GODELOK, Geoffrey

Godelok’s origins are obscure, although he may have been related to Thomas Goodlake† (fl.1412), the esquire to Richard II who was keeper of the King’s park at Isleworth and represented Middlesex in the Parliament of 1397 (Jan.).4 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 208-9. Even so, he was on one occasion described as a ‘yeoman of Lincolnshire’,5 CFR, xvi. 344. and little is known of his career before he first entered the Commons, as a representative of the Wiltshire borough of Ludgershall. As with his two returns in the 1430s for the city of Wells he probably owed his election to the patronage of John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells, then chancellor of England. In Wells the bishop’s bailiff played an instrumental part in the parliamentary elections, despite the increasing self-confidence of the fifteenth-century civic community.6 D.G. Shaw, Wells in the Middle Ages, 135-6. Thereafter Godelok, a member of the bishop’s entourage, is found in association with other of Stafford’s retainers. In July 1437 (after the close of his third Parliament), he was one of the mainpernors at the Exchequer for John Basket* and William Hall*, who were granted the keeping of the lordship and manor of Odiham in Hampshire,7 CFR, xvi. 344. and in later years, after Stafford had been translated to the see of Canterbury, he was associated with Basket and Hall as a feoffee with their master of other holdings in Hampshire, continuing as such until shortly after Stafford’s death in May 1452.8 Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Enham deeds, B203, 219, 224. See also CP25(1)/152/92/102. It was probably Stafford as chancellor who was responsible for the appointment of Godelok in March 1442 to the office of spigurnel of the royal Chancery, which he held jointly with John Morker until the latter’s death at some point before July 1446, after which event Godelok held the post alone. As spigurnel he received the King’s livery at the great wardrobe. He may have spent some time in the Chancery prior to his appointment as spigurnel, for in April 1442 he was rewarded with an exemption from service on assizes, juries and inquisitions, and from being appointed to any other offices against his will.9 E101/409/12, f. 88; E361/6, ff. 44d, 45d; CPR, 1441-6, p. 82.

By the time of his election for New Romney to the Parliament of 1445 Godelok had also received from Archbishop Stafford appointment as bailiff of that Cinque Port, and he was still holding the office (which he sometimes delegated to deputies) when elected to two more Parliaments, in 1449 and 1450, as a baron.10 Reg. Daniel Rough, pp. l-lv. For his wages at the parliamentary session at Winchester in the summer of 1449 and for ‘old debts’ he was paid £6 12s. 4d.: Romney chamberlains’ assessmt. bk. 1448-1526, NR/FAc 3, f. 10. The patronage of Stafford makes sense of Godelok’s somewhat itinerant parliamentary career, even perhaps of his return for the Surrey borough of Reigate, if it may be conjectured that his position in the Chancery enabled him to secure a seat. He was associated with several other royal servants during his career: in November 1446 he joined John Basket and fellow chancery officials William Rous* and Richard Freston as the recipients of the goods and chattels of John Hipperon* in North Lambeth, and in the spring of 1449 he acted as a feoffee of William Walesby regarding property in the same place along with another chancery clerk, William Godyng*.11 CCR, 1447-54, p. 25; CP25/1/232/73/28.

Godelok’s standing beyond the sphere of Westminster had been elevated at some point before Bishop Stafford’s translation to the see of Canterbury in May 1443 by his marriage to Elizabeth, the daughter and sole heir of the former shire-knight for Middlesex, Richard Maidstone. Whether the match was made before Maidstone’s death in 1442 or early 1443 is unclear, but Godelok stood to gain by it lands in Isleworth, Hounslow and Enfield in Middlesex and Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, which in 1436 had been said to yield an income of more than £36 p.a. However, the transfer of the property was not finally achieved until February 1444, by which time the Godeloks had successfully petitioned his superior, the chancellor, in order to challenge the claim of Maidstone’s widow, Joan Dauntsey, that her late husband had made a deed by which his lands would be placed in the hands of trustees to hold to the use of Joan and her heirs.12 H.L. Gray, ‘Incomes from Land in 1436’, EHR, xlix. 638; CCR, 1441-7, p. 206; C1/10/93. This dispute being resolved, later that year the couple conveyed a small parcel of land in Isleworth to Master John Somerset*, the chancellor of the Exchequer, and his feoffees.13 CP25(1)/152/92/114. When, while attending the Parliament at Bury St. Edmunds on 8 Feb. 1447, Godelok obtained a royal pardon, his place of residence was given as Isleworth, further proof that (as had probably been the case on his earlier elections to the Commons), he was in breach of the statutes requiring MPs to be resident in their constituencies.14 C67/39, m. 5. Godelok’s position at the royal Chancery led him to become active in London, and in July 1448 he was nominated by Thomas Gay, a wealthy tailor, as a feoffee of property in the parish of St. Bride’s Fleet Street.15 Corp. London RO, hr 177/10-11, 14.

Godelok did not long survive his lord Archbishop Stafford. He drew up a brief will on 12 Oct. 1452, in which he asked to be buried in the church of All Saints at Isleworth, made small bequests to two other churches (Holy Trinity, Hounslow and St. Leonard’s in nearby Heston), and left the residue of his goods to his widow and executrix. The will was proved on 8 Nov. Elizabeth subsequently married a man named Pottenham who, judging from one of her legacies, came from the Lincolnshire town of the same name. She died after making a will on Christmas Day 1485, in which she asked to be buried next to our MP. At least two of her four surviving children, a son and a daughter, were clearly the offspring of her second marriage, but it is possible that two other married daughters were fathered by Godelok. Likewise, the London pewterer, Thomas Godelok, who had been active in the city in the 1460s, may well have been a close relation of his.16 Lambeth Palace Lib. Reg. Kempe, f. 261; PCC 26 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 199v); CCR, 1461-8, p. 243; Corp. London RO, hr 212/14. The subsequent history of Elizabeth’s inheritance is not known, but her Middlesex estates seem to have passed to her son, William Pottenham.