Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Goodacre, Hugh
GOODACRE, HUGH (d. 1553), primate of Ireland, was vicar of Shalfleet, Isle of Wight, and chaplain to Bishop Poynet of Winchester. Strype supposes him to have been at first chaplain to Princess Elizabeth, who about 1548 or 1549 procured him a license to preach from the Protector, saying in a letter to Cecil that he had been 'long time known unto her to be as well of honest conversation and sober living as of sufficient learning and judgment in the Scriptures to preach the Word of God.' When Archbishop George Dowdall, who was opposed to the Reformation, retired from Armagh in 1552, Cranmer recommended Goodacre to Edward VI for the vacant see as 'a wise and well learned man,' and he was appointed by a letter under the privy seal dated 28 Oct. 1552. On 2 Feb. 1552-3 he was consecrated in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. He died in Dublin on 1 May of the same year, not without suspicion of having been poisoned by priests 'for preaching God's verity and rebuking their common vices' (Bale, Vocacyon, p. 343; see also Burnet, Reformation, iii. 325). He is said to have been 'famed for his preaching' (Strype). None of his writings were published.
[Ware's Bishops of Ireland; Strype's Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer; Cotton's Fasti; Mant's Hist. of Church of Ireland.]