Paddy Corcoran
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| “Cromwell lifting the Coffin-lid and looking at the body of Charles I”, by Hippolyte Delaroche |
On Friday,
30th of January, we remember His Majesty Charles I, who was executed
365 years ago today, on a bitter winter morning in 1649, changing
forever the course of England's history and that of the
English-speaking peoples. Fifty-nine signatures penned His Majesty's
death warrant, and one of its signers and major role players in the
execution of the King was William Goffe.
In 1660,
when the monarchy was finally restored under Charles II, Goffe fled
England for the colonies, taking part in some of the major Indian
conflicts there. By this time, nowhere in the Anglosphere were
Roundhead sympathies more hideously lukewarm than in New England,
especially Massachusetts.
Anti-royalism
seemed to flow in the blood of Goffe, who was the son of Stephen
Goffe, a prominent Roundhead politician from Sussex, and his zeal for
religious separatism was so devout that he was known by those in his
circle as “Praying William”. But his rise to prominence among
the Parliamentarian milieu that instigated the Civil War came with
his meeting of Frances Whalley, a relative of Oliver Cromwell, whose
hand he took in marriage in 1642. It was in that same year that he
was thrown in prison for his part in attempting to give total control
of the militia to the parliament by petition. For this, Cromwell
made him a captain in his New Model Army, seeing action at Dunbar and
Worcester, and he was also one of the chief aides in Cromwell's
dissolution of Rump Parliament.
But it was
not only Goffe's high profile among Parliamentarians (whose political
fervour was quite mild in comparison to his own) that made him so
despicable, for history has proved that that he was actually the
first of Cromwell's officers to openly to call for an end to all
negotiations with the King, and for the King to be brought to
account. He stressed that it was “God's purpose” he be brought
to trial, and insisted that it must be done immediately. These
demands he so fanatically repeated that he was appointed to the High
Court of Justice and took great pleasure in signing the King's death
warrant. Goffe's career only grew more successful once the
Protectorate was established when he was appointed Major-General for
Sussex and Berkshire.
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| William Goffe |
Upon
Cromwell's death, and the subsequent falling from power of his son
and successor, Richard, Goffe had no choice but to flee the country,
and, naturally, found refuge in Massachusetts. He took with him his
father-in-law, Richard Whalley, and there met up with another leading
Roundhead figure and refugee associated with the regicide, one John
Dixwell, a commissioner who sat in judgment on the King. The three
settled in Massachusetts, feeling fairly safe for a few years among
an overwhelming population of sympathisers. Back home, it was
believed that the three were dead, and there were even reports in
English newspapers that they'd died in Switzerland among other
notable regicides who had fled upon the return of Charles II. But it
was not long until the King sent agents to the colonies to procure
their arrest.
Goffe,
despite being in hiding, still managed to play a major role in King
Philip's War, defending the town of Hadley from a major Indian attack
in 1676. Until the outbreak of the war, he travelled extensively
throughout the region with Whalley and Dixwell, finding asylum in the
homes of sympathisers, some of which were distinguished men of New
England. It is also believed that they, for a small amount of time,
hid in the West Rock hills, or what was then known as “Providence
Hill” until the advent of the Indian war.
The Crown's
agents never found Goffe, nor Whalley or Dixwell, even after a Royal
order was sent by New Haven Colony Governor William Leete to Boston.
What the Crown didn't know, however, was that Leete deliberately
delayed the King's messengers, giving the regicides enough time to
escape. Despite being suspected of helping the three find refuge,
Leete, for reasons lost to history, was never charged with
obstructing justice.
Unfortunately,
today, there are three streets in Connecticut which bear their
namesake, which, sadly are a sort of commemoration, a despicable
legacy of that region's Roundhead past. But little, if anything at
all, is remembered of William Goffe in Britain, nor of the two
contemptible regicides he ran with.
May it
remain ever so.
