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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A63832	Memoires of the life and death of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, late justice of the peace for Middlesex, who was barbarously murthered by the papists, upon the first discovery of the horrid plot together with a full account of the strange discovery of the murther, the tryal of the murtherers, and the sham-plot of the papists to charge the murther of Sir Edm. Godfrey upon himself, detected.	Tuke, Richard, fl. 1672.	1682 (1682)	Wing T3227; ESTC R40676	44,126	162

was A living and immortal Pillar of Vertue We shall lastly consider him in his more publick Capacity as a Magistrate or Justice of the Peace in which province as he stood more lyable to Vulgar notice we shall observe those remarkables of him that may be satisfactory to the Readers attention and his own due merits How well he deserved this Office needs no higher or greater Confirmation than that he was elected to it and approved in it by him that bestow'd it on him A Great and Wise Prince who as he is himself the Fountain of Justice cannot be thought to commit the Administration thereof especially to one in vicinity so near and so well known to him as Sir Edmondbury Godfrey was but to Persons of exact approvement Besides what we have before hinted of his fitness for this Service by the happiness of his Education having been brought up a Student in the Laws of England he was otherwise qualified for it by many excellent Endowments of Nature requisite to the composition of a good Magistrate a deep and piercing Judgment to search into the Niceties and Intricacies of such difficult business as he often met with and to determine accordingly An indefatigable Patience mixed with a genuine serenity of Mind whereby he could bear with the Clamours and Impertinencies of such as came before him leisurely attending to the Allegations both of Appellants and Criminals and fully hearing whatever and so long as they had any thing in reason to offer to him rather than the Truth on either side should be undiscovered by any prejudicate fore-stalling of the Evidence A right and sound Integrity of Mind the golden Vein that ran through the whole body of his Actions and all the parts of it not to be corrupted by gifts bribes or pensions the common taint of Justice nor to be warp'd or byas'd by any sinister Interests but plain and upright uninterested and regularly conformable to the exactest rules of Justice and Honesty in all the particular administrations of his Province being well known as to any partiality in his actings to be no Respector of Persons Add unto all these an Heroick Fortitude and Invincible Courage of Mind which was the Shield of his other Vertues and whereby he was bravely armed and defended against all the difficulties and discouragements which were not a few that he met with still keeping his ground with a stedfast Uprightness and unmoved Vertue amidst such Tryals as persons of less Courage than himself would have sneaked and grovel'd under Fortitude is stiled by Plato One of the most Fair and Excellent Vertues And is by Aristotle in his Ethicks made to bring up the Van of the Four Cardinal Vertues Quia haec virtus circa res arduas difficilimas versatur Virtutis autem proprium est versari inter difficiliora A Vertue therefore certainly most becoming a Good Magistrate who must dare to be such in the worst of times and greatest of dangers 'T is vulgar Vertue says the Learned Prelate speaking on this head that puts men only upon Safe good things 'T is Vertue in its perfection when one dares do well and suffer for it And of this Degree he shewed some as great proofs as perhaps have been given in our days We shall in the first place give you one Instance which with due Allowance to the unusualness of the Practice may give sufficient proof of the greatness of his Mind in daring to be just to himself Justice as well as Charity beginning at home in a case wherein a Sneaking Softness or Complyance might have betray'd him to the ruining advantages of a Sconc'd and Insulting Adversary Having a considerable Debt owing to him from a Great Person at Court to whom he had made many and often applications for the Payment of it without any other satisfaction than that of fair promises from time to time and nothing performed Sir Edmond-Bury well knowing the Ability of the Person and that his pretences were but so many formal delays to deferr the Payment of that which though justly due he knew by reason of his priviledge he could not in an ordinary course of Justice be troubled for resolved however to sue him at Common-Law notwithstanding his said Priviledge and rather to cast himself upon His Majesties Clemency for infringing the Priviledge of his Houshold than to suffer himself to be unjustly defrauded of his due Debt by one that would make such a Protection an Asylum to that Injustice which he knew His Majesty would never patronize or allow of Accordingly after all other fair ways unsuccessfully attempted he got the said Courtier Arrested by vertue of the Kings Writt and a Warrant thereupon granted by the Sheriff and the Defendant was thereupon taken into Custody till such time as he should give in sufficient Bail to answer the Action instead of which the Defendant insisting upon his Priviledge sent to White-Hall and got an Order for the Commitment of Sir Edmond-Bury for breach of Priviledge upon which he was taken into Custody and so remained for the space of six days a Prisoner and was so to continue till such time as he should discharge the other of the Arrest which Sir Edmond-Bury would not consent unto but rather suffered the severity of that uneasie restraint than to gratifie his Adversaries stubbornness with a too easie compliance His Majesty being then acquainted with the Circumstances of the Case was pleased graciously to Order Sir Edmond-Bury Godfreys discharge and taking notice in his Princely Judgement of that Magnanimity and Heroick disposition he shewed in hearing the brunt of this trouble was pleased not only to pardon the Misdemeanour but by this Action to take such farther notice of him as to conferr upon him the Honour of Knighthood and as a more special token of his Grace and Favour to admit him again into the Commission of the Peace out of which he had by means of his Adversary been then lately before strucken out But a more noble instance than this to prove the fortitude of his mind as well in daring dangers as bearing troubles appears in his staying in Town in the time of the last great Sickness when the two great Cities of London and Westminster were in a manner deserted by their Inhabitants and few left but such of the poorer sort who wanted Mony or Friends to remove themselves farther when the Arrows of the Almighty were scattered abroad in every corner when almost every House was turned into a Sepulchre and Epitaph'd with the doleful Inscription of a Miserere Domine while the Dead and Living seemed buryed together when the fear of the Contagion rendered the few Inhabitants as unsociable to each other as they would with wild Beasts in a Wilderness every man fearing to come near another lest he should meet with his own Executioner when their very words conveyed with a lethiferous Air were feared as Bullets when breath it self the Instruments of Life in one should be death

Father to Son he seemed as 't were Born to be a Justice of Peace as 't is observed by that Learned and Worthy Prelate Dr. Lloyd in that excellent Sermon he preach'd at his Funeral His Father by several Wives had a Numerous Issue no less than Ten Sons Our Sir Edmondbury being the Sixth by a Second Venter yet though the Father himself was but a younger Brother the Grandfather left so plentiful an Estate to him as served to afford sufficient allowances to his Children None of them but with what was left them besides the laudable improvements they made to it by Trade and Traffick lived plentifully and in good repute Sir Edmondbury had in his youth bestowed upon him an Education suitable to his Birth and Quality being first put to Westminster School that Prime Nurserie and Pae dagogie of Tyronick Learning where in a little time by the strength of his extraordinary Parts he arrived to that proficiency as to be sent to the University in order to his maturation in Studies of an higher Nature Having continued there for some time a diligent and industrious Student in those parts of Learning which afterwards qualified him for great and worthy Employments he was afterwards sent over to Travel in Foreign parts to advance the Theorie of his speculative acquirements by Observation of Men and Manners and became thereby the better qualified to discharge himself in those publick Places to which he was afterwards called During the time of his Travels he kept himself by the aids of the Divine Grace as well free from the contagion of the Immoralities as the equally dangerous false Religion of the places in which he conversed the two destructive Rocks upon which most of the unseasoned youth of the Gentry of this Kingdom when exposed to the like Temptations by their incautelous Parents out of a vain humour of a fancied accomplishment to be gained by Travel do infortunately split For by those sound Principles of Religion and Vertue which he had imbibed by the means of his careful Parents and Instructors he was sufficiently antidoted against both returning home rather informed than corrupted like the laborious Bee extracting the Hony of useful Experience and Observations from the worst of things After his return home to his Native Countrey his careful Father to render him as well accomplished in Domestick Learning as Foreign Experiences sent him next to 〈…〉 and admitted hi● 〈◊〉 Member of the Honourable Society of Greys-Inn there to Study the Regal and Municipal Laws of this Kingdom And in this place though he continued not long enough according to the Rules of such Societies to assume the Graduates Robe of that Profession yet he arrived to that mature proficiencie as gave him a good Title to it And wanted nothing but a Complement of time to make him capable of it But the reason of his so soon leaving the Societie was a sense he had in himself of a defect in his Hearing or a kind of Deafness which though not very great was alwayes Natural to him and was judged by himself and Friends might be an hindrance to him in the nice and difficult practice of Pleading where the circumstances of debated Matters from the Mouths of Pleaders or Witnesses not being audibly received might be a great prejudice to the Clyent 's Business and withal some unhealthiness in his Body which in the laborious employment of the Law-practice might be prejudicial to him For these Reasons after some Years continuance in that Inn he removed himself into the Countrey amongst his Friends Amongst whom he diverted himself for some time but his generous Soul being too active to be confined to the retirement of a private Solitude and conversation could not long rest in this inert and useless Capacity but put him upon some undertakings wherein he might improve the activity of his industrious Spirit for the good of himself and others Idleness being alwayes a burthen to him to whom Labour never was so the fatigues of the latter in its most difficult managements were so little ungrateful to him that he seemed never better pleas'd than when he had least case for indeed Business was so natural to him that it was never uneasie He was most in his Element when he was employed in publick or private Offices of doing good and none was ever more indefatigable in such Offices than himself And Providence was so auspicious to him in these generous designments as in a short time to offer him a fair occasion of putting them in Execution by means of an intimate Friend and Relation of his who had lost a great part of his Estate by reason of his Services for the King in the late Wars and having reduced the rest into Stock resolved to improve the same in way of Trade by taking a Wood-yard and Buying and Selling Wood and Coals an Employment not only creditable but known to be usually very gainful to the Undertakers especially such as have any considerable Stocks to manage it with Sir Edmonbury Godfrey being a younger Brother and what Estate he had consisting in Moneys to the value of 1000 l. or thereabouts was advised as a fair way of improvement to join Stocks with the aforesaid Gentleman and to come in a Partner with him in managing the Trade of a Wood-wharf which he accordingly did setling themselves first at Dowgate within the City of London where in a few Years that they continued Trading together it pleased God so to bless their honest industry and indeavours that they advanced their Stocks to a very considerable increase advantage so indulgent is Providence commonly to the honest endeavours of industrious Persons that the more laborious they are in the Employments they are called to the more they thrive and are blessed in them How may the Example of these two Trading Gentlemen reproach the unthrifty humours of too many of the Gentry of these Dayes who study no other Arts but that of spending and wastefully to consume the Patrimonies that their careful Fathers had gathered for them in all the expensive Modes of Luxury and Riot and while they scornfully disdain those laudable Employments and means of Thrift by which they might be serviceable to the Common-wealth and advance their Families what do they by taking the contrary courses but precipitate themselves upon the Rocks of unavoidable contempt and Beggery and so become themselves the Scorn of those industrious Persons whose wayes of Thriving they formerly contemned Having thus by their joint Trading as I have said acquir'd considerable advantages to their particular Estates in a few Years that they dealt together It afterwards happened that Mr. Harrison Sir Edmondbury Godfrey's Partner altered his Condition by Marrying a near Relation of Sir Edmondbury's the other continuing still and to the Day of his Death in the state of Coelibacy but whether it were upon this account the Family being too much inlarged for their commodious Cohabitation or that their Stocks being