Christopher Goodman - Return To England

Return To England

Intercessions were meanwhile made for his return to England, though John Calvin exhorted him to finish his work in Scotland. Goodman's irascibility impeded his progress. Cecil told Sadler in 1559 that, next to Knox, Goodman's name was the most odious of his party to Elizabeth, and fellow reformer John Jewel wrote that Goodman was "a man of irritable temper, and too pertinaceous in anything he has once undertaken". However, John Erskine, 17th Earl of Mar favoured his views, and in 1562 asked leave to bring him in his train to a projected meeting between Elizabeth and Mary, Queen of Scots. Ambrose Dudley, 3rd Earl of Warwick from Le Havre also begged (in December) Dudley and Cecil to give Goodman employment with his army in Normandy.

At last by Randolph's advice he ventured into England in the winter of 1565. He went to Ireland (January 1566) as chaplain to Sir Henry Sidney, the new lord deputy, who in the spring of 1567 recommended him to be bishop of Dublin, and promised him the deanery of St. Patrick's Cathedral. Goodman, however, received neither of these offices. It was probably when Sidney returned to England in 1570 that he was appointed to the living of Alford, near Chester, and made archdeacon of Richmond.

In the next year he was deprived by Bishop Vaughan for nonconformity, and in April 1571 brought before the ecclesiastical commissioners at Lambeth; the commission also moved at this time against Edward Dering, John Field, Thomas Lever, Thomas Sampson and Percival Wiburn. He was obliged to make a full recantation of his published opinions, and a protest in writing of his dutiful obedience to the queen's person and her lawful government. In June he was again examined before Archbishop Matthew Parker, and forbidden to preach. He complained (26 July) to Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester of his hard treatment. In August he returned to Chester.

In 1584 Goodman refused to subscribe to the articles and the service book, and Archbishop John Whitgift complained of his perversity to the lord treasurer. Having no living he was not however again examined, but allowed to spend the rest of his days peacefully at Chester. When James Ussher came to England to collect books for the Dublin Library, he visited Goodman (4 June 1603), then lying on his deathbed. Goodman was buried at Chester, in St. Bride's Church.