Francis Godwin (1562–1633) was an English historian, science fiction author,

divine Divinity or the divine are things that are either related to, devoted to, or proceeding from a deity.divine< ...

Bishop of Llandaff The Bishop of Llandaff is the ordinary of the Church in Wales Diocese of Llandaff. Area of authority The diocese covers most of the County of Glamorgan. The bishop's seat is in the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul (the site of ...

and of Hereford.

Life

He was the son of Thomas Godwin,

Bishop of Bath and Wells The Bishop of Bath and Wells heads the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells in the Province of Canterbury in England. The present diocese covers the overwhelmingly greater part of the (ceremonial) county of Somerset and a small area of D ...

, born at

Hannington, Northamptonshire Hannington is a village in West Northamptonshire in England. At the time of the 2011 census the parish's population was 251 people. Ancient history of Hannington and the Church of St Peter and St Paul The villages name means 'Farm/settleme ...

. He was the great uncle of the writer

Jonathan Swift Jonathan Swift (30 November 1667 – 19 October 1745) was an Anglo-Irish satirist, author, essayist, political pamphleteer (first for the Whigs, then for the Tories), poet, and Anglican cleric who became Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Du ...

. He was elected student of

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniq ...

, in 1578, took his bachelor's degree in 1580, and that of master in 1583. After holding two

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

livings he was in 1587 appointed

subdean {{Unreferenced, date=June 2019 A sub-dean is a person who acts as an assistant to a dean either in church circuit as a priest or minister or an academic institution. They are, however, not a vice-dean. A vice-dean is a person who can deputize a de ...

Exeter Exeter () is a city in Devon, South West England. It is situated on the River Exe, approximately northeast of Plymouth and southwest of Bristol. In Roman Britain, Exeter was established as the base of Legio II Augusta under the personal comm ...

. In 1590 he accompanied

William Camden William Camden (2 May 1551 – 9 November 1623) was an English antiquarian, historian, topographer, and herald, best known as author of ''Britannia'', the first chorographical survey of the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, and the ''Ann ...

on an antiquarian tour through Wales. He was created bachelor of divinity in 1593, and doctor in 1595. In 1601 he published his ''Catalogue of the Bishops of England since the first planting of the Christian Religion in this Island'', a work which procured him in the same year the diocese of Llandaff. A second edition appeared in 1615, and in 1616 he published an edition in Latin with a dedication to King James, who in the following year conferred upon him the bishopric of

Hereford Hereford () is a cathedral city, civil parish and the county town of Herefordshire, England. It lies on the River Wye, approximately east of the border with Wales, south-west of Worcester, England, Worcester and north-west of Gloucester. ...

. The work was republished, with a continuation by William Richardson, in 1743. Godwin died, after a lingering illness, in April 1633 in Whitbourne,

Herefordshire Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouths ...

Works

In 1616 Godwin published ''Rerum Anglicarum, Henrico VIII., Edwardo VI. et Maria regnantibus, Annales'', which was afterwards translated and published by his son Morgan under the title ''Annales of England'' (1630). He is also the author of a somewhat remarkable story, published posthumously in 1638, and entitled '' The Man in the Moone, or a Discourse of a Voyage thither, by Domingo Gonsales'', written apparently some time in the 1620s. (On the date of composition, see John Anthony Butler's edition of ''The Man in the Moon'' ovehouse, 1995 pp. 14–15.) In this production Godwin not only declares himself a believer in the Copernican system, but adopts so far the principles of the law of

gravitation In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...

as to suppose that weight decreases with distance from the Earth. The work, which displays considerable fancy and wit, influenced

John Wilkins John Wilkins, (14 February 1614 – 19 November 1672) was an Anglican clergyman, natural philosopher, and author, and was one of the founders of the Royal Society. He was Bishop of Chester from 1668 until his death. Wilkins is one of the ...

' ''The discovery of a world in the Moone''. Both works were translated into French, and were imitated in several important particulars by

Cyrano de Bergerac Savinien de Cyrano de Bergerac ( , ; 6 March 1619 – 28 July 1655) was a French novelist, playwright, epistolarian, and duelist. A bold and innovative author, his work was part of the libertine literature of the first half of the 17th cen ...

, from whom (if not from Godwin directly)

obtained valuable hints in writing of Gulliver's voyage to Laputa. Another work of Godwin's, ''Nuncius inanimatus, published In Utopia'', originally printed in 1629 and again in 1657, seems to have been the prototype of John Wilkins's ''Mercury, or the Secret and Swift Messenger'', which appeared in 1641. Another work was ''De praesulibus Angliae'' (1616).

References

External links

The Encyclopedia of Astrobiology, Astronomy and Space Flight

Concept of Weightlessness
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Godwin, Francis 1562 births 1633 deaths Bishops of Hereford Bishops of Llandaff People from West Northamptonshire District 16th-century English Anglican priests 17th-century Church of England bishops 17th-century English historians 17th-century English male writers English science fiction writers 17th-century English novelists 17th-century Welsh Anglican bishops