GOODWIN, Ralph (d. 1658) of Ludlow.

It has been suggested that Ralph Goodwin was a Bristolian.9Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. ser. 2, vii. 24. This notion may derive from the presence in that city in October 1642 of a Mr Goodwin, a Member of Parliament, whose business there was to persuade the corporation to donate funds to the parliamentarian cause.10Bristol RO, 04264/3 p. 127. This is much more likely to have been Arthur Goodwin*, a staunch and enthusiastic supporter of Parliament’s war effort. When Ralph Goodwin ‘came out’ of Bristol in 1646, it was as a wartime civilian aide to Prince Rupert. If the Ludlow burgesses were correct to describe Ralph Goodwin as ‘junior’ when they swore him to their number, and if Ralph Goodwin senior was indeed from Bristol, the father was not a freeman of the city, nor did he prove his will there. There seems much more to link the family with an East Anglian background. John Aubrey, whose editor supplies Thomas for the missing forename, describes Goodwin as of Norfolk. Ralph Goodwin was probably the man educated at Cambridge, who later proceeded MA at Oxford. Goodwin’s first marriage, to Dorothy Long of Wraxall, brought him into a kinship relationship with the Foxe family of Shropshire, and the Foxes were related to the family of Cage of Longstow, Cambridgeshire, in turn connected with a minor gentry family of Goodwin of Stoneham Parva, Suffolk. It is thus possible that Goodwin’s arrival in Shropshire may have been through marriage links between these families, but the genealogical evidence is imperfect, and the suggestion must be regarded as speculative.11Vis. Cambs. 1575, 1619, (Harl. Soc. xli), 36; Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 362-3; Copinger, Suffolk Recs. and MSS (5 vols., 1904-7), iii. 38; Suff. RO (Ipswich), HD1538/236; Herefs. RO, F76/II/356. John Aubrey evidently thought highly of Goodwin, memorializing him as ‘a general scholar [who] had a delicate wit; was a great historian and an excellent poet’.12Aubrey, Brief Lives, i. 269-70.

Certainty about Goodwin’s early career dawns only in the 1620s, by which time he was an MP, and in the service of the Compton family. He first sat in Parliament for Ludlow in the seat vacated by Spencer Compton†, Lord Compton (later 2nd earl of Northampton). By 1629, and probably much earlier, he was enjoying an annuity of £50 from William Compton, 1st earl of Northampton, lord president of the council in the marches of Wales.13Warws. RO, CR556/274 f. 3. In 1626, Goodwin acted with the Comptons in a land transaction in Oxfordshire, implying strongly that he was a secretary or man-of-business to the family.14Coventry Docquets, 549. In a letter to Endymion Porter*, Goodwin said he grieved for Northampton, who died in 1630, as he would the loss of a father, but asked in the next breath that his interests be remembered to the next lord president.15CSP Dom. 1629-31, p. 445. His pension from the Comptons proved safe; he continued to receive it at least until the mid-1630s.16Warws. RO, CR556/274 ff. 94, 102v. Goodwin augmented this annuity with lucrative posts at the council in the marches, where he was joint examiner and deputy secretary, positions which he held in sequence until the collapse of the council in 1641. His colleague as examiner was Sampson Eure*, whom Goodwin helped secure his estate of Gatley Park, in 1633.17Herefs. RO, F76/II/28, 35. Goodwin apparently wrote a masque acted at Ludlow in 1637, three years after John Milton presented Comus there, and often conducted his business at the council in the marches with a classical author propped in front of him.18Aubrey, Brief Lives, i. 269-70.

Aubrey explains Goodwin’s long career at Ludlow as a kind of banishment for writing a poem called A Journey into France. This was published after 1647 and attributed then to Richard Corbett (1582-1635), bishop successively of Oxford and Norwich. Obviously implausible as the work of Bishop Corbett, the poem was a xenophobic satire, attacking Catholic superstition, the unpleasant smells of Paris, and the boy-king, Louis XIII, who rewarded a courtier with naval armaments in exchange for a gift of a parrot. The poem must have been composed after Louis’ marriage (1615), and somehow came to the attention of Henrietta Maria, his sister. In Aubrey’s account, the queen remembered Goodwin’s insults when the poem was published, but it seems much more likely that it circulated privately at court in the 1620s, was attributed then to Goodwin, who lost any chance of preferment as a result, before resurfacing in print after 1647 as an unpleasant reminder to its then anonymous author of his clumsy wit and its consequences.19Aubrey, Brief Lives, i. 269-70; Poems written by the Right Reverend Dr Richard Corbet (1672), 129-38; Poems of Richard Corbett ed. J.A.W. Bennett, H.R. Trevor-Roper (Oxford, 1955), pp. xlii, xliv, xlv, 168.

The Short Parliament of April 1640 was the fifth in which Goodwin sat for Ludlow. Ostensibly, he enjoyed very amicable relations with the corporation, whose members gave him presents of wine in 1626, 1629, gave a gift of macaroons to his wife, Dorothy, in 1640 and in turn enjoyed eating the deer he gave them that same year.20Salop Archives, LB8/1/148/3; 151/11; 160/6,10. They favoured him with a lease of property in the town in 1635.21Salop Archives, LB4/1/465. His affability was commented on by an observer who thought the mutual hospitality concealed a more ambivalent relationship, and a greater inclination on the part of the burgesses to favour Charles Baldwin*

Mr Goodwin with his Christmas cheer hath feasted the burgesses and endeavours by their bellies to gain their tongues; yet it is thought by some that he hath less certainty than the other, the burgess[es] generally being not well affected to him.22NLW, Gwysaney transcripts 26.

Goodwin’s profile in the first Parliament of 1640 was probably not high. He can easily be confused with two others of the same surname, one of whom was the assertive Arthur Goodwin, and the other the Member for Haslemere whose election was in dispute. It was probably Ralph Goodwin who on 22 April spoke up in favour of Ship Money.23Aston’s Diary, 29. On 2 May, one of the Goodwins made a rather unincisive speech, probably tending to moderation and reconciliation; the speaker may have been Ralph.24Aston’s Diary, 125. These are the only contributions to debate which can be plausibly attributed to Ralph Goodwin; his only committee was one for a bill on the administration of ecclesiastical cases (14 May).25CJ ii. 17b.

Goodwin was returned again to the second Parliament of 1640. His conduct in that assembly is again difficult to follow, because there were three other Goodwins in the House, and the clerks did not always distinguish between them when compiling the Journal. The five committees attended by ‘Mr Goodwin’ in November and early December were mainly on topics of religious reform, not a subject known to be dear to Ralph Goodwin’s heart. The first occasion on which he is fully identified was 17 December, when he was named to a committee on the governance of the strongly puritan Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He is likely to have been named to that more because of his education at that university than because of any religious zeal on his part.26CJ ii. 52a. He was named to the committee of 26 January 1641, which arose from a message from the king. A Roman Catholic priest, John Goodman, was reprieved because his sole offence was being in the Catholic order of priesthood. A Commons committee, including Goodwin, was authorised to respond to the king on the basis of the debate on the floor of the House.27CJ ii. 73a; Procs. LP ii. 283. The following day, Goodwin was named to consider shortening Michaelmas Term, a topic on which his legal experience at Ludlow would have entitled him to an opinion.28CJ ii. 73b.

Goodwin may have shared the anti-Catholicism prevalent in the marches of Wales. He sat on the committee (28 Jan. 1641) charged with preparing questions for Sir Kenelm Digby, a diplomat formerly thought to have abandoned his Catholicism, who found himself accused by Parliament of trying to raise money for the king from Catholic circles.29CJ ii. 74b; Procs. LP ii. 298. On 3 February, Goodwin was on a committee for a bill on the export of wool, and later that month served on another considering the confirmation of grants by the king to the queen. It is hard to fathom whether on this committee he would have been sympathetic to the royal consort.30CJ ii. 77b, 87b. In the spring of 1641 Goodwin is only known with certainty to have taken the Protestation, on 10 May, late, in the company of future royalists such as Sir John Stawell* and William Bassett*.31CJ ii. 141a. All but one of a range of committee appointments between March and May are as likely to have been one of the other Goodwins as Ralph.32CJ ii. 101a, 105a, 107a, 121a, 129a, 129b, 131b. The only committee to which Ralph was conclusively the nominee was that on improving the preaching of the gospel (12 April).33CJ ii. 119a.

The ‘Mr Goodwin’ (if indeed it was one person) on committees in the summer had Sabbatarian and Erastian interests in church policy, and was active in taking legislation to the Lords. This does not seem to match the profile of Ralph Goodwin. On 24 November, Sir Simonds D’Ewes* recorded a complaint by Goodwin about a pamphlet that described a duel between Sir Kenelm Digby (the subject of one of Goodwin’s earlier committees) and a French lord. Goodwin considered it reflected scandalously on the king.34D’Ewes (C), 192. This may have been his last contribution to proceedings in this Parliament. On 13 December, he was granted leave to go to the country, but was probably inactive before that date.35CJ ii. 165b, 167b, 270b, 340a. He never returned to Westminster. He probably returned to Ludlow and threw in his lot with the royalists in that region in 1642. On 24 February, he and his wife were banqueted by the Ludlow burgesses, who had also favoured Fitzwilliam Coningsby*, the royalist leader.36Salop Archives, LB8/1/162/3,4. He made his way to Oxford in January 1644, to sit in the royalist Parliament there. On the eve of his departure from Ludlow, he claimed parliamentary privilege in a letter to the corporation, thereby escaping a writ served on him by a Ludlow man.37Salop Archives, LB7/1696. Once at Oxford, Goodwin signed the letter to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex requesting peace.38The Names of the Lords and Commons Assembled (1646), 2; A Copy of a Letter from the Members (1644), 5 (E.32.3). On 5 February 1644 he was disabled from sitting in the Westminster Parliament.39CJ iii. 389b.

Later in 1644, Goodwin received another gift of wine from Ludlow corporation, the last of their official favours to him.40Salop Archives, LB8/1/165/4. He was in the town while it was garrisoned for the king, but was not there when eventually it fell into the hands of Parliament, on 26 April 1646.41Webb, Memorials, ii. 267. In 1645, he joined the royalist army in the field, and acted as secretary to Prince Rupert. He was with Rupert in Shropshire in April 1645, and explained to the Shropshire committee on behalf of his master how 13 of the parliamentarian county force had been executed in a reprisal for the hangings of the same number of Irish soldiers.42LJ vii. 305b, 306a. In May of that year, he wrote to Rupert from Burford on the movements of Edward Massie’s* force.43Add. 18982, f. 55. After Naseby, he must have made his way with Rupert to Bristol, and was there when it surrendered to the New Model army on 10 September. Goodwin was allowed to depart under the negotiated articles of war, and was said to have left Bristol with £1,500 gold pieces, £300 a year in land, and £6-8,000 in personal estate.44CCAM 704. He had recently married for the second time, this time into the leading royalist family of Brabazon. In February 1646 he wrote to Rupert from Worcester, and was there with Wallop Brabazon, his brother-in-law, when that city surrendered to Thomas Rainborowe* in 1646. He played a leading part in the negotiations for its capitulation.45The Pythouse Pprs. ed. W.A. Day (1879), 23-4; Diary of Henry Townshend ed. Willis Bund, i. 144, 54-5, 178, 180, 183, 185, 186, 187, 189, 195; CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 456. Afterwards, he duly compounded for his delinquency, and was fined £412 10s.46CCC 1474-5.

Goodwin retired to Eaton, near Leominster, a property belonging to the Brabazon family. He retained his burgess’s place on Ludlow corporation, but was inactive until December 1657, when he may have attended a corporation meeting for the first time since the civil war.47Salop Archives, LB2/1/2 p. 140. He took no further active part in public life, but his name occurs as a trustee in land transactions involving the Shropshire gentry.48Salop Archives, 2589/G/15. With the help of another retired council in the marches official, Sir Sampson Eure, Goodwin quietly bought a property in Montgomeryshire, doubtless hoping to enjoy it once the regime of the sequestrators was over. He did not live that long, however, and died on 1 May 1658. He was buried in Ludlow. He had no children, and after his wife’s death, his property reverted to the crown under the intestacy laws. Somerset Fox†, a cousin by Goodwin’s first marriage and MP for Ludlow in two Parliaments in the 1670s, sued for a grant of his estate in 1669.49Herefs. RO, F76/II/356; Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. ser. 2, vii. 25; PROB6/34 f. 217. Aubrey later commemorated Goodwin as ‘as fine a gentleman as any in England, though now forgot’.50Aubrey, Brief Lives, i. 270.