Godolphin, Sidney Godolphin

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 1706 he was created Viscount Rialton and earl of Godolphin. Though a Tory he had an active share in the intrigues which gradually led to the predominance of the Whigs in alliance with Marlborough. The influence of the Marlboroughs with the queen was, however, gradually supplanted by that of Mrs Masham and Harley, earl of Oxford, and with the fortunes of the Marlboroughs those of Godolphin were indissolubly united. The services of both were so appreciated by the nation that they were able for a time to regard the loss of the queen’s favour with indifference, and even in 1708 to procure the expulsion of Harley from office; but after the Tory reaction which followed the impeachment of Dr Sacheverel, who abused Godolphin under the name of Volpone, the queen made use of the opportunity to take the initiatory step towards delivering herself from the irksome thraldom of Marlborough by abruptly dismissing Godolphin from office on the 7th of August 1710. He died on the 15th of September 1712.

Godolphin owed his rise to power and his continuance in it under four sovereigns chiefly to his exceptional mastery of financial matters; for if latterly he was in some degree indebted for his promotion to the support of Marlborough, he received that support mainly because Marlborough recognized that for the prosecution of England’s foreign wars his financial abilities were an indispensable necessity. He was cool, reserved and cautious, but his prudence was less associated with high sagacity than traceable to the weakness of his personal antipathies and prejudices, and his freedom from political predilections. Perhaps it was his unlikeness to Marlborough in that moral characteristic which so tainted Marlborough’s greatness that rendered possible between them a friendship so intimate and undisturbed: he was, it would appear, exceptionally devoid of the passion of avarice; and so little advantage did he take of his opportunities of aggrandizement that, though his style of living was unostentatious,—and in connexion with his favourite pastimes of horse-racing, card-playing and cock-fighting he gained perhaps more than he lost,—all that he left behind him did not, according to the duchess of Marlborough, amount to more than £12,000.

Godolphin married Margaret Blagge, the pious lady whose life was written by Evelyn, on the 16th of May 1675, and married again after her death in 1678. His son and successor, Francis (1678-1766), held various offices at court, and was lord privy seal from 1735 to 1740. He married Henrietta Churchill (d. 1733), daughter of the duke of Marlborough, who in 1722 became in her own right duchess of Marlborough. He died without male issue in January 1766, when the earldom became extinct, and the estates passed to Thomas Osborne, 4th duke of Leeds, the husband of the earl’s daughter Mary, whose descendant is the present representative of the Godolphins.

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GODOY, ALVAREZ DE FARIA, RIOS SANCHEZ Y ZARZOSA, MANUEL DE (1767-1851), duke of El Alcudia and prince of the Peace, Spanish royal favourite and minister, was born at Badajoz on the 12th of May 1767. His father, Don José de Godoy, was the head of a very ancient but impoverished family of nobles in Estremadura. His mother, whose maiden name was Maria Antonia Alvarez de Faria, belonged to a Portuguese noble family. Manuel boasts in his memoirs that he had the best masters, but it is certain that he received only the very slight education usually given at that time to the sons of provincial nobles. In 1784 he entered the Guardia de Corps, a body of gentlemen who acted as the immediate body-guard of the king. His well-built and stalwart person, his handsome foolish face, together with a certain geniality of character which he must have possessed, earned him the favour of Maria Luisa of Parma, the princess of Asturias, a coarse, passionate woman who was much neglected by her husband, who on his part cared for nothing but hunting.

When King Charles III. died in 1788, Godoy’s fortune was soon made. The princess of Asturias, now queen, understood how to manage her husband Charles IV. Godoy says in his memoirs that the king, who had been carefully kept apart from affairs during his father’s life, and who disliked his father’s favourite minister Floridablanca, wished to have a creature of his own. This statement is no doubt true as far as it goes. But it requires to be completed by the further detail that the queen put her lover in her husband’s way, and that the king was guided by them, when he thought he was ruling for himself through a subservient minister. In some respects King Charles was obstinate, and Godoy is probably right in saying that he never was an absolute “viceroy,” and that he could not always secure the removal of colleagues whom he knew to be his enemies. He could only rule by obeying. Godoy adopted without scruple this method of pushing his fortunes. When the king was set on a particular course, he followed it; the execution was left to him and the queen. His pliability endeared him to his master, whose lasting affection he earned. In practice he commonly succeeded in inspiring the wishes which he then proceeded to gratify. From the very beginning of the new reign he was promoted in the army with scandalous rapidity, made duke of El Alcudia, and in 1792 minister under the premiership of Aranda, whom he succeeded in displacing by the close of the year.

His official life is fairly divided by himself into three periods. From 1792 to 1798 he was premier. In the latter year his unpopularity and the intrigues of the French government, which had taken a dislike to him, led to his temporary retirement, without, however, any diminution of the king’s personal favour. He asserts that he had no wish to return to office, but letters sent by him to the queen show that he begged for employment. They are written in a very unpleasant mixture of gush and vulgar familiarity. In 1801 he returned to office, and until 1807 he was the executant of the disastrous policy of the court. The third period of his public life is the last year, 1807-1808, when he was desperately striving for his place between the aggressive intervention of Napoleon on the one hand, and the growing hatred of the nation, organized behind, and about, the prince of Asturias, Ferdinand. On the 17th of March 1808 a popular outbreak at Aranjuez drove him into hiding. When driven out by hunger and thirst he was recognized and arrested. By Ferdinand’s order he was kept in prison, till Napoleon demanded that he should be sent to Bayonne. Here he rejoined his master and mistress. He remained with them till Charles IV. died at Rome in 1819, having survived his queen. The rest of Godoy’s life was spent in poverty and obscurity. After the death of Ferdinand VII., in 1833, he returned to Madrid, and endeavoured to secure the restoration of his property confiscated in 1808. Part of it was the estate of the Soto de Roma, granted by the cortes to the duke of Wellington. He failed, and during his last years lived on a small pension granted him by Louis Philippe. He died in Paris on the 4th of October 1851.

As a favourite Godoy is remarkable for the length of his hold on the affection of his sovereigns, and for its completeness. Latterly he was supported rather by the husband than by the wife. He got rid of Aranda by adopting, in order to please the king, a policy which tended to bring on war with France. When the war proved disastrous, he made the peace of Basel, and was created prince of the Peace for his services. Then he helped to make war with England, and the disasters which followed only made him dearer to the king. Indeed it became a main object with Charles IV. to protect “Manuelito” from popular hatred, and if possible secure him a principality. The queen endured his infidelities to her, which were flagrant. The king arranged a marriage for him with Doña Teresa de Bourbon, daughter of the infante Don Luis by a morganatic marriage, though he was probably already married to Doña Josefa Tudó, and certainly continued to live with her. Godoy, in his memoirs, lays claim to have done much for Spanish agriculture and industry, but he did little more than issue proclamations and appoint officers. His intentions may have been good, but the policy of his government was financially ruinous. In his private life he was not only profligate and profuse, but childishly ostentatious. The best that can be said for him is that he was good-natured, and did his best to restrain the Inquisition and the purely reactionary parties.

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