Henry Goodere (died 1627)

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Sir

Henry Goodyer
Born1571
Baptised21 August 1571
Died18 March 1627 (aged 55)
Spouse(s)
Frances Goodyer
​
​
(m. 1593; died 1606)​
Issue5 (1 son, 4 daughters)
FatherSir William Goodyer
MotherMary Wren

Sir Henry Goodyer, also spelled Goodere and Goodier (bapt. 21 August 1571 – 18 March 1627), was an English landowner and courtier, remembered today mainly for his close friendship with John Donne.[1]

Family

Henry was the eldest son of Sir William Goodyer, Knt., of

Sir Henry Goodyer (1534 – 1595), was compromised in the Duke of Norfolk's intrigue on behalf of Mary, Queen of Scots, in the summer of 1571, and was sent to the Tower in September 1571. But beyond the fact that he had once supplied the Duke with a cipher, little could be made out clearly against him, and he was released in 1572. In 1585 he was serving under Leicester in the Low Countries, and appears to have completely recovered his reputation. In September 1586, at the time of the Battle of Zutphen, he was captain of Leicester's guard; he was knighted by the general on 5 October 1586, and in the following year was captain in command of one hundred and fifty men forming one of the "foot bands" sent to the relief of Sluys. In July 1588 his name was down among the colonels appointed to lead the army assembled at Tilbury for the defence of the Queen's person. He was the early friend and patron of Michael Drayton the poet, who was one of the witnesses of his will,[a] and he is said to have helped Drayton at the university. He died at Polesworth on 5 March 1595, leaving by his wife Frances, daughter of Hugh Lowther of Lowther, Westmoreland, two daughters: Frances, the heiress of Polesworth, who married her first cousin, Sir Henry (the subject of this article); and Anne, a coheiress, who married Sir Henry Raynsford, and is reputed to have been the Idea of Drayton.[2]

Henry Goodere (the subject of this article) married Frances Goodere, the daughter of

Hampton Court in March 1619.[5]

Life

Henry Goodyer succeeded to the Polesworth estate in 1595, but it is uncertain if he be the Henry Goodyer who was elected to the first parliament of James as member for West Looe in Cornwall. A Henry Goodyer (whom

Hampton Court on 1 January 1604.[8]

Drayton addressed an ode to Goodyer as "the worthy knight and my noble friend Sir Henry Goodere, a gentleman of his Majesty's Privy Chamber", in which he speaks of having been "gravely merry" by the fire at Polesworth. The owner of Polesworth was indeed famous for his hospitality to literary men.

gentleman of the privy chamber in May 1605, but his decayed estate remained a source of continual perplexity to him.[11]

At the accession of Charles I he insisted more strongly than ever upon his difficulties, under the added stimulus of "misery grown by his expensive service to the late king"; and he prayed earnestly to be admitted a gentleman usher "of the queen's privy chamber, with meat, drink, and lodging, with some dignity, in that place where he had spent most of his time and estate". Death overtook him on 18 March 1627, while still besieging the court with his importunities. His only son, John, of the Middle Temple, who had been "at the barrier" and was presented to the King upon the creation of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales in 1616, predeceased him in December 1624, but he left four daughters, of whom the eldest, Lucy, married Sir Francis Nethersole. The Nethersoles inherited Polesworth, which from them passed to the Biddulphs, the descendants of Sir Henry's youngest daughter, Anne. The following epitaph upon Sir Henry, by an anonymous "affectionate friend", is printed in Camden's Remains:

An ill year of a Goodyere us bereft,
Who gone to God much lack of him here left;
Full of good gifts, of body and of mind,
Wise, comely, learned, eloquent and kind.

Goodyer may be the "H. G." who has verses in Drayton's Matilda (1594), and to whom Drayton's Odes were dedicated in 1606. He wrote verses now and again in emulation of his intimate friend (as Walton calls him), Dr. Donne. He was doubtless the "Sir H. G." who wrote a verse letter with Donne alternis vicibus, and he may have been the author of the poem, "Shall I like a Hermit dwell",[d] which has often been ascribed to Ralegh. An undoubted poem of his is in Add MS 25707 (ff. 36–9), and there are some others in The National Archives, including an epithalamium on Buckingham's marriage, verses on Prince Charles, his journey to Spain, and other courtly topics.[12]

Sources

  • Cass's Parish of Monken Hadley, 1880 (with the Goodyer pedigree);
  • Nichols's Progresses of James I, vols. i. ii. and iii.;
  • Metcalfe's Book of Knights;
  • Visitation of Warwickshire, 1619, Harleian Society Publications xii. 67;
  • Gentleman's Magazine 1825, ii. 136;
  • Elton's Introduction to Michael Drayton, Manchester, 1895;
  • Poems of J. Donne, ed. Chambers, ii. 216;
  • Digby's Poems (Roxburghe Club), ed. G. F. Warner;
  • Markham's Fighting Veres, p. 97;
  • Calendar of State Papers, Domestic: 1603–10, pp. 213, 221, 334, 592, 1610–18, p. 72, 1619–23, pp. 193, 378, 472, 513, 585, 1623–5, pp. 105, 147, 217, 427, 514, 556, 1625–6, p. 403;
  • Harley MS 757, f. 145;
  • Add MSS 5482, ff. 17 & 18; 25767, f. 37;
  • Calendar of Hatfield MSS. (Hist. MSS. Comm.), vol. vii.;
  • Grosart's Life of Donne, ii. 25;
  • Gosse's Life and Letters of John Donne, 1899, passim.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ for an abstract of this see Elton's Introduction to Michael Drayton, 1895
  2. ^ see Nichols, Progresses, passim.
  3. ^ Epigrams, No. 85.
  4. ^ Hannah, Court Poets, p. 82

References

  1. ^ Hunneyball, n.p.
  2. ^ Seccombe, pp. 330–331.
  3. ^ Paul Hunneyball, 'GOODYER, Sir Henry (?1571-1627), of Polesworth', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
  4. ^ Thomas Birch & Folkestone Williams, Court and Times of James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1848), p. 202.
  5. ^ Edmund Gosse, The Life and Letters of John Donne (London, 1899), p. 122.
  6. ^ Edmund Gosse, Life and Letters of John Donne, vol. 1 (London, 1899), p. 154
  7. ^ Seccombe, p. 331.
  8. ^ Maurice Lee, Dudley Carleton to John Chamberlain, 1603-1624; Jacobean Letters (Rutgers University Press, 1972), pp. 53-9.
  9. ^ Edmund Gosse, Life and Letters of John Donne, vol. 1 (London, 1899), p. 153
  10. ^ M. S. Giuseppi, HMC Calendar of Hatfield Manuscripts, vol. 7 (London, 1938), p. 120
  11. ^ Seccombe, p. 331.
  12. ^ Seccombe, p. 331.

Bibliography

  • Considine, John (2008). "Goodere, Sir Henry (bap. 1571, d. 1627), landowner and courtier". In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press.
  • Hunneyball, Paul (2010). "Goodyer, Sir Henry (?1571-1627), of Polesworth, Warws.". In Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris (eds.). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629. Cambridge University Press.
  • Seccombe, Thomas (1901). "Goodyer, Henry (1571-1627)" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). Vol. 2. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 330–332. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
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