Francis Godwin
Encyclopedia
Bishop of Llandaff
The Bishop of Llandaff is the Ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff.-Area of authority:The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The Bishop's seat is located in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul , in the village of Llandaff, just north-west of the City of...
and of Hereford
Bishop of Hereford
The Bishop of Hereford is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.The see is in the City of Hereford where the seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Mary and Saint Ethelbert which was founded as a cathedral in 676.The Bishop's residence is...
.
Life
He was the son of Thomas GodwinThomas Godwin (bishop)
Thomas Godwin was an English bishop, who presided over the Diocese of Bath and Wells.Thomas Godwin was both born and died in Wokingham in Berkshire.From 1567 to 1584 he was Dean of Canterbury....
, Bishop of Bath and Wells
Bishop of Bath and Wells
The Bishop of Bath and Wells heads the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells in the Province of Canterbury in England.The present diocese covers the vast majority of the county of Somerset and a small area of Dorset. The Episcopal seat is located in the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew in...
, born at Hannington, Northamptonshire
Hannington, Northamptonshire
Hannington is a village in the Daventry district of the county of Northamptonshire in England. At the time of the 2001 census the parish's population was 207 people.- Ancient history of Hannington and the Church of St Peter and St Paul :...
. He was elected student of Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
, in 1578, took his bachelor's degree in 1580, and that of master in 1583.
After holding two Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
livings he was in 1587 appointed subdean of Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
. In 1590 he accompanied William Camden
William Camden
William Camden was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and officer of arms. He wrote the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and the first detailed historical account of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.- Early years :Camden was born in London...
on an antiquarian tour through Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. He was created bachelor of divinity in 1593, and doctor in 1595. In 1601 he published his Catalogue of the Bishops of England since the first planting of the Christian Religion in this Island, a work which procured him in the same year the diocese of Llandaff
Diocese of Llandaff
The Diocese of Llandaff is a Church in Wales diocese. It is headed by the Bishop of Llandaff, whose seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Llandaff, a suburb of Cardiff...
. A second edition appeared in 1615, and in 1616 he published an edition in Latin with a dedication to King James
James I of England
James VI and I was King of Scots as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the English and Scottish crowns on 24 March 1603...
, who in the following year conferred upon him the bishopric of Hereford
Hereford
Hereford is a cathedral city, civil parish and county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, southwest of Worcester, and northwest of Gloucester...
. The work was republished, with a continuation by William Richardson
William Richardson
-Irish politicians:*William Richardson , MP for Armagh and Hillsborough*William Richardson , MP for Augher*William Richardson , MP for Armagh*William Richardson , MP for Armagh...
, in 1743.
Godwin died, after a lingering illness, in April 1633.
Works
In 1616 Godwin published Rerum Anglicarum, Henrico VIII., Edwardo VI. et Maria regnantibus, Annales, which was afterwards translated and published by his son Morgan under the title Annales of England (1630). He is also the author of a somewhat remarkable story, published posthumously in 1638, and entitled The Man in the MooneThe Man in the Moone
The Man in the Moone is a book by the English divine and bishop Francis Godwin . Apparently written in the late 1620s and published posthumously in 1638 under the pseudonym Domingo Gonsales, it contains the account of a "voyage of utopian discovery"...
, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither, by Domingo Gonsales, written apparently some time in the 1620s. (On the date of composition, see John Anthony Butler's edition of The Man in the Moon [Dovehouse, 1995], pp. 14-15.) In this production Godwin not only declares himself a believer in the Copernican system, but adopts so far the principles of the law of gravitation
Gravitation
Gravitation, or gravity, is a natural phenomenon by which physical bodies attract with a force proportional to their mass. Gravitation is most familiar as the agent that gives weight to objects with mass and causes them to fall to the ground when dropped...
as to suppose that inertial mass decreases with distance from the Earth. The work, which displays considerable fancy and wit, influenced John Wilkins
John Wilkins
John Wilkins FRS was an English clergyman, natural philosopher and author, as well as a founder of the Invisible College and one of the founders of the Royal Society, and Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death....
' The discovery of a world in the Moone. Both works were translated into French, and were imitated in several important particulars by Cyrano de Bergerac
Cyrano de Bergerac
Hercule-Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac was a French dramatist and duelist. He is now best remembered for the works of fiction which have been woven, often very loosely, around his life story, most notably the 1897 play by Edmond Rostand...
, from whom (if not from Godwin directly) Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
obtained valuable hints in writing of Gulliver's voyage to Laputa
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
.
Another work of Godwin's, Nuncius inanimatus, published In Utopia, originally printed in 1629 and again in 1657, seems to have been the prototype of John Wilkins's Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger, which appeared in 1641. Another work was De praesulibus Angliae (1616).