GODWIN, John

The glazier John Godwin was admitted to the freedom of Wells in 1406, when he was probably about 20 years old, the customary fine being waived on account of his marriage to the daughter of a freeman.4 Wells City Chs. (Som. Rec. Soc. xlvi), 134. The extent of his property in the city and the chronology of its acquisition are uncertain, but by the end of his life it included a house in the High Street, as well as a close in Begger Street.5 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, pp. 70, 74. It was probably for his principal residence in the High Street that in 1458 he acquired an oratory licence from Bishop Bekynton.6 Reg. Bekynton, i. 1175. Within a few years of becoming a freeman he began to be designated periodically as an arbiter in his neighbours’ disputes, to attest local property deeds, to assess and collect taxes in the city, and to stand surety for new entrants to the freedom, as was common for the more important citizens of Wells.7 Wells convocation act bks. 1378-1450, pp. 222, 223, 226, 227, 231, 233, 237, 267, 280, 289, 312, 319; 1450-1553, pp. 11, 13; HMC Wells, ii. 674, 679, 681; CCR, 1435-41, p. 117. The ‘Godwinus Glasier’ appointed to assess a parlty. tax in ‘Wetelane’ in 1411 was clearly the MP who performed the same task there in 1419 and 1432: Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 185, 222, 280. In subsequent years he was occasionally referred to as John Glasier: Wells City Chs. 135, 140. Among the men for whom he provided such sureties in the course of a long career were several who would rise to distinction among the citizens, such as William Vowell*, John Attwater* and John Grype†, as well as two outsiders admitted for their services to the community, John Austell* and William Gascoigne II*.8 Ibid. 137, 141-3, 146-9; Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 269, 279, 307, 312, 320.

Godwin was first elected to a formal civic office in the autumn of 1420, when he began two successive terms as a constable of the peace, before being elected to the mastership of Wells at Michaelmas 1423. He would go on to hold the office on no fewer than six subsequent occasions. Of these terms of office, that of 1433-4 may have been the most dramatic, for it saw the master’s authority openly challenged: on 15 July 1434 one William Crofter was expelled from the freedom of the city for attacking Godwin with a knife and a staff, and only readmitted two years later. Crofter’s grievance against the master was probably not personal; earlier, in the autumn of 1433, the blacksmith Richard Burdeux had also been expelled, for using improper language towards the master, John Whetele*, and other leading citizens.9 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, pp. 282, 285, 290.

Godwin himself appears not to have been a litigious man. In November 1425 he appeared before the master of Wells to complain that William Dulverton was suing him before the bishop’s steward contrary to the privileges of the citizens, and in the spring of 1435 the tailor John Devenysh alias Hardyng was suing him and Richard Hall* as sureties of one of the cathedral clergy, but he is not otherwise known to have gone to law against his neighbours.10 Ibid. 250, 287.

It was not long after Godwin had first been chosen master that he effectively returned himself to his first Parliament: although the shrieval precept for the election of the city’s MPs was formally directed to the bishop’s bailiff, the election took place in the city’s convocation over which the master presided. It is impossible to tell whether Godwin harboured a personal ambition to sit in the Commons, or whether he was simply reduced to accepting election in the absence of another suitable candidate. Certainly, his departure for Westminster caused some administrative problems: in his absence, the audit of the civic accounts had to be postponed.11 Ibid. 242. Although it is impossible to be certain about Godwin’s attitude to parliamentary service, there is some indication that he accepted election reluctantly and only when he was unable to avoid it. Thus on the occasion of the Wells parliamentary elections of both 1426 and 1429 his election was recorded in the city’s convocation act book, but both times his name was struck out and replaced respectively by those of Richard Hall and John Whetele, who in the event were returned by the sheriff.12 Ibid. 251, 266. It is probable that while Godwin had originally been his neighbours’ choice, he was able to refuse to take his seat. By contrast, in 1427 he, then again serving as master, had no choice but to return himself to the Commons a second time. The end of the 1427 Parliament ushered in a break of more than two decades in Godwin’s parliamentary career. Only in the crisis of 1450, and having recently completed a two-year spell as master of Wells, did he go back to the Commons for a final time, on this occasion accompanying his newly-elected successor as master, William Vowell.

By this date Godwin had long left his artisan origins behind. He now styled himself a gentleman and mixed not only with the wealthier of the citizens of Wells and the senior members of the cathedral chapter, but also with the regional gentry. He periodically witnessed the property transactions of the dean and chapter, and in 1438 he attested the arrangements governing the chantry of Nicholas Calton, the archdeacon of Taunton, and that same year was charged with the execution of the wills of John Stourton I* and his brother Richard, a canon of Wells.13 Reg. Bekynton, i. 1013, 1265; HMC Wells, ii. 624-5, 671; CPR, 1446-52, p. 517; Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 145, 146. In 1446 he bore witness before the bishop to the suitability of the newly-elected dean of Wells, Nicholas Carent, and was among the witnesses to William Gascoigne II’s establishment of a chantry in memory of his uncle, William Gascoigne I*, although he is not known to have taken any further part in the foundation.14 Reg. Bekynton, ii. 1637; CCR, 1441-7, p. 404. In 1453 Godwin oversaw the settlement of the entirety of ‘Moneryslane’ with its buildings and tenements on the new close of the vicars choral.15 HMC Wells, ii. 680, 681; Reg. Stafford, ii (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxii), 692.

The date of Godwin’s death is uncertain. He is last recorded among the auditors of the civic accounts of Wells in 1460-1, and was certainly dead by September 1467, when the citizens set about filling the vacancies in the ranks of the council of 24.16 Wells convocation act bk. 1450-1553, pp. 33, 64. He probably died childless, for he bequeathed his property in Wells to the community, but it has been suggested that several namesakes active in the city in the early sixteenth century (two of whom represented Wells in the Commons), may have been his kinsmen, or even his descendants.17 Ibid. 70, 74; C1/511/61, 1103/70, 1144/8; The Commons 1509-58, ii. 222. If this was so, their descent may have been illegitimate, for John Godwyn alias Lynge was admitted to the freedom by patrimony in 1499 at the same time as Henry Lynge alias Bocher: Wells City Chs. 163.