GODOLPHIN, JOHN (1617–1678), civilian, second son (by Judith Meredith) of John Godolphin, who was younger brother of Sir William Godolphin (d. 1613), was born at Scilly, 29 Nov. 1617. He became a commoner of Gloucester Hall (afterwards Worcester College), Oxford, in the Michaelmas term of 1632; distinguished himself in the study of philosophy, logic, and the civil law; graduated as B.C.L. in 1636 and D.C.L. in 1643. He took the puritan side, and on 30 July 1653 was appointed judge of the admiralty, with William Clarke and Charles George Cock. After Clarke's death Godolphin and Cock were reappointed in July 1659 to hold the same office until 10 Dec. following. Upon the Restoration he became one of the king's advocates, though his name does not appear on the register. He died ‘in or near Fleet Street,’ 4 April 1678, and was buried in Clerkenwell Church. He was four times married, and had by his first wife a son, Sidney, who was governor of Scilly, and whose daughter Mary married Henry Godolphin, provost of Eton [q. v.]
Godolphin wrote the following books upon law and divinity, which are dry, though apparently learned abstracts: 1. ‘The Holy Limbec, or an Extraction of the Spirit from the Letter of certain eminent places in the Holy Scripture,’ 1650. ‘The Holy Limbeck, or a Semi-Century of Spiritual Extraction,’ &c., is the same book with title altered. 2. ‘The Holy Arbor, containing a Body of Divinity. … Collected from many Orthodox Laborers in the Lord's Vineyard,’ 1651. 3. ‘Synēgoros thalassios, a view of the Admiral Jurisdiction …’ 1661 and 1685 (appendix has a list of lord high admirals after Spelman, and an extract from the ancient laws of Oleron, translated from Garsias alias Ferrand). 4. ‘The Orphan's Legacy, or a Testamentary Abridgement’ (in three parts, on wills, executors, and legacies), 1674, 1677, 1685, 1701. 5. ‘Repertorium Canonicum, or an Abridgement of the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Realm consistent with the Temporal,’ 1678, 1680, 1687. ‘Laws, Ordinances, and Institutions of the Admiralty of Great Britain,’ 1746 and 1747, is not, as stated by Watt (Bibl. Brit.), a reprint of No. 3.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iii. 1152–3; Coote's English Civilians, p. 81; Echard's Hist. of England (1718), iii. 500; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub.]
GODOLPHIN, Mrs. MARGARET (1652–1678), friend of Evelyn, born 2 Aug. 1652, was daughter of Thomas Blagge of Horningsheath, Suffolk (a royalist colonel, and governor of Wallingford, who on the Restoration became governor of Yarmouth and Landguard Fort), by Mary, daughter of Sir Roger North of Mildenhall. Her father died 14 Nov. 1660. He had accompanied the second Duke of Buckingham in his escape after the battle of Worcester. Margaret Blagge was entrusted when very young to Buckingham's sister, wife of the third Duke of Richmond, then in France, who transferred her to the care of Buckingham's first cousin, Elizabeth, countess of Guilford. The countess, though a ‘bygott proselitesse,’ could not persuade the child to go to mass. On the Restoration she returned to her mother in England, and about 1666 became maid of honour to the Duchess of York (Anne Hyde). She attended the duchess in her last illness, and upon her death (31 March 1671) became maid of honour to the queen. One of her companions, Anne Howard, granddaughter of the first Earl Berkshire (afterwards Lady Sylvius), introduced her to John Evelyn. She became strongly attached to him, gave him a declaration of ‘inviolable friendship’ in writing (signed 16 Oct. 1672), and ever afterwards considered herself as his adopted daughter. She resolved soon afterwards to leave the court, and went to live with Lady Berkeley, wife of John, lord Berkeley of Stratton. Lord Berkeley's brother, afterwards second Viscount Fitzhardinge, had married the aunt of Sidney Godolphin, afterwards first earl [q. v.] Godolphin had long been Margaret's lover, although there were difficulties in the way of their marriage, chiefly, according to her account, from his absorption in business, which made the retired life which she (and he, as she says) desired impossible. She wished at one time to go to Hereford, to live under the direction of the dean, her ‘spiritual father.’ On 15 Dec. 1674 she was induced to appear at court to act in Crowne's ‘Calisto.’ She was ‘Diana, goddess of chastity,’ other parts being performed by the Princesses Mary and Anne, Lady Wentworth, and Sarah Jennings, afterwards Duchess of Marlborough. She was covered with jewels worth 20,000l., and ‘performed the principal part to admiration.’
After much hesitation she was privately married to Godolphin 16 May 1675 by Dr. Lake. She still lived with the Berkeleys, and accompanied them on Lord Berkeley's embassy to Paris at the end of the year. She returned in the following April, when her marriage was acknowledged, and in the autumn she settled with her husband in Scotland Yard, Whitehall. On 3 Sept. 1678 she gave birth to a son, Francis [q. v.], afterwards second earl Godolphin, took a fever, and died 9 Sept. following. She was buried at Breage, Cornwall, on the 16th following. Evelyn
