Sidney Godolphin (poet)
Sidney Godolphin (* 1610 ; † February 9, 1643 in Chagford , Devon ) was an English poet and royalist during the reign of Charles I of England .
Life
Sidney Godolphin was the second son of Sir William Godolphin of Godolphin (1567-1613) and came from an old family from the county of Cornwall , whose family seat, the Godolphin House was near Helston in the former Kerrier district . The family Godolphin , whose wealth stemmed from the tin mining was their lineage to the time of the Norman conquest of England in 1066 by William I. traced. Sidney Godolphin had an older brother, Francis Godolphin of Godolphin (1605-1667), and a younger brother , William Godolphin (1611-1636). All three, like their father, were named governors of the Isles of Scilly during their lifetime .
Godolphin studied at Exeter College , Oxford from 1624 to 1627 . He then entered one of the four English bar associations ( Inns of Court ). He later made trips on the continent that took him to France and Denmark . He made friends with Ben Jonson , Thomas Hobbes and other writers of his time. In 1628 he first became a member of the House of Commons for Helston, Cornwall . In 1636 he succeeded his late brother William as Governor of Scilly . In 1640 he was elected again to the House of Commons, first to the Short Parliament , and later, after its dissolution, to the Long Parliament of 1640.
As a staunch royalist, he was a supporter of Thomas Wentworth, 1st Earl of Strafford and stood by King Charles I as one of the few from the House of Commons. In the English Civil War he joined the royalist troops of Sir Ralph Hopton , who were to conquer the counties of Devon , Dorset and Somerset from Cornwall in 1643 . Godolphin died fighting in Devon in February 1643 at the age of 33.
Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, gave Godolphin notable recognition in his work The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England . Thomas Hobbes also praised Godolphin in his state-theoretical work Leviathan . Some poems were published by Godolphin in the 17th century, including The Passion of Dido for Aeneas , an unfinished translation of the fourth book of Virgil's Aeneid , which the poet Edmund Waller completed and edited in 1658. Other poems survived in manuscript collections and bequests. The first complete collection of Godolphin's works was published in 1906 by George Saintsbury in the second volume of Minor Poets of the Caroline Period . 1931 brought out William Dighton Godolphins poems in a separate volume.
Works
- Sidney Godolphin: Poems . In: George Saintsbury (ed.): Minor poets of the Caroline period . Clarendon Press, Oxford 1906
- The Poems of Sidney Godolphin , edited by William Dighton. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1931
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Godolphin, Sidney |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | English poet |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1610 |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 9, 1643 |
| Place of death | Chagford , Devon |