GODOLPIIIN, SIDNEY GODOLPIIIN, EARL 01-', was a younger brother of a family said to have been settled at Godolphin, or, as it was anciently called, Godolcan, in Cornwall, before the Norman conquest. His father was Francis Godolphin, who was made a Knight of the Bath at the Coronation of Charles IL, 23rd of April 1661. The date of Sidney Godolphin's birth is not stated, but he was very young when be was first introduced in (1645) to Charles II., then Prince of Wales, and acting as general of the royal army in the west. of England. On the Restoration he was brought to court, and appointed one of the grooms of the bedchamber. The first political business in which we find him employed was the management of a confidential correspondence between the Duke of York (afterwards James II.) and the Prince of Orange (afterwards William III.) in the beginning of the year 1678, the object of which was to unite England and Holland in a war against France. (See Appendix to Sir John Dalrymple's 'Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland,' pp. 144-156.) The duke's anti-gallican zeal soon cooled, and the projected war never took place, but Godolphin's services were rewarded the following year by his appoint ment (26th March 1679) as one of the Lords of the Treasury. In this office he soon acquired much reputation for ability and habits of business, and he also ingratiated himself so greatly with the king, that on tho dismissal, in September 1679, of the Duke of Monmouth and Lord Salisbury, he was, along with Lord Viscount Hyde (afterwards Earl of Rochester) and the Earl of Sunderland, entrusted with the chief management of affairs. Godolphin remained in power when Sunderland was dismissed in 1680, and went along with the king and the other ministers in the disgraceful secret negociations entered into in 16S3 with Louis XIV., for a renewal of the former de-1 pendent connexion of Chnrles with the French king. On the 14th April 16S4, be was transferred from his seat at the treasury-board to be one of the principal secretaries of state; but on the 9th September of the same year he was brought back to the treasury and placed at its head, having the day before been ennobled by the title of Baron Godolphin of Melton, in the county of Cornwall. On the accession of James H., although his conduct in regard to the exclusion bill, a few years before, bad not manifested much zeal for the interest of that prince, he was continued in office, but only in a subordinate place at the treasury-hoard. The letters of Barillon, the French ambassador, however, represent him as one of the chief of the confidential advisers of the new king, and as taking an active part in the negociatione which were immediately opened for continuing the samo system of pecuniary obligation to France, and entire subservi ency to that power, which had been established in the latter part of the preceding reign. During this short reign he also held the office of
chamberlain to the queen. After the Prince of Orange had landed in England, Godolphin was sent to negociate with him on the part of King James, along with the Marquis of Halifax and the Earl of Nottingham ; the commissioners submitted their proposals to his highness at Hungerford in Berkshire, on the 7th of December, and having received his answer returned with it to the king. Godolphin however had long been connected with the Prince of Orange, and on the establishment of the new government be was continued as one of the lords of the treasury, to the great grief, according to Tindal, of the Earl of Monmouth (afterwards Earl of Peterborough), the first lord, and Lord Delamere (afterwards Earl of Warrington), the Chan cellor of the Exchequer, "who soon saw," says the historian, "that the king considered him more than them both; for, as he understood the treasury business well, so his calm and cold way suited the king's temper." lie was left out of the new commission issued 18th March 1090, when the king took an opportunity of dismissing Monmouth and Delamere; but this was merely a temporary arrangement, and on the 35th November following he was appointed first lord. He held this situation till May 1697, when, in one of those adjustments by which King William was constantly modifying his cabinet with the view of preserving the balance of parties, he was replaced by Mr. Charles Montagu (afterwards Earl of Halifax). At this time Godolphin was looked upon ae one of the tory party, and when a strong detachment of that party was brought into the ministry through the medium of the Earl of Rochester, in the end of the year 1700, he was recalled and again placed at the head of the treasury.' He again went out with his Mende about a year after, but his exclusion this time did not last long. The accession of Queen Anne in March, 1702, was imme diately followed by the first exclusively tory adminiatratiou that had existed since the Revolution ; and on the Sth of May, Godolphin was made lord-high-treasurer, being the first person who had held that eminent office since tho Restoration. lie was in great part indebted for the importance which he now acquired to his intimate connection with the Earl (afterwards the great Duke) of Marlborough, whose oldest daughter and successor in the dukedom afterwnrds married the eon and heir of the lord-treasurer. The attachment of the queen to Marlborough's wife, the celebrated Duchess Sarah, opened for the duke at this moment the door to favour and power; but, as Tindal observes, neither Godolphin nor Marlborough himself would have obtained so great a share of the royal regard and confidence, if they had not been considered to be tones.