoth, the South-Saxon child (Norman Conquest, i. note F, 636–46;, Essays, p. 188). He had a brother named Alwy (Ælfwine), who was made abbot of Newminster in 1063, and fell in the battle of Hastings (Liber de Hyda, Introd. xxxvii; Monasticon, ii. 428). Early in Cnut's reign he appears as a man of high position, for he is described as ‘dux,’ or earl, in 1018 (Codex Dipl. iv. 3, his name comes last of six earls). It has been supposed (, u. s.) that he is the Godwine who is said by a charter given before 1020 to have been married to a daughter of Byrhtric, identified apparently with the brother of Eadric Streona. The marriage took place before Cnut and Archbishop Lyfing (Codex Dipl. iv. 10). The Godwine of the charter was apparently a man of high position in Kent and Sussex, but does not seem to have been an earl. If, therefore, the charter refers to the son of Wulfnoth, the marriage must be referred to a date between 1016 and 1018. William of Malmesbury, though making an obvious blunder about Godwine's marriages, probably had some authority for his statement that he was twice married (Gesta Regum, i. 342). A marriage with a niece of Eadric might account for the statement of Florence that Godwine was connected with Eadric by blood; the nature of the connection might easily be confused. If the charter refers to Godwine, son of Wulfnoth, and to the niece of Eadric, the marriage may be considered a political one, Cnut thus placing ‘the heiress of the house of Eadric and Byrhtric in the hands of his firmest supporter in the south of England’. It cannot, however, be said to be at all certain that the charter in question refers to the future earl of the West-Saxons; the name Godwine was very common at this period. Early in Cnut's reign God-