The letter included an assurance that the signatories ‘do abominate all actions or opinions tending to popery and the maintenance thereof,’ a sentiment which ‘jesuitical equivocation’ can alone have enabled Goodman to adopt. As soon as the protest was published, Goodman and the other signatories were committed to the Tower on a charge of high treason. When brought to the bar of the House of Lords in February, his companions declined to plead, but Goodman pleaded not guilty. After eighteen weeks' imprisonment he was released on bail and ordered to return to his diocese (House of Lords' Journals, v. 64–5). On 30 Aug. 1642 he wrote an angry letter to Laud, complaining bitterly of the wrongs he had suffered at his hands, and of Laud's refusal to speak with him while both were prisoners in the Tower (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–3, p. 381). In 1643 Goodman's palace at Gloucester was sacked by the parliamentary soldiers; nearly all his books and papers were dispersed, and in deep distress he retired to Carnarvon, where he possessed a small estate. On 18 July 1643 he entered into a bond of 10,000l. to appear before a committee of the House of Commons when required. In 1646 the committee of sequestration directed the tithes due to him from West Ilsley to be paid to them. On 31 Aug. 1649 he presented a humble petition to parliament for relief, and declared he had never interfered in ‘matters of war.’ Appended to the petition was an address in the same sense from the mayor and other authorities of Carnarvon, besides an appeal to Lenthall from the gentry, citizens, and burgesses of Gloucester diocese (printed together in folio sheet, London, 1649; Brit. Mus. Cat. 190, g. 12, No. 15). Further particulars concerning his pecuniary relations with the city of Gloucester are given in a letter to the mayor of that city, 23 Nov. 1649 (Fairfax Corresp. iv. 111). ‘His losses,’ says Wood, ‘were so extraordinary and excessive great that he was ashamed to confess them, lest they might seem incredible, and lest others might condemn him of folly and improvidency.’
About 1650 Goodman seems to have settled in London, first in Chelsea and afterwards in the parish of St. Margaret's, Westminster. The attentions of his Westminster landlady, Mrs. Sibilla Aglionby, and the friendship of Christopher Davenport [q. v.], formerly chaplain to Queen Henrietta Maria, appear to have consoled his declining days. He spent much time in Sir Thomas Cotton's library. In 1653 he dedicated to Cromwell ‘A large Discourse concerning the Trinity and Incarnation,’ in which he recapitulated his grievances. He had had five houses in England, ‘all of which were plundered and his writings in them miscarried.’ Finally he demanded a hearing of his case. In a second dedication to the master, fellows, and scholars of Trinity College, Cambridge, he declared that he was destitute. Another petition to Cromwell was presented in 1655. Goodman died 19 Jan. 1655–6, and was buried 4 Feb. in St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. His tomb was simply inscribed ‘Godfrey Goodman.’
His will, dated 17 Jan. 1655–6, and proved 16 Feb., opens with the profession that he died as he had lived ‘most constant in all the doctrine of God's holy and apostolic church, whereof I do acknowledge the church of Rome to be the mother church. And I do verily believe that no other church hath any salvation in it but only so far as it concurs with the faith of the church of Rome.’ This and other portions of his will were published in ‘Mercurius Politicus’ for March 1655–6, Nos. 299, 300. He left his Welsh property to the town of Ruthin, his birthplace, of which he had been presented with the freedom, and to which he had in his lifetime given a silver cup. There were small legacies to poor sequestered clergymen, to his landlady, Mrs. Aglionby, and to his kinsman and executor, Gabriel Goodman. His manuscripts were to be published if any scholar deemed them of sufficient value. His advowson of Kemerton he bequeathed to the hospital of Ruthin, unless a kinsman was qualified to take the living within three months. His books, originally designed for Chelsea College, went to Trinity College, Cambridge. Wood writes of Goodman as a harmless man, hurtful to none but himself, and as hospitable and charitable. But his career shows great want of moral courage. Kennett says that a daughter of Goodman ‘was reduced to begging at his doors’ (Compl. Hist. iii. 215). Goodman was unmarried, and this story is not corroborated.
Goodman's works, written in readable English, and showing much original thought, were: 1. ‘The Fall of Man, or the Corruption of Nature proved by the Light of his Naturall Reason,’ London, 1616, dedicated to Queen Anne. The celebrated reply by George Hakewill [q. v.], ‘An Apologie … of the Power and Providence of God,’ appeared in 1627 in four books, and in the third edition an additional book—the fifth—consisted of animadversions by Goodman on Hakewill's argument with Hakewill's replies. The disputants wrote of each other in terms of deep respect. R. P. republished ‘The Fall of Man,’ London, 1629, under the title ‘The Fall of Adam from Paradise proved by Natural Reason and the grounds of Philosophy,’ and prefixed a letter by Goodman in
