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CHAPTER XIII.

Ir was in the midst of such commotions as are described in the last chapter, that the people of the confederated Colonies received the momentous intelligence of the restoration of the monarchy of England.

The Address of the General Court of Massachusetts to the King was favorably received.1 The strength of the Confederacy of which that Colony was the head was perhaps overrated at court; and it was probably thought prudent to abstain from a quarrel with so important a branch of the Puritan interest, till affairs should be more settled, and better information should be obtained. The

Favorable

reception by the Address

the King of

from Massa

chusetts. 1661.

Feb. 15.

King, through Secretary Morrice, informed Endicott, that, since he had resumed his "regal authority," he had "made it his care to settle his lately distracted kingdoms at home, and to extend his thoughts to increase the trade and advantages of his colonies and plantations abroad; amongst which," he said, "as we consider New England to be one of the chiefest, having enjoyed, and grown up in, a long and orderly establishment, so we shall not come behind any of our royal predecessors in a just encouragement and protection of all our loving subjects there, whose application unto us, since our late happy restoration, hath been very acceptable, and shall not want its due remembrance upon all seasonable occasions; neither shall we forget to make you and all our good people in those parts equal partakers of those promises of liberty and moderation to tender consciences, expressed in our

1 See above, p. 449.

gracious declarations." 1 Such language tended to relieve present anxiety, and to facilitate the reception of another document of a different character, which was perhaps transmitted by the same ship, though it bore a little earlier date. This was an order for the apprehension of the fugitive regicides, Colonel in Boston. Whalley and Colonel Goffe, whom one Captain Breedon, returning to London, reported that he had seen at Boston in the preceding summer.

Regicides

Jan. 23.

The friendly welcome, which had in fact been extended there to the distinguished fugitives, cannot be confidently interpreted as an indication of favorable judgment of the act for which their lives were now in danger. No Colony of New England had formally expressed approval of the execution of King Charles the First; nor is there any other evidence of its having been generally regarded there with satisfaction. In New England, as in the parent country, it probably divided the opinions of patriotic men. In New England, remote from the scene of those crimes which had provoked so extreme a retribution, there was probably greater difficulty in admitting the force of the reasons by which the measure was vindicated. And the sympathy of New England would be more likely to be with Vane, than with Cromwell. But the strangers, however one act of theirs might be regarded, had been eminent among those who had fought for

1 Hutch. Coll., 333.
2 Hutch. Hist., I. 195.

* I wish I knew more of the antecedents of this man. I gather from a letter of Thomas Lake to Leverett, (Mass. Hist. Coll., XXVII. 120,) that Breedon was in Boston before September, 1657, and that he was in some relations with Sir Thomas Temple. The prosperity of Boston now invited single commercial adventurers from England, who often came with

no intention of permanent residence ; and I think that Breedon was one of these. May 5, 1660, he and Hezekiah Usher gave a bond to "Colonel William Crowne " to secure to Crowne the payment by Temple of four years' lease of Crowne's "whole truck and trade with the Indians and natives in all his division and extent of land to him belonging in the country of New Scotland or Lacadie." (Mass. Archives, II. 506–508.)

the rights of Englishmen; and they brought introductions from men venerated and beloved by the people among whom a refuge was sought.

Edward Whalley, a younger son of a good family, first cousin of the Protector Oliver, and of John Hampden,

Edward
Whalley.

1646.

Jan. 21.

distinguished himself at the battle of Naseby as an officer of cavalry, and in the following winter was promoted by Parliament to be Colonel of a regiment.1 He commanded at the storm of Banbury, at the first capture of Worcester,2 and elsewhere. He was intrusted with the custody of the King's person at Hampton Court. And he sat in the High Court of Justice at the trial of Charles, and was one of the signers of the death-warrant. After the battle of Dunbar, where he again won renown, he was left Sept. 3. by Cromwell in Scotland, in command of four regiments of horse. He was one of the Major-Generals among whom the Protector parcelled out the local administration of the realm, and in that capacity governed the counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester. He sat as a member for Nottinghamshire in Cromwell's second and third Parliaments, and was called

1650.

The chaplain of Whalley's regiment was no less a person than Richard Baxter. When his old Colonel had reached a higher eminence, the author of "The Saints' Rest" dedicated to him one of his minor works, with the most cordial expressions of reverence and affection. (Baxter, Practical Works, I. 453.)

The officer who held Worcester at this time for the King was Colonel Sir Henry Washington, of the family from which descended the first President of the United States. (See Sparks, Writings of George Washington, I. 545; Irving, Life of Washington, I. 14, 15; Sir Simondson D'Ewes, Autobiography, I. 430; Simpkinson,

The

"The Washingtons," &c., 324.
last-named work, published in England
within the present year, contains, along
with other highly interesting antiqua-
rian matter, an original and welcome
contribution to our knowledge of the
ancestry of the great American.)

Dr. Stiles (History of Three of the Judges of King Charles, 99) has preserved the list of the High Court of Justice, which Whalley and Goffe kept by them, and in which they entered memoranda of the later fortunes of their associates, as from time to time intelligence reached them. Compare it with the lists in Walker, "History of Independency," II. 58; Rushworth, VII. 1379. Carlyle, Cromwell, I. 472.

up to "the other House," when that body was constituted.

William Goffe, son of a Puritan clergyman in Sussex, was a member of Parliament, and a colonel of infantry soon after the breaking out of the civil war. He William married a daughter of Whalley. Like his father- Goffe. in-law, he was a member of the High Court of Justice for the King's trial, a signer of the warrant for his execution, a member of the Protector's second and third Parliaments, and, finally, a member of "the other House." He commanded Cromwell's regiment at the battle of Dunbar, and rendered service particularly acceptable to him in the second expurgation of the Long Par- Sept. 12. liament. As one of the ten Major-Generals, he held the government of Hampshire, Berkshire, and Sussex.

1654.

In his Declaration at Breda, King Charles the Second had promised that none should be called to account for their share in the late troubles, except such as should be designated by Act of Parliament; and when Whalley and Goffe left England to escape what they apprehended might prove the fate of regicides, the will of Parliament in respect to persons circumstanced as they were had not been promulgated. They came to Boston in the vessel which brought the news of the King's accession. Having been courteously welcomed there by the Gov- The Colonels ernor, they proceeded, the same day, to Cam- at Cambridge, which place for the present they made their home. For some months they appeared there freely in public. They attended the religious services at the meeting-house, and others held in private dwellings, at which latter they prayed, and prophesied, or exhorted. They visited some of the principal towns in the neighborhood; were often in Boston; and were received, wherever they went, with assiduous attention.2

1 She was well connected also on the side of her mother, who was a sister of Sir George Middleton.

bridge.

1660.

July 27.

2 In a Memorial of Breedon, preserved in the rich collection in the State Paper Office, he says: "At the

At length, intelligence came to Massachusetts of the Act of Indemnity, and that Whalley and Goffe were among those who were marked for vengeance. Affairs meanwhile had been growing critical between Massachusetts and the mother country; and, though some members of the General Court assured them of protection, others thought it more prudent that they should have a hint to provide for their safety in some way which would not imply an affront to the royal government on the part of the Colony. The Governor called a Court of Assistants, and without secrecy asked their advice respecting his Feb. 22. obligation to secure the refugees. The Court

1661.

arrival of Whalley and Goffe, who came to New England under the names of Richardson and Stephenson, I, knowing them, commanded them before the Governor, and acquainted him they were two of the King's judges, declared traitors and murderers, and therefore advised him to secure them; who answered, without a commission from England none should meddle with them. For my service herein, I was abused by many by calling me malignant;' and the MarshalGeneral of the country, coming to me before several in court time, used these expressions, grinning in my face: Speak against Whalley and Goffe, if you dare, if you dare, if you dare.' Afterwards came to my hand the Act of Parliament and the King's Proclamation, which some vilified, and said they were mere malignant pamphlets I had picked up."

In the same collection is an affidavit of John Crowne (see above, 286, note 4) relating to the same subject. It has been printed by Chalmers (Annals, 263). The following is part of it :

"John Crowne, gentleman, maketh oath that while he was at Boston, in New England, soon after his Majesty's happy restoration, Goffe and Whalley,

two of the execrable murderers of his Majesty's royal father, of blessed memory, landed there; and, at their landing, were conducted to the house of John Endicott, then Governor of the Massachusetts Colony, and that it was reported by all the deponent conversed with, that the said Governor embraced them, bade them welcome to New England, and wished more such good men as they would come over; that, after, the said Goffe and Whalley resided some time at Boston, visiting and being visited by the principal persons in the town; and that, among others, they visited Mr. John Norton, the Teacher of the principal Independent church in the said town, and one of those who came over with the Address and Letter of the said Colony to his Majesty; that the deponent then boarded in the house of Mr. Norton, and was present when they visited him, and that he received them with great demonstrations of tenderness; that, after this, the said Goffe and Whalley went and resided in Cambridge, (the University of New England, of which the deponent was a member,) and that, having acquaintance with many of that University, he inquired of them how the said Goffe and Whalley were received; and that

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