A Memoir of
Gabriel Goodman, D. D.
by Reverend Richard Newcome, M.A.
Warden of Ruthin, 1826

The GOODMAN Pedigree
Information acquired by Donald P. Goodman

 
GABRIEL GOODMAN, D. D., Dean of Westminster for nearly the whole Reign of Queen Elizabeth I, second Son of Edward Goodman, Mercer, and Burgess of Ruthin, was born in Ruthin in the year 1528.  His Mother was Sisely, Daughter of Edward Thelwall, of Pl^as-y-Ward, near the name place, with a lineal descendant of whom the celebrated Lord Herbert, of ?herbury, passed a short time in his youth, in order to perfect himself in the Welsh Tongue, and of whose learned attainments and excellence of temper be makes such honorable mention.  The subject of this Memoir was one of a Family of three Sons and 

five Daughters, whose names appear on the Monumental Brass Tablet in Ruthin Church, a copy of which is annexed.  From the name, the Family might be supposed to be of English origin, and indeed it is enumerated by Mr. Pennant, with the Thelwalls, the Jervises the Moyles, the Towcrbridges, the Alsbels, the Wards, and Rossendales, whose Ancestors originally settled in the Vale of Clwyd, as Retainers of the Lords Grey, of Ruthin.  This supposition it was natural to make as to the origin of this family, but on reference to an authoritive pedigree of the Goodmans in the possession of Mr. Goodman Roberts of Ruthin, drawn in the year 1584, it appears to be pure Welsh descent.  'I'he Father of Edward Goodman was Thomas ap Edward ap Jevsh Goch, of Llandyrnog.  The Surname of Goodman appears not in the Pedigree referred to previous to this Edward Goodman, by whom certainly it was first assumed, and consequently in Welsh Pedigree Books the word H?n, or the old or original Goodman is annexed to his name.  He became also the first Armiger of his race, as appears by the Grant of a Coat of Arms which is given in the Appendix, (B), as well as by the Document in Mr. Goodman Roberts’s possession.  This latter is entitled “The Genealogy and Achievement of the Worshipful Gawen Goodman, of Ruthin, Gent. (his eldest Son) first drawn and sette by one Mr. Simon Vaughan, Bard, and now newly drawn by me, Richard Tomlyns, of Denbigh, Anno Domi 1584.” The Bards of Wales, as is well known, were not only the Historians and Poets, but also the Heralds and Genealogists of their Country.  The above named Simon Vaughan wrote a Cywydd, a species of Welsh Poetry, being an eulogy on Doctor Gabriel Goodman, which is included in the Appendix (C), as extracted from a folio volume entitled ---------- Bcirdd Cymru, (the Poems of the Bards of Wales), in tliu Library of the Cymrodorion Society in London, and which was procured by the kind and polite attention of the learned Doctor William Owen Pugh, to whom Welsh Literature is so much indebted.
Family or Surnames, though they had been gradually obtaining England since the Conquest, were not adopted in the Principality previous to the period before us, in confirmation of which notion we may quote an incident recorded by Mr. Pennant, relating to the antient Family of Mostyn.  Rowland Lee, Bishop of Litchfeild and President of the Marches of Wales in the Reign of Henry VIII, sat at one of the Courts on a Welsh Cause, and wearied with the quantity of Aps in the Jury, directed that the Vowel should assume their last name of that of their residence, and that Thomas ap Richard ap Howel ap Ievan Vychan should for the future be reduced to the poor dissyllable, Mostyn. An injunction from such high authority, must have been very generally observed, and induced all persons of condition to assume a single name, which would continue with their descendants.
Affixed to one of the Columns in Ruthin Church is a Brass Plate of the Dean’s Father, which is also hereto annexed, under which are inscribed the following Lines, which further prove him to have been the first of his race who assumed the name of GOODMAN:-

Hic jacet Edvardus Goodmannus nominee dictus
(Here lies Edward called Goodman by name)
Gratia virtutis cui bona multa dedit,
(The grave of virtue gave him many benefits)
Pars hominis tegitur mortalis, et altera coelum
(The mortal part of man is buried, the other climbs to heaven
Scandit, perque orbem nomen ubique volat.
(and his name flies everywhere through the world)
Obiit 22 May, 1560.
(He died 22 May, 1560)

 Now this efford of the recording Muse is meant to convey more than at first strikes the ear. It means to record, that the Edward who lies buried beneath, was from his charitable deeds called the Goodman of the place, like the Good man of Ross in after times. There is an evident play between the words “bona multa” and Goodmannus. His virtue and honesty procured him the good things which he liberally bestowed on others. Therefore his name became celebrated, i. E., he was called the Good-man. The expression “good-man of the house” always carries with it the idea of liberality as well as the possession of wealth.” Hence the beginning of a name, which though it exists not at present in the Principality as that of a distanct Family of note, is yet well known as connected with some of the greatest respectability in it, for instance, the Lord Newborough, Sir Robert Williams Vaughan, Mr. Parry, late of Lianrhaidr, Mr. Wynne, of Coed Coch, the Thelwalls, Mr. Bankes, of Soughton, Mr. Salusbury, of Galltfaenan, and others. This Edward Goodman may be supposed to  have amassed considerable wealth, for those days being perhaps the only respectable Tradesman of the Town, for the description of Mercer was not confined at that time to one branch of Trade, as at the present, but meant a Merchant in general. His vicinity to the Castle, which then existed in its original grandeur, was probably a mean not only of increasing his reputation as a Merchant among its numerous Retainers, but of adding to his wealth and consequence. We might be inclined indeed to derive the name of this Family from the circumstance recorded by Leland in his Itinerary of a House or Celle of Bonhommes, a species of Monks of the mendicant order, (who were first introduced into England in 1283), having once existed at Ruthin, which was “in time translated into the Parish Church,” and conjecture that a member of this fraternity might have originally given the name of his order to his Family. Though this idea, consistent with what has been observed, must now be relinquished, yet we may indulge the suspicion that a ________ of may have had some influence in suggesting to the Dean the foundation of his Establishment at Ruthin. In redeeming the Tithes of the Parish and those of Llaurhydd from the lay hands into which they had passed on the dissolution of the former Church here, and settling them as at present, he may have been pleased with the thought that the Bonhommes or Goodman Pensioners would again form a part of the Church Establishment at his native place.
 The family or Surname of Goodman is to be found in various parts of the Kingdom, and may have originated in the same happy cause. That a Family of the same name was resident in Chester some years previous to the assumption of it by the Family of Ruthin, we learn from the account of Christopher Goodman, a leader among the Puritans, and as eminent in their annals as the subject of this Memoir was in the Established Church. Christopher Goodman was one of the Translators of the Geneva Bible, and a particular friend and associate of the Scotch Reformer, John Knox, whom he joined in writing the book against the Lawfulness of the Government of Women, which brought him on his return home before the High Commission Court. An account of this man is given at large in Brooks’s History of the Puritans. He died in 1602, at a very advanced age, and was buried in the Cathedral Church of his native City, Chester, having been visited on his death bed by the learned Mr. Usher, afterwards the Archbishop of Armagh, who Brooks tells us used often to repeat the wise and grave speeches he had heard fro him on that occasion. With the Family of this man and that of Dean Goodman, there was not the slightest connexion, though situated so near each other. The name was beyond doubt first assumed at Ruthin, by Edward Goodman before mentioned, as appears by the Pedigree referred to and the other particulars advanced. And of this we have a still further confirmation of it were necessary, in a pious habit of our Dean, who ever accompanied the signature of his name with the sentence “Gratia Dei sum quod sum”, using the words of the Apostle Paul, By the Grace of God I am what I am, which Motto is also inscribed on his picture, referring to the recently assumed name of his Family, which his modesty some what scrupled to use. The Latin words “Sit nomem omem” are to be seen on an old Picture of one of the first Goodmans, in a Mansion House near Ruthin, which again corroborates this notion. The Dean, however, well deserved the inheritance as his public spirit, munificence to his native place, and other particulars we shall have to record amply demonstrate. Like his worthy Father, he continued the dispenser of the goods which his virtues procured him. The learned Camden whom Dean Goodman so liberally patronized and who acknowledges his obligation, may be supposed to have his friend’s Family in mind in that Chapter of his “Remains concerning Britain” which treats of Surnames, where he observes that Goodman was derived in respect to the qualities of him who was so called. To put an end to this somewhat too prolix discussion of a name so venerated by the Inhabitants of Ruthin, it may be observed that the Poet Virgil calls his kind Host, Evander or the Good man, and like his hero at the conclusion of his voyage, the Writer must declare at the commencement of his, “Evandrum petimus.” He seeks to discover whatever remains recorded of his Evander, and though the voyage promises but little to the generality, it might prove under the pen of a better recorder, not uninteresting to the Inhabitants of his native town, and in particular to those among them who have derived the advantage of a learned Education within the Walls of his Faoundation.
 Nothing can be discovered relating to the earliest years of the subject of our Memoir. That he was initiated in Grammar learning previous to his admission at St. John’s College, Cambridge, there can be no doubt. We must infer this, not only from the responsibility of his parents, but also from the general practice of even the poorer Inhabitants of the Principality at this period which it is so much to their honor to repeat. Our learned Countryman, Humphrey Llwyd, of Denbigh, in his Commentary on Wales, written to his friend Ortelius,  Physician at Antwerp, but a short time after this period, has these words, Hae tamen in re cos (scil Anglos) vincentes, quod nullus sit added pauper quin liberos suos aliquo tempore scholce ad literas discendaas trandit, et qui stidio proficient in Acdeminas mittentes. Juri civili pro meliore parte operam dare compleeunt. Unde evenit, quod major pars eorum qui in hoe regno jus civile aut pontificum preofitentur, Cambri natione sunt.
 “In this particular, surpassing the English, inasmuch as no one is so poor but that for some time he puts his Children to school, sending those who make a proficiency to the Universities. They force them, for the most part, to apply to the Civil Law. From whence it has come to pass, that the majority of those who profess the Civil and Canon Law in this Kingdom, are Welshmen.”

 

Impression from the seal of the Dean of Westminster, Gabriel Goodman of Ruthin, c. 1600 - 1610

This item comes from: National Museums & Galleries of Wales (Item reference: 30.236/2).  If you would like to see the original item, or require information regarding copyright, please contact the repository/contributor named above. This coat of arms was granted to the Goodman family in 1572.

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