Fate of the King's Judges-Goffe and Whalley

The members of the House of Commons had constituted a High Court of Justice for the trial of Charles the First, and many of them signed his death-warrant. These were hunted by the royal vengeance. Some perished on the scaffold. Among these were Hugh Peters and Henry Vane, who had figured conspicuously in New England more than twenty years before. Many fled and so escaped the fatal block. Among these were Edward Whalley and William Goffe, who went to New England and gave the first news of the restoration of monarchy. The former was a cousin of Cromwell and of Hampden, and a distinguished cavalry officer. He had been intrusted with the custody of the royal prisoner, and was one of the signers of his death-warrant. Cromwell appointed him one of the major-generals who assisted in the government of the commonwealth, and was of his most active lieutenants. Goffe, a son of a Puritan clergyman, was Whalley's son-in-law, a colonel of infantry and member of the High Court who signed the death-warrant of the king. He, also, was one of Cromwell's ten major-generals.

Orders speedily followed the fugitives to New England for their arrest, and officers came from Old England for the same purpose. The "regicides," or king-killers, as they were called, were, after awhile, closely hunted, but the authorities and people of New England effectually concealed them from their enemies for years. When danger lowered, they fled from Boston to New Haven, and for a long time occupied a cave not far from that place. Finally they made their abode in the remote town of Hadley, where they were joined by Colonel Dixwell, another "regicide," who finally settled in New Haven. In Hadley, Whalley died. Goffe survived him until after King Phillip's war, which we shall notice presently; but from the time when they took up their abode there, in disguise, they disappeared from public view. During that period, so terrible to New England settlers, Hadley was surrounded by hostile Indians. The people were in the meeting-house observing a fast day. They were armed, as usual, and sallied out to drive off the savages. At that moment a tall, venerable personage, with a white, flowing beard, clad in a white robe and carrying a glittering sword, suddenly appeared among the people, took the lead of the armed men, caused them to observe strict military discipline, and led them to victory. The people believed the stranger (who as suddenly disappeared) to be an angel sent by the Lord for their deliverance. The "angel" was General Goffe, who was stout in body and valiant in spirit. It is related that soon after his arrival in Boston, a fencing-master erected a stage on the Common, on which he walked several days, defying any man to fight him with swords. Goffe accepted the challenge. He wrapped a huge cheese in a linen cloth as a shield, and arming himself with a mop filled with muddy water from the gutter, he appeared on the platform. The fencing-master made a thrust at him, which Goffe received in the cheese in which he held the sword until he had smeared his antagonist with mud. The enraged fencing-master caught up a broad-sword, when Goffe exclaimed: "Stop, sir; hitherto, you see, I have only played with you, and not attempted to harm you; but if you come at me now with the broad-sword, know that I will certainly take your life." The alarmed fencing-master cried out, as he dropped his sword, "Who can you be? You must be either Goffe, or Whalley, or the Devil, for there were no other men in England who could beat me."

The New England colonies, and especially that of Massachusetts, expected very little favor from the new monarch, for their republicanism was decided and conspicuous. In the course of a few months after the restoration the General Court of Massachusetts sent addresses to the King and Parliament, chiefly because enemies of New England evidently possessed the confidence of the monarch and his ministers. In those addresses, general loyalty was expressed, and they prayed for a "continuance of civil and religious liberties" which they had long enjoyed, and promised for the crown, in return for its protection of their freedom, the "blessings of a people trust is in God."

The king returned a gracious answer in the form of general expressions of good-will, but his smiles were not propitious. He resolved not to show these distant political enemies of his father any favors. The stringent provisions of the navigation laws and commercial restrictions from which Cromwell had exempted the New Englanders were now renewed and rigorously enforced. Expecting collisions with the Crown, the latter, in Massachusetts, issued a declaration of natural and chartered rights, in which they claimed the liberty to choose their own executive officers and representatives; to admit freemen on their own prescribed terms; to appoint all officers and define their powers and duties; to exercise, by annually elected magistrates and deputies, any function of human government; to defend themselves by force of arms, if necessary, against every aggression, and to reject, as an infringement of their right, "any parliamentary or royal imposition prejudicial to the country and contrary to any just act of colonial legislation."