Arthur Goodwin

Arthur Goodwin (died August 16, 1643) was an English member of parliament from Buckinghamshire who supported the Parliamentary cause during the English Civil War.

Family and upbringing

He was the son of Francis Goodwin (1564–1634), a landed gentleman of Upper Winchendon and Elizabeth Grey (d. 1630), daughter of Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey of Wilton. He was educated in Oxforshire at Lord Williams's School. He was admitted a barrister of the Inner Temple in 1613 graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford in February 1614.

In April 1618, he married Jane Wenman, daughter of Richard Wenman, 1st Viscount Wenman, by whom he had one daughter:
* Jane Goodwin (1618–1658), married Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton in 1637

He was a burgess for High Wycombe in the parliaments of 1621 and 1624, and Aylesbury in 1626. In 1640, he and his old friend John Hampden were knights of the shire for Buckinghamshire in the Short and subsequently the Long Parliaments. Goodwin was a strong Parliamentarian and Puritan, opposing many of the policies of Charles I of England.

When open war broke out between Parliament and the King, he gave substantial sums to the Parliamentarian cause, and commanded a cavalry regiment at the Battle of Edgehill and Turnham Green. However, he was primarily active on his home ground in Buckinghamshire and the surrounding counties. He joined Hampden and Bulstrode Whitelocke in August 1642 to capture the Earl of Berkshire, who had been attempting to execute a commission of array in Oxfordshire for the King. Hampden and Goodwin also captured the Earl of Northampton at Daventry that year. Goodwin was appointed Parliamentary commander-in-chief of Buckinghamshire in January 1643, and made an unsuccessful attempt to seize Brill. While harrying Prince Rupert's troops after the siege of Reading, Hampden was wounded at Chalgrove Field. Goodwin persuaded him to leave the field and ride to Thame, where he died on June 24. Goodwin himself died shortly thereafter, at Clerkenwell, on 16 August 1643.