GODFREY, Lambarde (1609-71), of Lydd and Maidstone, Kent.

The eldest son of Thomas Godfrey*, this MP was also the grandson of a leading Kent jurist, William Lambarde†. Having been called to the bar of Gray’s Inn in 1636, the following year Godfrey married into a prominent Kentish family, the Scotts of Scottshall; his bride was a niece of Sir Edward Scott† (d.1645/6), who sat in two 1620s Parliaments and continued to be a notable figure in the county.27HP Commons 1604-1629. However, Lambarde Godfrey had no visible local profile until after the outbreak of civil war, when his father’s retirement from public life and his own enthusiasm for the parliamentarian cause brought him to the fore.

Having been appointed a commissioner for levying money in Kent in June 1643, Godfrey had distinguished himself sufficiently by November to be named both to the county committee and as a deputy lieutenant; this service seems to have prompted, rather than stemmed from, inclusion on the commission of the peace, where he was to be found by September 1644.28A. and O.; CJ iii. 298b; SP28/210a, ff. 8-12; SP28/210b, passim; Stowe 184, ff. 96, 102; Cal. Assize Recs. Kent Indictments Charles I, 351; C193/13/3, f. 33v. His zeal and legal training led to his appointment in January 1644 as solicitor or receiver for sequestrations in the county, a role which he undertook enthusiastically, and which secured him a degree of notoriety, at least among local royalists.29CJ iii. 377b; SP28/235. Moreover, his correspondence with the county committee, local corporations, and compounding committee, as well as with prominent members of the gentry like Sir Edward Dering*, indicates the eagerness with which he pursued delinquents’ estates, including those of sequestered clerics.30E. Kent RO, Sa/C4; Sa/AC8, f. 41; H1257, unfol.; Stowe 184, ff. 96, 102; CSP Dom. 1625-49, p. 669; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Journal’, ed. Larking, iv. 143-4; CCC 101; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 89; SP28/234, unfol. Godfrey appears to have shown no special favours even to members of his extended family, and this may help to explain the hostility which his work generated, and why Sir Roger Twysden* styled him ‘sequestrator general’.31Add. 42586, ff. 21-2; ‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Journal’, iii. 175. Another contemporary claimed that he was ‘a man that has played the knave much and got a great estate from nothing’; he was one of those who ‘rules the committee’ and a ‘great obstructer and delayer’ of business.32Add. 5494, ff. 285, 287.

Godfrey continued to act as solicitor for sequestrations until 1649, after which complaints began to surface about his behaviour, not least regarding his failure to surrender the office files to his successor.33CCC 101, 226, 239, 448. However, in the second half of the 1640s he also played an increasingly prominent role on the county committee, in terms of enforcing the Solemn League and Covenant, raising arms, suppressing the Clubmen, and raising the assessment.34Add. 33512, f. 89; E. Kent RO, Sa/AC8, f. 42v; H1257, unfol.; Bodl. Tanner 58, ff. 181, 211, 645, 653, 672-4, 731; 60, f. 99; Nalson V, f. 51; SP28/210b, unfol.; CCC 34; Add. 5494, f. 281; Eg. 2978, f. 239; Cent. Kent. Stud. U455/04, unfol.; HMC Pepys, 204; HMC Portland, i. 312. He clearly sided with those ‘new men’ within the county administration who sought to outmanoeuvre and oust those county grandees like Sir John Sedley who were perceived to be overly conservative.35Cent. Kent. Stud. Q/SO/WI, f. 169; SP23/158, p. 293. He was also prominent in attempts to counter the influence of royalist insurgents in the spring and summer of 1648.36The Humble Petition of the County of Kent (1648), 4-5; HMC Portland, i. 459, 472, 491; Bodl. Nalson VII, ff. 50, 101, 201; Eg. 2978, f. 239; SP23/158, p. 223; SP23/118, p. 395; Add. 5494, f. 281. Yet Godfrey played a less conspicuous part in local administration during the republic, and although he remained a member of the Kent committee and the commission of the peace, he may have been a less than enthusiastic supporter of the new regime.37‘Sir Roger Twysden’s Journal’, iv. 193; Marr. Reg. of the Parish Church of All Saints Maidstone (1901), 58; SP23/228, f. 85. Instead, he concentrated on civic affairs, having acquired in July 1650 a position which combined the roles of recorder, steward, and town clerk of Maidstone, and it was these duties, as well as the management of the local grammar school, which seem to have occupied him until the establishment of the protectorate.38Recs. Maidstone, 122; F. Streatfield, An Account of the Grammar School of Maidstone (1915), 42-7.

In 1654 Godfrey’s standing was still sufficient to secure him election to the first protectorate Parliament, as one of the knights of the shire for Kent. Although named to only a handful of committees, including the committee for privileges, a clear pattern emerges.39CJ vii. 366b. He was involved in plans for remodelling the Instrument of Government, led by the Presbyterian interest, and his financial expertise ensured that he was appointed to committees regarding the public accounts and public revenue.40CJ vii. 387b, 382b, 398a, 415b. His particular concern, however, appears to have been the church settlement, not merely in terms of the management of parish churches and the financial provision for ministers, for which he was given particular responsibility, but also in relation to the enumeration of heresies and the treatment of Quakers.41CJ vii. 397b, 399b, 410a. Such was his interest in the shape of the Cromwellian religious settlement that, alongside ministers like Thomas Manton and John Owen*, Godfrey was appointed to the committee to consider discussions with Scottish Presbyterians (resolutioners).42CSP Dom. 1654, pp. 386-7. Although Godfrey returned to Maidstone after the dissolution of Parliament in January 1655, he remained involved in council business relating to his county.43CSP Dom. 1655, p. 291.

Godfrey’s attitude towards the protectoral regime, and his reservations regarding Cromwellian power and policies, became more evident in the 1656 Parliament, to which he was once again elected for the county. Perceiving him to be a less than enthusiastic supporter of the government, the council named him among those to be excluded from sitting, although the rapid reversal of this decision reflected an appreciation that he was not one of Oliver Cromwell’s* most trenchant critics, rather siding with other Presbyterians who sought to reform the protectoral regime not overturn it. Godfrey was admitted to the House some time between 19 and 22 September, when he was added to a committee to prepare a declaration on the forthcoming fast day.44CJ vii. 425a, 426a. But it seems he was not in regular attendance at Westminster until mid-December, prompting a hostile outburst from at least one member, the protectoral councillor, Sir Gilbert Pykeringe*, who considered that he had forfeited the right to speak in debates through his prolonged absence.45Burton’s Diary, i. 135, 194; CJ vii. 469a. Godfrey himself defended the excluded Members, and on 31 December moved the House to investigate ‘how, and why they are detained’.46Burton’s Diary, i. 290.

In the weeks that followed Godfrey was named to committees on a range of issues, and became a frequent contributor to debates, not least as a stickler for due parliamentary process. Nevertheless, his principal reason for returning to Westminster in December 1656 was probably his keen interest in two causes célèbres.47CJ vii. 470b, 472b; Burton’s Diary, i. 301, 304-5; ii. 81-2, 87, 90, 148, 150, 167, 182, 186, 191, 193-5, 196, 291. The first of these concerned the tempestuous marital relations of his cousin, Thomas Scott of Scottshall, and the latter’s ‘wicked’ wife, a loose-living royalist, which not only raised issues of patriarchal order, but also threatened a high-profile divorce case. It was as an MP with personal knowledge of both parties and an apparently clear opinion on the case – Thomas Burton* noted that Godfrey had ‘once intended to have hanged her in the country’ – that he was nominated as chairman of the investigating committee.48CJ vii. 473a; Burton’s Diary, i. 265, 298.

A more far-reaching matter concerned the notorious Quaker James Naylor, on whom Godfrey’s stance manifested his opposition to the tolerationist aspects of the Cromwellian church settlement.49CJ vii. 470a; Burton’s Diary, i. 135. In 1655, as recorder of Maidstone, Godfrey had adopted a hardline attitude towards local Quakers, who complained of his ‘subtle and needless queries’ and his ‘malicious intentions’, calling him one of the ‘persecutors of the just’.50A True Declaration of the Bloody Proceedings of the Men in Maidstone (1655), 1, 2, 6 (E.843.2). One prominent local Quaker later reflected on how Godfrey kept them ‘three days without food, whipped them sore, and then sent them away’.51L. Howard, Love and Truth in Plainness Manifested (1704), 19-20. His attitude towards Naylor was equally harsh. On 15 December 1656 he made a lengthy speech in which he cited biblical, natural, and statute law in support of the death sentence, and he was evidently unhappy about subsequent proposals for more lenient treatment.52Burton’s Diary, i. 138-43, 173, 182, 249; ii. 132.

Godfrey retained an interest in Naylor’s case in succeeding months, but he also displayed a concern for wider issues of church government and discipline. In part, this involved the enforcement of strict moral codes and sabbath observance (but not the ‘superstitious’ celebration of Christmas Day), although on both counts he was notably less radical than some of his colleagues.53Burton’s Diary, i. 225, 230; ii. 263-4; CJ vii. 493b, 497b, 559b. It also meant an interest in the propagation of the Gospel and the encouragement of catechising, the management of church livings, the means of approving and ejecting ministers, and the methods of maintaining a public ministry.54CJ vii. 488a, 498a, 515b; Burton’s Diary, i. 367; ii. 14, 16-17, 51, 56, 59, 203, 206. At times, however, Godfrey’s views were more favourable to the ‘healing and settling’ of religious differences, and he may even have been prepared to grant a degree of toleration to those who differed on discipline and worship. In May 1657 he was a teller against the imposition of an oath upon recusants, arguing that although ‘it is true we ought to improve all our interest in God’, nevertheless ‘it must be according to conscience … this is not only to question what a man teaches, but what he thinks, what he believes’. The proposal was similar to the ex officio oath, and it aimed ‘to search into men’s consciences’.55Burton’s Diary, ii. 140, 153-4, 155; CJ vii. 507b, 541b, 543a.

Godfrey’s financial expertise led him to take a close interest in public finance, although once again his views differed from those of the Cromwellians. He was nominated to a number of committees regarding the state’s creditors, whom he sought to protect, and grants of land and money to prominent political and military figures, which he seems to have opposed.56CJ vii. 476b, 477a, 488b, 505b, 526b, 528b, 529a, 537b, 563a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 65, 67, 84, 96-7, 198, 238, 244. He was also named in connection with the sale of public assets, and the organisation of taxation and the excise.57CJ vii. 528a, 543a; Burton’s Diary, i. 351; ii. 25-6, 28-9, 172, 173, 201, 202, 214, 229. He probably opposed the ‘decimation’ tax: in December 1656 he sought to prevent the passing of a bill to continue the policy while the House was ‘thin’, and clashed with John Lambert* by advocating further discussion of the matter. In January 1657 he opposed the extension of the excise, and in April the introduction of a land tax.58Burton’s Diary, i. 234-5, 241, 326; ii. 32. Godfrey may have shown sympathy for George Cony, the merchant imprisoned for refusing to pay customs duties on imported silk whose case he considered in March, and he certainly opposed the billeting of soldiers upon those who did not pay their assessments (17 June).59CJ vii. 505a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 255. But while Godfrey was concerned with financial propriety and judicious management of public assets, he evidently sought to be excused from appointment to a new commission for improving the revenue from customs and excise, forcing a division on 26 June in which the tellers for the noes prevailed and Godfrey’s name was duly inserted in this commission.60Burton’s Diary, ii. 179; CJ vii. 576a.

Godfrey’s involvement in proceedings relating to legal reform (particularly of chancery) and the constitutional settlement once again revealed his distance from the court.61CJ vii. 528a. In late December 1656, during debates regarding Naylor, Godfrey expressed concern at the possibility of division between Parliament and Cromwell, on which he said that there was no adjudicator.62Burton’s Diary, i. 249. In March 1657 he was nominated to committees discussing specific clauses in the Humble Petition and Advice, and he appears to have taken a particular interest in the question of the ‘Other House’, and in the indemnification of former royalists.63CJ vii. 501b, 502a, 505a, 508b, 511b, 516a. In the wake of the protector’s initial refusal of the crown (3 Apr.), Godfrey was also named to committees to consider the House’s response, to arrange a meeting with Cromwell, and to deliberate on aspects of the proposed settlement.64CJ vii. 519b, 521b, 524a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 12. Such debates, however, revealed Godfrey’s determination to retain power in Parliament, and to resist granting excessive authority to the protector. In late April, he opposed a motion for additional taxation ‘upon a bare proposal from without doors’, and merely ‘from the paper recommended by his highness’.65Burton’s Diary, ii. 25-6. He also advised his colleagues grant money to Cromwell for a limited period only, on the grounds that, ‘if it be left indefinitely till the next Parliament, it is a fair way to put it in the power of your chief magistrate never to have parliaments’.66Burton’s Diary, ii. 28-9. Similar dangers also attended the processes of passing bills and of nominating the upper House.

Though you give the nomination to the now chief magistrate, out of the present confidence you have of the single person, that does not follow, that the single person should name them still. The recommendations of great persons are equivalent to commands. This will be the way to set up another House quite contrary to the interest of the House of Commons. You intend them a balance, a medium between the House and the single person. Otherwise, of necessity, they must adhere to the interest of the single person, and so cease to be that balance and medium that they were intended for.67Burton’s Diary, ii. 21-2, 298.

By 19 May, when Godfrey was named to the committee to consider how to limit the title and power of the protector, his views would have been well known to the House, and on the day that the revised Humble Petition was accepted, he expressed his concern at the possibility of a dissolution of Parliament (25 May).68CJ vii. 535a; Burton’s Diary, ii. 122. Thereafter, he was deeply involved in consideration of Cromwell’s answer, and in plans for further clarification of the Humble Petition during May and June. He wanted triennial parliaments to last for six months, rather than merely 50 days.69CJ vii. 540b; Burton’s Diary, ii. 125, 137-8, 251-2. Determined to prevent interested parties from obtaining offices of profit and trust, he argued for empowering Parliament, rather than the protector, to select members of non-parliamentary commissions.70Burton’s Diary, ii. 161; CJ vii. 557b. Furthermore, while he opposed the imposition of an oath on MPs, given that the Engagement had shown that such oaths could be ‘snares’, Godfrey endorsed an oath for the protector, and advocated the inclusion of a clause regarding the ‘negative voice’, since ‘all the blood that has been spent has been about this’ (24 June).71Burton’s Diary, ii. 286, 294; CJ vii. 570b. By this period Godfrey had become an important figure among the Presbyterian critics of the regime, characterised by one observer as ‘[Thomas] Bampfylde*, Godfrey, [Thomas] Grove* and their gang’.72Henry Cromwell Corresp. 281.

Godfrey remained active in the House until the adjournment on 26 June 1657, not least as a member of the committee for regulating building work in London, but having helped frame the additional Humble Petition, his interest may have waned somewhat. Not only did he seek to be excused from membership of the commission on customs and excise, but he also failed to return to Westminster during the second session (Jan.-Feb. 1658).73Burton’s Diary, ii. 161; CJ vii. 555a, 564a, 565a, 576a. The reason for this reticence is revealed by the Presbyterian, John Fitzjames*, who told Baynham Throckmorton* that ‘little Mr Godfrey’ was one of only two MPs who ‘scrupled’ to take the oath.74Alnwick, Northumberland 552, f. 2v. Nevertheless, Godfrey remained willing to serve the protectoral regime, at least in relation to local affairs.75CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 553; 1658-9, p. 167.

Godfrey had overcome his scruples by January 1659, when he resumed his parliamentary career in Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, although the return to a traditional distribution of seats squeezed him out of serving the county. Instead he secured election at New Romney, on his family’s interest, as the son of the town’s representatives in the Short Parliament.76E. Kent RO, NR/AC2, pp. 425-6. Although Godfrey did not make an immediate impression on proceedings, from mid-February 1659 he proved an active contributor to debates on issues close to his own heart.

As previously, he took an interest in financial management, as a member of the committee regarding treasury accounts, and as a speaker in debates on the excise.77CJ vii. 605a; Burton’s Diary, iii. 312; iv. 321, 394. His godliness was also apparent in remonstrating with speakers’ loose use of scripture and in justifying punishment of sectarians, although the latter was grounded in security rather than faith, in a context of significant concern at the threat from the regime’s enemies.78CJ vii. 641b, 644b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 496; iv. 308, 355-6. More importantly, he once again advocated limitations on the executive power of the protector and the authority of the other House, although he was more measured than republicans like Sir Henry Vane II*, with whom he clashed on a number of occasions.79CJ vii. 614b; Burton’s Diary, iii. 367, 496. Indeed, Godfrey seems to have been regarded as a thorn in the side of the radicals, who sought to prevent him from speaking repeatedly in debate. He was much closer in spirit to figures like the staunch Presbyterian, Colonel John Birch*, who had been secluded and imprisoned in 1648, and contemporaries again linked him with Thomas Bampfylde and Thomas Grove.80Burton’s Diary, iii. 312, iv. 122, 233, 308; Henry Cromwell Corresp. 451, 473. Although Godfrey supported the ‘recognition’ of Richard Cromwell, he recommended caution, not because of Cromwell himself, but because of the need to recognise ‘the mischiefs that may follow, it if pass barely’.81Burton’s Diary, iii. 143-4, 227. Nevertheless, he was prepared to grant Cromwell power over the militia, given that circumstances were unlike those of 1642.82Burton’s Diary, iii. 477; iv. 480. Moreover, Godfrey supported the principle of a second chamber, although he was concerned ‘whether the Other House be the House that ought to be’. He insisted upon the power of the Commons to approve its membership, although he was not necessarily opposed to the inclusion of members of the ancient peerage. He asserted the need to consider peers’ authority ‘upon principles ab astracto’, although he argued against those who sought a radical limitation of their power. Godfrey eventually supported the motion to ‘transact’ with the Other House, on the grounds that he saw no historical justification for the Commons’ omnipotence.83Burton’s Diary, iii. 358-9, 367, 420, 541; iv. 72-3, 376; CJ vii. 627a.

Ultimately, the distance between Godfrey and the republicans was evident from his support for retaining the Scottish and Irish members.84Burton’s Diary, iv. 122, 134, 228. Moreover, as pressure from within the army grew during April, Godfrey endorsed motions to disable Major-general William Boteler* from both civil and military power, and signalled his opposition to tumultuous meetings and petitions encouraged by the army council.85Burton’s Diary, iv. 406, 459. After the dissolution of Parliament and the collapse of the protectorate, Godfrey returned to Maidstone, where he secured his position as recorder, and received a supplementary salary as a reward for his ‘good service’.86Recs. Maidstone, 138.

Although he had been a committed and godly parliamentarian, Godfrey had baulked at constitutional innovation and religious extremism. This enabled him to remain in office at the Restoration, when other commonwealth officials were removed. However, his overriding concern had probably always been to ensure the limitation of prerogative power. In this regard he lacked sympathy for, and was out of favour with, the Stuart regime, and he resigned his recordership sometime before 30 April 1662, when his successor was chosen.87Recs. Maidstone, 141, 145. Thereafter, he seems to have retired from public life, apart from serving as a sewers commissioner. Yet he may have settled in Westminster, where he was buried in the parish of St Margaret in 1671. Acknowledging in his will of 1669 that he had been ‘bought with a price, even the precious blood of Jesus Christ’, he had asked to be interred ‘with sobriety and moderation of expense, not to be buried within church or public place of assembly, which are most incongruously through vain affectation and superstition made noisome Calvaries and Aceldamas’ (the latter the resting place of Judas Iscariot). Godfrey left much of his property to his brothers, including Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey (later notorious as a supposed victim of the ‘Popish plot’), and ordered that his library was to be sold in order to provide money for six ejected Presbyterian ministers, most of whom were from Kent, including a prominent conventicler, Nathaniel Barry, who was styled one of the ‘bell-wethers of the faction’.88PROB11/337/131; Calamy Revised, 31, 102, 161, 361, 398, 535. No other member of the family sat in Parliament.