Henry Goodere (politician)

Sir Henry Goodere (1534–1595) was an English landowner, Member of Parliament for Stafford (1563) and Coventry (1571), and a supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Family background

He was the son of Francis Goodere of Polesworth Hall and Ursula Rowlett.^[1]

Career

He went to meet Mary, Queen of Scots in 1568 at Workington when she first came into England from Scotland. He gave her a cipher code to write to her friends.^[2]

Goodere was held in the Tower of London in 1571 and interviewed by his family relative William Cecil and the Earl of Southampton on suspicion of treason,^[3] in connection with a plan for Mary to marry the Duke of Norfolk and the Ridolfi plot.^[4] He was questioned about a plan for Mary to escape and be escorted by Gerard Lowther to one of his houses, a former abbey.^[5]

Goodere wrote a poem defending the Scottish queen, "If former good could answer present ill".^[6] His political enemy Thomas Norton responded to the poem with another verse.^[7]

He was released and subsequently knighted in 1588. He became the Queen's chief bodyguard. He was High Sheriff of Warwickshire in 1570 and High Steward of the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield from 1582 until his death.

Family and namesake son-in-law

He married Frances Lowther. Her father, Richard Lowther, was also questioned about the cipher given to Mary. Their daughter was Frances Goodere. She married Henry Goodere (died 1627).^[8] The younger Henry Goodere was the founder of "the Polesworth Circle", a private organization that influenced most of Great Britain through Shakespeare's literary works, Inigo Jones' architectural work and Michael Drayton's poetry. He was friends with John Donne.^[9] His society helped finance the 'Virginia adventure'.^{[citation needed]}

References

• Graves, Michael A. R. "Goodere, Sir Henry". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/11002. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

1. 'GOODERE, Henry (1534-95), of Polesworth', The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
2. M. S. Giuseppi, HMC Calendar of Hatfield Manuscripts, vol. 7 (London, 1938), p. 120
3. Grace Goodyear Kirkman, Genealogy of the Goodyear Family (1899), p. 25.
4. Arthur Gray, A Chapter in the Early Life of Shakespeare: Polesworth in Arden (Cambridge, 1926), pp. 94, 101.
5. HMC Calendar of Hatfield Manuscripts, vol. 1 (London, 1883), p. 458 no. 1456.
6. Daniel Starza Smith, John Donne and the Conway Papers: Patronage and Manuscript Circulation (Oxford, 2014), p. 197.
7. Steven W. May & Alan Bryson, Verse Libel in Renaissance England and Scotland (Oxford, 2016), pp. 198-199.
8. GOODYER, Sir Henry (?1571-1627), of Polesworth, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
9. Lawson, Lesley (2007). Out of the Shadows: The Life of Lucy, Countess of Bedford. London. p. 70.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Honorary titles
Preceded by Sir John Throckmorton	High Steward of Sutton Coldfield 1582–1595	Succeeded by Richard Repington

|}