1678 as part of Coventry fair, was celebrated at intervals until 1826. From 1848 to 1887 it was revived, and recently further attempts have been made to popularize the pageant. The wooden effigy of Peeping Tom which, since 1812, has looked out on the world from a house at the north-west corner of Hertford Street, Coventry, represents a man in armour, and was probably an image of St George. It was removed from another part of the town to its present position.
GODKIN, EDWIN LAWRENCE (1831–1902), American
publicist, was born in Moyne, county Wicklow, Ireland, on the
2nd of October 1831. His father, James Godkin, was a Presbyterian
minister and a journalist, and the son, after graduating
in 1851 at Queen’s College, Belfast, and studying law in London,
was in 1853–1855 war correspondent for the London Daily News
in Turkey and Russia, being present at the capture of Sevastopol,
and late in 1856 went to America and wrote letters to the same
journal, giving his impressions of a tour of the southern states of
the American Union. He studied law in New York City, was
admitted to the bar in 1859, travelled in Europe in 1860–1862,
wrote for the London News and the New York Times in 1862–1865,
and in 1865 founded in New York City the Nation, a
weekly projected by him long before, for which Charles Eliot
Norton gained friends in Boston and James Miller McKim (1810–1874)
in Philadelphia, and which Godkin edited until the end of
the year 1899. In 1881 he sold the Nation to the New York
Evening Post, and became an associate editor of the Post, of
which he was editor-in-chief in 1883–1899, succeeding Carl
Schurz. In the ’eighties he engaged in a controversy with
Goldwin Smith over the Irish question. Under his leadership the
Post broke with the Republican party in the presidential campaign
of 1884, when Godkin’s opposition to Blaine did much to
create the so-called Mugwump party (see Mugwump), and his
organ became thoroughly independent, as was seen when it
attacked the Venezuelan policy of President Cleveland, who had
in so many ways approximated the ideal of the Post and Nation.
He consistently advocated currency reform, the gold basis, a tariff
for revenue only, and civil service reform, rendering the greatest
aid to the last cause. His attacks on Tammany Hall were
so frequent and so virulent that in 1894 he was sued for libel
because of biographical sketches of certain leaders in that
organization—cases which never came up for trial. His opposition
to the war with Spain and to imperialism was able and
forcible. He retired from his editorial duties on the 30th of
December 1899, and sketched his career in the Evening Post
of that date. Although he recovered from a severe apoplectic
stroke early in 1900, his health was shattered, and he died in
Greenway, Devonshire, England, on the 21st of May 1902.
Godkin shaped the lofty and independent policy of the Post
and the Nation, which had a small but influential and intellectual
class of readers. But as editor he had none of the personal
magnetism of Greeley, for instance, and his superiority to the
influence of popular feeling made Charles Dudley Warner style
the Nation the “weekly judgment day.” He was an economist
of the school of Mill, urged the necessity of the abstraction
called “economic man,” and insisted that socialism put in
practice would not improve social and economic conditions
in general. In politics he was an enemy of sentimentalism and
loose theories in government. He published A History of
Hungary, A.D. 300–1850 (1856), Government (1871, in the
American Science Series), Reflections and Comments (1895),
Problems of Modern Democracy (1896) and Unforeseen Tendencies
of Democracy (1898).
See Life and Letters of E. L. Godkin, edited by Rollo Ogden (2 vols., New York, 1907).
GODMANCHESTER, a municipal borough in the southern, parliamentary division of Huntingdonshire, England, on the right bank of the Ouse, 1 m. S.S.E. of Huntingdon, on a branch of the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 2017. It has a beautiful Perpendicular church (St Mary’s) and an agricultural trade, with flour mills. The town is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 4907 acres.
A Romano-British village occupied the site of Godmanchester. The town (Gumencestre, Gomecestre) belonged to the king before the Conquest and at the time of the Domesday survey. In 1213 King John granted the manor to the men of the town at a fee-farm of £120 yearly, and confirmation charters were granted by several succeeding kings, Richard II. in 1391–1392 adding exemption from toll, pannage, &c. James I. granted an incorporation charter in 1605 under the title of bailiffs, assistants and commonalty, but under the Municipal Reform Act of 1835 the corporation was changed to a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Godmanchester was formerly included for parliamentary purposes in the borough of Huntingdon, which has ceased to be separately represented since 1885. The incorporation charter of 1605 recites that the burgesses are chiefly engaged in agriculture, and grants them a fair, which still continues every year on Tuesday in Easter week.
See Victoria County History, Huntingdon; Robert Fox, The History of Godmanchester (1831).
GÖDÖLLÖ, a market town of Hungary, in the county of Pest-Pilis-Solt-Kiskun, 23 m. N.E. of Budapest by rail. Pop. (1900) 5875. Gödöllö is the summer residence of the Hungarian royal family, and the royal castle, built in the second half of the 18th century by Prince Anton Grassalkovich, was, with the beautiful domain, presented by the Hungarian nation to King Francis Joseph I. after the coronation in 1867. In its park there are a great number of stags and wild boars. Gödöllö is a favourite summer resort of the inhabitants of Budapest. In its vicinity is the famous place of pilgrimage Mária-Besnyö, with a fine Franciscan monastery, which contains the tombs of the Grassalkovich family.
GODOLPHIN, SIDNEY GODOLPHIN, Earl of (c. 1645–1712), was a cadet of an ancient family of Cornwall. At the Restoration he was introduced into the royal household by Charles II., with whom he had previously become a favourite, and he also at the same period entered the House of Commons as member for Helston. Although he very seldom addressed the House, and, when he did so, only in the briefest manner, he gradually acquired a reputation as its chief if not its only financial authority. In March 1679 he was appointed a member of the privy council, and in the September following he was promoted, along with Viscount Hyde (afterwards earl of Rochester) and the earl of Sunderland, to the chief management of affairs. Though he voted for the Exclusion Bill in 1680, he was continued in office after the dismissal of Sunderland, and in September 1684 he was created Baron Godolphin of Rialton, and succeeded Rochester as first lord of the treasury. After the accession of James II. he was made chamberlain to the queen, and, along with Rochester and Sunderland, enjoyed the king’s special confidence. In 1687 he was named commissioner of the treasury. He was one of the council of five appointed by King James to represent him in London, when he went to join the army after the landing of William, prince of Orange, in England, and, along with Halifax and Nottingham, he was afterwards appointed a commissioner to treat with the prince. On the accession of William, though he only obtained the third seat at the treasury board, he had virtually the chief control of affairs. He retired in March 1690, but was recalled on the November following and appointed first lord. While holding this office he for several years continued, in conjunction with Marlborough, a treacherous intercourse with James II., and is said even to have anticipated Marlborough in disclosing to James intelligence regarding the intended expedition against Brest. Godolphin was not only a Tory by inheritance, but had a romantic admiration for the wife of James II. He also wished to be safe whatever happened, and his treachery in this case was mostly due to caution. After Fenwick’s confession in 1696 regarding the attempted assassination of William III., Godolphin, who was compromised, was induced to tender his resignation; but when the Tories came into power in 1700, he was again appointed lord treasurer and retained office for about a year. Though not a favourite with Queen Anne, he was, after her accession, appointed to his old office, on the strong recommendation of Marlborough. He also in 1704 received the honour of knighthood, and in December
