Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goldsborough, Godfrey
GOLDSBOROUGH, GODFREY, D.D. (1548–1604), bishop of Gloucester, was born in 1548 in the town of Cambridge. He was matriculated as a pensioner of Trinity College, Cambridge, of which, in December 1560, he became a scholar. In 1565–6 he proceeded B.A. Strype's statement that John Whitgift, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, was his tutor, is no doubt erroneous. On 8 Sept. 1567 he was admitted a minor fellow, and on 27 March 1569 a major fellow, of his college (Addit. MS. 5870, f. 85). In the latter year he commenced M.A. He was one of the subscribers against the new statutes of the university in May 1572 (Heywood and Wright, Cambridge University Transactions, i. 62). He proceeded to the degree of B.D. in 1577. On 14 July 1579 he was incorporated in that degree at Oxford, and on the following day he was collated to the archdeaconry of Worcester. On 23 Feb. 1579–80 he was collated to the prebend of Gorwall in the church of Hereford. On 1 Sept. 1581 he was installed a canon of Worcester, and on 13 Dec. following prebendary of Caddington Minor in the church of St. Paul, London. He was created D.D. at Cambridge in 1583. On 30 Dec. 1585 he was installed in the prebend called Episcopi sive Pœnitentiarii, or the golden prebend in the church of Hereford, for which he exchanged the prebend of Gorwall. In or before 1589 he became archdeacon of Salop in the diocese of Lichfield. He also held the rectory of Stockton—probably the benefice of that name in Shropshire.
On 28 Aug. 1598 he was elected bishop of Gloucester, and he was consecrated at Lambeth on 12 Nov. (Stubbs, Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum, p. 88). The queen licensed him to hold his canonry at Worcester in commendam. During his episcopate he rarely resided in his diocese, and it is said that his palace was much dilapidated. He died on 26 May 1604, and was buried in a small chapel within the lady chapel of the cathedral at Gloucester, where there is a handsome altar-tomb, with his recumbent effigy attired in a scarlet rochet, and a Latin inscription. Helen, his widow, who appears to have had two husbands before she married him, died in 1622, aged 79. He left behind him two sons, John and Godfrey, and perhaps other children. He had a brother named John.
[Bedford's Blazon of Episcopacy, p. 48; Chambers's Biog. Illustrations of Worcestershire, p. 82; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, iii. 4; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. ii. 388; Fosbrooke's City of Gloucester, 1819, pp. 94, 127, 133; Fuller's Worthies (Cambridgeshire); Godwin's Cat. of Bishops, 1615, p. 496; Godwin, De Præsulibus (Richardson); Hackett's Select and Remarkable Epitaphs, i. 51; Harington's Nugæ Antiquæ, p. 37; Le Neve's Fasti (Hardy); Newcourt's Repertorium, i. 131; Rudder's Gloucestershire, p. 157; Rymer's Fœdera, xvi. 351; Cal. of State Papers (Dom. 1598–1601), pp. 100, 132; Strype's Whitgift, pp. 77, 496, 525; Willis's Survey of Cathedrals, i. 571, 573, 664, 671, 707, 722; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 843, 850, Fasti, i. 155, 214, 255.]