mon preached by him before the queen at Greenwich during this year (1566). The winter after her visit to Oxford, Elizabeth promoted Godwin to the deanery of Canterbury. He was sent on a commission to visit the diocese of Norwich, and preached the first of a series of sermons, endowed by Archbishop Parker, in the ‘Greenyard’ at Norwich (June 1567). At Canterbury Godwin had to deal with a turbulent set of canons. Constant complaints were made by them against him to the archbishop, while the dean was at one time obliged to appeal to the justices of the peace, one canon having threatened ‘to nail him to the wall with his sword’ (Strype, Parker, i. 493, 545, 564). He practically rebuilt the deanery after a fire in 1568 (Rymer, Fœdera, xvi. 186). In 1573 Parker accused Godwin of breaking the statutes and consuming the cathedral's goods. The dean strenuously denied the charge, and in October 1573 he received the living of Ruckinge in the Canterbury diocese, probably as a proof of the archbishop's forgiveness (Strype, Parker, i. 564). In 1576 he became one of the ecclesiastical commissioners. In September 1584 he was made bishop of Bath and Wells, a see which had been void for three years; Godwin was the second protestant bishop consecrated (Lansdowne MSS. vol. 982, ff. 125, 126). He had been a widower for several years, but was misguided enough to marry a second time, when ‘aged, diseased, and lame of the gout.’ Raleigh had been scheming to get the manor of Banwell from the bishopric on a hundred years' lease. He now told the queen that Godwin had married a girl of twenty for her money. The Earl of Bedford warmly defended Godwin by stating that the bishop's wife was a widow and had a son over forty. Cole gives her name as Margaret, daughter of William Brennan of Wells, first married to the bishop, then to William Martin of Totnes, but Cassan believes him to have purposely transposed the marriages, and Harrington (State of the Church of England, London, 1653, p. 110) calls her a widow, and says the bishop was entrapped into the marriage. The queen, however, took Raleigh's part, and, after sundry sharp messages from her, Godwin, to save Banwell, had to part with another manor; ‘he neither gave Wilscombe for love nor solely for money, but left it for fear’ (ib.) Disgraced, and broken in health, suffering from a quartan ague, the bishop retired to his native air of Oakingham, where he died, aged 73, on 19 Nov. 1590. He was buried in the chancel of Oakingham Church, with an inscription to his memory by his son Francis [q. v.], sub-dean of Exeter, the historian. In person he was ‘tall and comely;’ though he published nothing, he was an eminent scholar; and he was hospitable, mild, and judicious.
[Cassan's Hist. of the Bishops of Bath and Wells, pt. ii. p. 4; Welch's Alumni Westm. p. 8; Godwin's Cat. p. 385, and De Præs. Angl. p. 389; Ep. Bath and Wells, p. 144; Gutch's Hist. and Antiq. of Oxford, vol. ii. pt. i. pp. 156, 157, iii. 438; Hasted's Kent, iv. 590; Lysons's Berkshire, p. 442; Fuller's Worthies, i. 128–9; Le Neve's Fasti, i. 145.]
GODWIN, THOMAS, D.D. (d. 1642), schoolmaster, was the second son of Anthony Godwin of Wookey in Somersetshire. After a grammar school education he entered Magdalen Hall, 0xford, in 1602, at the early age of fifteen. He proceeded to his degree of B.A. in 1606, and to that of M.A. in 1609. On leaving the university he was appointed chief master of Abingdon school in Berkshire, where he remained for several years. In 1616 he took his degree of B.D., and at this time, as well as some years previously, he is mentioned as chaplain to James Montague [q. v.], bishop of Bath and Wells. He then resigned his scholastic work,with which he was exhausted, and obtained from Dr. Montague the rectory of Brightwell in Berkshire. While at Brightwell he further proceeded to his degree of D.D. in 1606. Godwin died on 20 March 1642, and was buried within the chancel of his church, where a monument was erected to his memory by his wife, Philippa Teesdale.
His published works consist of: 1. 'Romanæ Historiæ Anthologia. An English Exposition of the Roman Antiquities, wherein many Roman and English Offices are parallelled, and diverse obscure Phrases explained,' Oxford, 1614, 4to. This work was published for the use of his school at Abingdon. The second edition appeared in 1623 with considerable additions. The sixteenth and last edition was printed at London in 1696. 2. 'Florilegium Phrasicon, or a Survey of the Latin Tongue.' The date of this work is unknown. 3. 'Synopsis Antiquitatum Hebraicarum ad explicationem utriusque Testamenti valde necessaria,' Oxford, 1616, 4to. Dedicated to James Montague, bishop of Bath and Wells, and dean of his majesty's chapel. 4. 'Moses and Aaron. Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites used by the ancient Hebrews observed, and at large opened for the clearing of many obscure Texts throughout the whole Scripture,' London, 1625, 4to. The twelfth edition of this work was published in 1685. It attracted the attention of several distinguished commentators, among whom may be mentioned Dr. David Jennings and the learned Hottinger. 5. 'Three Arguments to prove Election upon
