Thomas Godden

Thomas Godden, real name Tylden (1624 in Addington, Kent – 1 December 1688 in London) was an English courtier and Catholic priest , who was falsely implicated on charges of murder and treason in the Titus Oates or Popish plot, but managed to flee the country.

His father, William Tylden, was able to provide a liberal education for his son and Thomas was sent first to a private school in Holburg, conducted by a Mr. Gill, and in his fifteenth year entered Queen's College, Oxford. The next year found him at St John's College, Cambridge, and in 1640 he was made a Billingsley scholar. He received a B.A. in 1641, but the influence of John Sargeant, with whom he became acquainted during his college course, had induced him to enter the Catholic Church, and in 1642 the two set out for the English College, Lisbon. In due course Godden was ordained, and so distinguished himself by his scholarship and controversial ability that in 1650 we find him lecturing in philosophy in the college. He rapidly ascended the ladder of academic distinction, and after being successively professor of theology, prefect of studies, and vice-president, succeeded Dr. Clayton as president of the college in 1655. Five years later he was thought worthy of the degree of Doctor of Divinity, and had established such a reputation for eloquence and piety that Princess Catherine of Braganza, about to marry Charles II, brought Godden to England with her, as her private chaplain. He was well received in his native country and enjoyed every evidence of royal favour.

The disturbances caused by Oates' fabricated Popish plot, however, affected Godden very seriously. The informer and perjurer Miles Prance, (who was by trade a silversmith with close connections to the Court) who had been arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of complicity in the Plot, upon being examined about the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, swore that Godden and his servant Lawrence Hill had been concerned in the crime, and that Godfrey's corpse had been concealed for a time in Godden's apartments. Prance could suggest no plausible motive for the crime, merely saying vaguely that Godden had taken the side of two Irish priests, Fr Kelly and Fr Fitzgerald, in a quarrel with Godfrey, and that the quarrel for no clear reason led to murder.

...
Wikipedia