Family and Education

b. by 1514, s. of Thomas Goodere of Hadley by Jane, da. of Sir Thomas Haute of Kent; half-bro. of Thomas Wroth. educ. G. Inn, adm. 1529. m. by 1534, Ursula, da. of Ralph Rowlett of London and St. Albans, Herts., 3s. inc. Henry^† 1da.2

Offices Held

Commr. for i.p.m., Mdx. 1535, lunacy 1540, musters 1546; j.p. 1537-d.3

Biography

Gooderes had lived at Hadley, on the borders of Middlesex and Hertfordshire, for at least six generations before Thomas Goodere married into the ancient Kent family of Haute. Francis Goodere was probably still a minor on his father’s death, since his mother later married Robert Wroth of Enfield, to whom she bore a son Thomas in 1518. In the list of Sir Thomas Lovell I’s household appended to his will of 10 Dec. 1522 Francis Goodere appears among the ‘young gentlemen’ and as such received a livery at Lovell’s funeral in May 1524.4

After training as a lawyer Goodere entered Cromwell’s service, perhaps introduced thereto by the Wroths, and in 1538 was included in a list of the minister’s gentlemen ‘meet to be preferred unto the King’s Majesty’s service’. He had many kinsmen in London and Middlesex, the scene of all his public activities. In October 1539 Chancellor Audley was licensed to alienate to Francis Goodere and his heirs the advowson of South Mimms in Middlesex and the manor of Monken Hadley in Hertfordshire.5

Goodere held no property in Calne, the borough for which he was returned with Robert Long, a local gentleman, on 26 Jan. 1545, and he must therefore be regarded as a nominee. Of two possible patrons the more valuable is likely to have been Queen Catherine Parr, the owner of a manor in the locality: as brother-in-law to John Cock II, the Queen’s attorney, Goodere could well have shared in the support which seemingly secured the return of not less than seven other dependants of hers for Wiltshire seats at this election and which almost certainly accounted for that of Cock himself for Calne at the next. The other source of influence, Sir Thomas Seymour II, whom Goodere was to name as overseer of his will in December 1546, is perhaps to be regarded, in the light of his past and future relationship to the Queen, less as an alternative than as an auxiliary recommendation. Goodere’s connexion with the Wroth family, influential at court, may also have helped him.6

Seymour patronage would also account for Goodere’s prosperity towards the end of his life. In April 1545 he paid £1,422 for the house and lands of the former nunnery of Polesworth, Warwickshire, together with Radway Grange and the manor of Baginton. Earlier in the same year he had been licensed to alienate Monken Hadley and the rectory of South Mimms to William Stanford. In spite of these transactions Goodere still called himself a resident of London in his will and it also seems that he retained an interest in property near the capital, since his second son Thomas was enjoined to allow Stanford peaceful possessions.7

When Goodere made his will on 15 Dec. 1546 he committed his soul simply to God his creator and redeemer. Polesworth he left to his eldest son Henry, a third of all his lands to his widow, and £10 a year from Baginton to Thomas. The executors were his half-brother Thomas Wroth, his brothers-in-law Sir Ralph Rowlett and John Cock, and his uncle Henry Goodere. They were enjoined to maintain the three younger children until they came of age and to sell Radway Grange in order to buy crown lands at Polesworth, which could be added to the main inheritance. Goodere died a week after making his will and his wife a few weeks later, leaving a 13 year-old son and heir, whose wardship was granted to Sir Ralph Rowlett in 1550 and who was licensed to enter on his father’s lands in 1555.8

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Warws. (Harl. Soc. xii), 67; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. xlii), 214; Vis. Herts. (Harl. Soc. xxii), 20; CPR, 1555-7, pp. 159-60; PCC 45 Alen.
• 3. LP Hen. VIII, ix, xii-xiv, xvi, xviii, xx, xxi.
• 4. Vis. Mdx. (Harl. Soc. lxv), 17, 24; PCC 27 Jankyn; LP Hen. VIII, iv.
• 5. LP Hen. VIII, xii, xiii, xx; M. L. Robertson, ‘Cromwell’s servants’ (Univ. California Los Angeles Ph.D. thesis, 1975), 494.
• 6. Vis. Warws. 67; PCC 45 Alen.
• 7. LP Hen. VIII, xx.
• 8. PCC 45 Alen; C142/85/73; VCH Warws. iv. 189.