Terry Foreman on 26 May 2012  •  Link

Stephen Goffe (Gough) (b. 1605; d. at Paris, Christmas Day, 1681) was a Royalist agent of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, and later an Oratorian priest. He was educated at Merton College, Oxford, becoming M.A. in 1627. He took orders and became chaplain to Colonel Vere's regiment in the Low Countries.

Subsequently Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans obtained his appointment as one of the chaplains to Charles I of England, in which capacity he was created D.D. in 1636. He was often employed in secret negotiations in France, Flanders, and Holland. He was rector of Herstmonceaux from 1639.

During the Civil War he was arrested and charged with attempting to rescue the king, then a prisoner at Hampton Court. After the execution of the king (whose death-warrant was signed by Stephen's brother William), he went to France, where he became a Catholic. Dodd and other Catholics have disproved the story that the Sorbonne admitted the validity of his Anglican orders.

He became an Oratorian on 14 January, 1651, at Notre-Dame-des Vertues near Paris, where he became superior in 1655. Here he helped English exiles, both Protestants and Catholics, using his influence with Queen Henrietta Maria on their behalf; and on her appointment he acted as tutor to the young Duke of Monmouth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Step…