One of the most intriguing bits of New England folklore involves the legend of the Angel of Hadley. According to the legend, on September 1, 1675, citizens of the frontier town of Hadley, of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, were gathered at their meeting hall, no doubt to discuss the recent Indian attacks on the neighboring towns of Deerfield and Northfield. Indians throughout Massachusetts were rebelling against the White Man’s presence in what was to be called King Philip’s War. While sporadic and unorganized, these encounters were particularly violent; the action at Deerfield was later called a “massacre”, and Northfield was left in flames. Understandably, the fifty or so families came to the meeting armed.
The fears of the townspeople were justified; Indians were indeed attempting a surprise attack. One could imagine that if surprise were achieved, the townspeople, bottled up in their wooden meeting hall, could have been in for a rough time. However, as the Indians were approaching, the strange figure of an old man with long white hair and beard, dressed in odd, old-fashioned clothing, and brandishing a broadsword, suddenly appeared, sounding the alarm. The stranger quickly took charge of the situation, shrewdly organizing the citizens to attack the Indians from their rear. The stranger’s strategy worked and the Indians fled in disorder. Some versions of the story maintain that the defeat was so complete as to put an end to the King Philip’s War entirely. During the conflict, the old man simply disappeared, never to be seen again. Considering these rather unique circumstances. as well as the remoteness of Hadley, the townspeople were hard pressed to explain this event without resorting to a “supernatural” explanation. Actually, these people were devout Puritans, naturally taken to supernatural explanations. They viewed the stranger as an Angel from God, sent to the “elect”, the righteous “chosen” people, so that they might prevail against the primitive forces of evil.
A painting by Frederick Chapman hangs over the stairs at the Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, depicting the legend. Several authors have retold the story in works of fiction, including Sir Walter Scott in his novel “Peveril of the Peak” and James Fenimore Cooper’s “Wept of Wish-ton-Wish.” The first mention of the story by a serious historian, however, was by Governor Hutchinson in his “History of the Massachusetts Bay Colony”, published in 1764; the story was presented in a footnote by Hutchinson who claimed that the legend came from “family” stories, passed on through generations. The first important treatment of the Angel legend was published in 1794 by Ezra Stiles, then president of Yale University. Stiles not only maintained that the event actually happened, he presented a fantastic explanation behind the appearance of this strange apparition. To understand Stiles’ theory about the Angel of Hadley, we must go further back in time and to a different land. The story begins in England, at the end of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
THE SEEDS OF DISCONTENT
During the second half of the Sixteenth Century, friction began to develop between the
Crown and the House of Commons. Taxes required to pay for Elizabeth’s ambitious foreign policy were a continuous source of aggravation in the land. Questions concerning the rights of the House of Commons to determine national policy were raised. Elizabeth was a skilled politician who was good at dealing with Parliament; her successor, James I (1603-1625) was not. Perhaps his greatest blunder came in the firing of the Chief Justice of Court of the King’s Bench, Sir Edward Coke. No longer working for the Crown, Coke entered Parliament to become the first great “leader of genius” in the House. Coke advanced the proposition of Law over King”. Naturally, James I felt otherwise.
The situation worsened as Charles I succeeded James I in 1625. Charles was determined to preserve the traditional rights of Kings, and he went about it with little diplomacy. To fan the fires of antagonism between Parliament and Crown, Charles married Henrietta Maria of France, a Catholic. This new Queen was deeply resented in Protestant England, and alarms of Popism were raised. Problems over taxes continued. Parliament denied the King the customary life grant of customs duties, called “Tonnage” and “Poundage”; the King proceeded to collect these taxes anyway. Also challenged was the highly resented Ship-Tax.” In 1628, Parliament passed the so-called “Petition of Right,” which sharply curtailed the powers of the Crown; specifically, the Petition made it illegal to quarter troops in private homes, to imprison citizens without showing cause, to apply martial law to civilians, and to raise taxes without consent of Parliament. Charles I simply ignored these restrictions to his power and continued to do all of these things.
Matters deteriorated. Charles appointed Thomas Wentworth, latter Earl of Strafford, as a virtual dictator of Northern England and Ireland. Strafford ruled with considerable cruelty, engendering much discontent. Charles I made another controversial appointment of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury, nominal head of Christianity in England. Laud emphasized ritual and the discipline of dogma, worsening fears of Popism. These two servants of the King put forth the doctrine of “Thorough,” which was a dressed up way of saying that they had the right to do anything they pleased, regardless of opposition, as long as they had the King’s blessings. One can imagine the response by Parliament.
The proverbial camel-back breaking straw came in 1637 with the decision to impose the Anglican prayer book on Presbyterian Scotland. Predictably, the Scots rebelled; they put forth the famous Covenant” which asserted the supremacy of law over the Crown and gave the exclusive right to make the law to Parliament. Charles sent in the army.
This first conflict in the English Civil Wars, called the First Bishop’s War, was inconclusive. The war itself was very unpopular with English Protestants and came to an end in 1639. The Scots did not back down from the ideals in the Covenant, and a dark foreboding of worse to come settled on the nation. Ironically, Charles needed to raise money to pay the army for the First Bishop’s War and was forced to call for Parliament to sit. This “Short Parliament” was deadlocked on the issue and was dissolved in 1640. This did not solve the problem of paying the army, and Charles called for a new Parliament late in 1640.
This new Parliament, called the “Long Parliament” was certainly more radical than the Short Parliament; this Parliament had no difficulty taking action, though the actions taken
hardly served the King’s needs. Archbishop Laud was promptly impeached and sent to the Tower in late 1640. Strafford was impeached, tried, and executed early in 1641. The Long Parliament put forward its own version of the Scottish Covenant, called the “Protestation.” This
doctrine asserted the same rights of Parliament and the same restrictions on the Crown - and then some. The Protestation claimed that Parliament must be called every three years and could not be dissolved without its own permission; further, it declared Ship-Money illegal and would have demolished much of the King’s government machinery, including the Concilliar Courts. Charles was not pleased.
In fact, the King was furious. In 1642, Charles sent troops to Parliament to arrest five members of the House. Riots broke out and the King left London. Negotiations continued at a distance. The King agreed to keep bishops out of the House of Lords but would not meet Parliament’s demands that they be given control over the military. In June 1642, Parliament passed the Nineteen Propositions, by far the most radical affront to traditional royal authority. The Nineteen Propositions would have deeded virtually all executive power, including direct control of the army, to Parliament. King Charles I responded by raising his standard at Nottingham in August 1642, and the Civil War began in earnest. For a brief time at the beginning of the war, Parliamentary forces wore their hair short, earning the name “Roundheads.” The fashion was short lived, but the name endured. The Royal cry became “God save King Charles, and hang up the Roundheads.”
For the next nine years, war between Parliament and the Crown raged across the British Isles. As the war progressed, from great battle to great battle, the King’s fortunes declined, while on the Parliament side, one man was to emerge the giant of his age; in time, he was to become one of the most interesting and controversial characters ever to walk the paths of history. That man was Oliver Cromwell.
THE LORD PROTECTOR
Cromwell was just four year old when Elizabeth passed away. He was born into a good family from Huntington. Part of his ancestry came from Wales. His family had a fine estate and several business interests, including a brewery and ale house. Cromwell attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge for one year but, upon the death of his father, returned home to run the family affairs. He was happily married to one woman, Elizabeth Bourchier, and had five children gown to adulthood. Cromwell was a committed family man and remained deeply involved in the lives of all his children throughout his life. He was a somewhat rotund man of ruddy complexion (the result of severe acne as a youth and lifelong warts), a rough man who enjoyed hunting and horseback riding to the end of his days. Unlike the stereotype of straight-laced Puritans, Cromwell adored music all his life and loved to tell and hear jokes. Like so many landowners and businessmen, Cromwell was deeply angered by the Royal arrogances - and the taxes of James and Charles. In 1628, Cromwell stood for Parliament and entered the House as MP for Huntington; he rapidly became one of the King’s most avid tormentors.
It was about this time when Cromwell experienced his “conversion.” Upon falling ill (perhaps from drinking the poison mithridate as an antidote to ward off the plague), Cromwell experienced delirium and hallucinations, images of the Cross and such. When the sickness passed, Cromwell was convinced that he had been chosen by God, through passage of the “dark night of the soul,” to do great things. For the rest of his life, Cromwell was a religious fanatic, interpreting every aspect of life as evidence of God’s will.
Throughout the 1630’s, Cromwell split his time between his growing family, his business affairs, and the politics of Parliament, largely fixed on the conflict with the King. Cromwell became a major voice in the opposition of the draining of the fells, a massive land conversion project of draining wetlands for agriculture; the draining of the fells meant greater land use profits for the aristocracy and the King but the end of hunting and fishing for the common people. He served on the endless committees designed to trouble the King. His direct rhetoric and his religious extremism made him a prominent figure in Parliament. It was in war, however,
that Cromwell came of his own. He was a natural military genius, credited with no less than the invention of the modern army.
Cromwell had seen first hand many of the shortcomings of the traditional approach to war in the First Bishop’s War. Armies were raised to meet an occasion and then disbanded quickly. There were no standards of dress or arms, no real battle tactics. Lines of men simply went at it, and the side that ran first lost; knowing who to kill was half the battle. Cromwell, as war was declared in the First Civil War, convinced Parliament to let him experiment with a new concept of warfare. Indeed, the result was termed “The New Model Army.” In this concept, men were conscripted as professionals, and given standardized dress (the famous Redcoats), standard arms, a formal command structure, and, above all else, training and discipline. The result was a quantum leap in warfare. The King’s forces, though about equally numbered, never stood a chance. In encounter after encounter, the New Model Army crushed the Royalists. The battles have become legend in English history: Edgehill, Grantham, Gainsborough, Winceby, Marstoon Moor, Newbury, Naseby, Langport, Basing House, Oxford, Pembrooke Castle, Preston, Pontefract Castle, and later, Drogheda, Wexford, Clonmel, Dunbar, Edinburgh, and Worcester. The New Model Army never lost a fight.
Charles I fled the field to Scotland in April of 1646; by June, his forces had collapsed. The poor King was seized by Parliamentary forces, escaped, and established new Royalist forces, touching off the Second Civil War. Once again, the Royalists were no match for the New Model Army. After several particularly one-sided slaughters, the Royalist forces finally disintegrated in late 1648. The King was once again captured, amazingly once again escaped, and was caught again, this time to stand trial for high treason and crimes against the nation.
What unfolded was a sordid chapter in British history. Cromwell had decided that the King must be found guilty and put to death. The Second Civil War, and no doubt the King’s uncanny ability to escape, had convinced him that Charles could not be left alive “for the good of the Nation.” A kangaroo court of sorts was rounded up, some 135 men who were to be both judge and jury. Cromwell had considerable difficulty finding judges, or “Commissioners,” as they were called. Many had to be strongly coerced to serve; about half of the commissioners never attended any of the proceedings. The trial was brief. Nine days after the opening of the commission, King Charles I was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to death. The King had refused to recognize the authority of the commission and had mounted no defense. Of the 135 commissioners, only 62 had found him guilty; of those 62, only 59 signed the death warrant itself. There was an air of the surreal about the whole affair; silliness broke out as several of the Judges splattered one another in an ink fight while signing the warrant. Nevertheless, the day after the verdict, on January 30, 1649, Charles I quietly stepped through a dismantled window of Whitehall Palace and on to a black-draped scaffold hastily built for the occasion; he was wearing two shirts because it was cold, and he was concerned that he would shiver and the people would believe that he was afraid. Cromwell himself did not attend the execution; as the King placed his neck on the block, Cromwell was at a prayer meeting with several other signers of the warrant.
It is impossible to overstate the enormity of this crime to the Elizabethan mind. The paradigm of the age described the universe as a morally organized hierarchy. God sat at the top of the order and Satan sat at the bottom. Between God and Satan was all existence, each entity occupying a specific place in the hierarchy. In Heaven, the angels were ordered according to their closeness to God. Purgatory came below Heaven, and the Temporal World came below Purgatory. Hell was at the bottom, again organized according to the crimes of the condemned.
Even inanimate matter was fit into this moral scheme; base metals were below noble metals. The principal science of the day, Alchemy, was the study of the relative moral level of matter. Among temporal existence, man was at the top of the hierarchy, above all other animals and plants. At the summit of mankind came the King. To kill the King, therefore, was not merely a political event. Regicide disturbed the universe.
Despite the death of the King, the struggle was not over. Royalists rallied around the King’s son, the Prince of Wales, who was promptly declared King Charles II. The country was in for two more years of bloody war. But the outcome was never really in doubt. Once again, the Royalist forces were no match for the New Model Army and the genius of Cromwell in the field. In 1651, Charles II fled England for the Continent and the Civil Wars finally came to a close.
During the Civil Wars, Parliament ran the Country through ordinances. An executive committee of Parliament, called the Council of State, was appointed and effectively became the executive branch of the government. Cromwell sat on this committee. As his record of phenomenal military accomplishment grew, so did his control of the government.
At the close of the war, in 1651, Cromwell and his close associates held several meetings to determine the “Settlement of the Nation.” There were some who felt that the fight had been with the Stewarts, and not with the concept of a King per say. Others felt strongly that a King would always present a threat to fundamental liberties. Issues such as the property requirement for voting, the right of the government to tax, the appointment of judges, and the role of the army were discussed. In many ways, the problems that these men struggled with were exactly what American revolutionaries debated 100 years later. Alas, the Roundheads had no Thomas Jefferson, no John Marshall, no James Madison. As the nation slowly drifted into unrest, the Roundheads debated to no conclusion. The Parliamentarians had won power in the field of battle but had no vision of what to do about it.
Several political parties vied for control: the Presbyterians, the Levellers, the Fifth Monarch. As his struggle with these fringe groups developed, Cromwell, justifying himself in the name of public order, became as ruthless and intolerant as Charles - and then some. In the process Cromwell acquired more and more authority. On December 16, 1653, Oliver Cromwell became the “Protector.” In reality the office of Protector, while not formally defined, approached the traditional authority of Kings.
For the next five years Oliver Cromwell ruled England. His rule was filled with ironies. He waged war with the Protestant Dutch; he formed alliances with Catholic France. He ordered and led the most terrible genocide policies for Ireland; he overthrew the law that banned Jews from England and encouraged Jewish settlement in England. He waged war with the Spanish in the West Indies suffering his first and only military defeat in a failed and costly attempt to seize Hispaniola; he did succeed in acquiring Jamaica. Throughout he had great difficulty with his own Parliament. The “Rump” Parliament (so called because it was what was left after the purges of Charles I) had been sitting since the outbreak of Civil War. In 1653, Cromwell had the Rump dissolved because of party frictions. The new Parliament, known as the “Bare Bones” Parliament was packed with Cromwell’s cronies. Nevertheless, it too proved impossible to control and was dissolved by Cromwell in 1654. This pattern of “rigging” Parliament with loyal associates only to find dissent growing would dog Cromwell through several more Parliaments.
In 1655, Cromwell abandoned all vestiges of democracy. He removed virtually all existing government machinery and replaced it with the army. The country was divided into 11 sections,
each ruled by a Major General who reported to Cromwell alone. Cromwell was now a virtual military dictator. The effectiveness of this form of government varied considerably with the
personalities of the 11 Major Generals. Some sections were ruled with tact and diplomacy; other sections were ruled with callous disregard for human rights. By 1657, discontent with the Major Generals was becoming widespread. Cromwell was encouraged to become King and to return the country to the “old ways.” Cromwell agonized over this question for some time. In reality he already had most of the power of a king. Left unanswered was the question of succession. In the end Cromwell refused the title as well as the system of government. Instead, in 1657, Cromwell had himself named “Lord Protector,” a subtle change. In his new position as Lord
Protector, succession would not be hereditary, but the position was given the right to chose his successor. At least the process for determining succession had been established.
1658 saw Cromwell’s greatest foreign victory when, at the battle of the Dunes, the Anglo-French forces defeated Spain and chased them from the Netherlands. The victory gave Dunkirk to the British, giving England a foothold on the Continent. He did not have long to savor this triumph. On August 6, his favorite daughter, Bettie Claypole, died. Cromwell was devastated and fell into melancholia. His depression quickly advanced; within a few weeks he was on his death bed.
To his associates great worry Cromwell lay despondent and ill and had not named his successor. There was a slight problem. Cromwell had two surviving sons, Richard and Henry. Henry had proven himself an able administrator; he had been given total authority in Ireland and had ruled that country with skill and ability. Henry was, however, the “second son.” Richard was the eldest. Richard was anything but an experienced leader. Shy, almost retiring, Richard had never left home; he had played no role in his father’s government. Nevertheless, Cromwell could not bear to “skip” Richard and at the moment of his death, he whispered “Richard.” Accordingly, Richard Cromwell was named Lord Protector upon his father’s death on September 3, 1658. But he had no stomach for it and in a matter of months, Parliament passed the Declaration of Breda (May 1660) which recalled Charles II from his continental exile and proclaimed him King. The Commonwealth Government was over.
Upon acceding to the throne, Charles II announced a general amnesty to all involved in the civil wars, the death of his father, and the Commonwealth government. This good mood changed, however. Soon, after much jostling by his advisors who urged a purge of all Roundheads, Charles issued a warrant for the arrest and trial of only those 59 judges who had signed his father’s death warrant; the signers were now officially “Regicides, “ killers of the King.
Several, like Cromwell, had passed away peacefully during the Commonwealth. In a dark rage, bodies were exhumed, abused, and put on mock trial. Twenty four of the living were indeed arrested, tried, convicted, and put to death or disappeared into dungeons. A few went into hiding. Twelve managed to flee the country. Three of the Regicides made it to the American Colonies.
THE REGICIDES IN AMERICA
Edward Whalley was Cromwell’s cousin and one of his closest associates. Whalley had been a general under Cromwell during the civil wars; he had been instrumental at virtually every major battle. Whalley had attended the meetings on the “Settlement of the Nation;” like Cromwell, he was a devout Puritan, frequently taken to outbursts of prayer. Whalley had been given direct responsibility over the security of the King during the trial and was appointed by Cromwell as one of the eleven Major Generals (for the Midlands). Whalley had served as a
commissioner for the trial of Charles I, signing the King’s death warrant in fourth place, just after the signature of Oliver Cromwell.
William Goffe was a general in the New Model Army. His status in the Commonwealth leadership took a big step forward when he married Edward Whalley’s daughter. Like his father-in-law, Goffe was one of the eleven Major Generals (for the Southern Counties from Southampton to Kent). Like his father-in-law, Goffe was a passionate Puritan, frequently prone to fervent prayer and such. Goffe had also served as a commissioner for the King’s trial and signed the warrant in fourteenth place. Whalley and Goffe had seen the writing on the wall. On May 4, 1660, before the new King singed the warrant for their arrest, Whalley and Goffe left England on the ship Prudent Mary, bound for Boston. From the day they left England Goffe kept
a diary. It is largely from this diary and Goffe’s correspondence home, that posterity has such remarkably complete information about their adventures.
Less is known about the third Regicide to escape to the American Colonies. John Dixwell had sat in three Parliaments and was a member of the Council of State when the King went on trial. Dixwell was never a distinguished soldier and was made a colonel in a Kentish troop only after the war. There is some evidence that Dixwell was unenthusiastic about the execution of Charles, but he did attend the trial and signed the death warrant in the thirty-eighth position. Dixwell remained hopeful in England until he was actually named personally as a Regicide. He then sent word that he was too ill to attend a trial and quietly slipped across the Channel, eventually making it to Hanau in Prussia. He appeared in the American Colonies five years later.
Whalley and Goffe, traveling under the names of Edward Richardson and William Stephenson, arrived in Boston on July 27, 1660. They obviously felt they were safer in the Colonies though they were still in domains under British control. There was good reason for their confidence. The Puritan Revolution, known as the Great Experiment, had spread to the Colonies. The hope of starting a New Society, based on God’s Word, free from the “established” corruption of England, had attracted many of the most extreme believers in the Puritan cause; Cromwell himself had frequently contemplated starting over in America. The Revolution was over in England but not necessarily in the Colonies.
On the passage over they met two fellow travelers who were to help them on their journeys: Daniel Gookin, who was a prominent member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and William Jones, who was married to the daughter of a leading citizen in New Haven. After a cordial reception in Boston by no less than Governor John Endicott, they proceeded to Cambridge, guests of Mr. Gookin, where they were introduced to the Bay area society. Here they remained for several months, living the lives of heroes.
Their comfortable circumstances were shaken a bit when a ship from England arrived with the “Pardon and Oblivion” documents specifically exempting from pardon thirty men, including Whalley, Goffe, and Dixon. News later arrived that an explicit warrant for their arrest had been issued promising 100 pounds to anyone who helped bring the Regicides to justice. This glum news was followed by the even bleaker news that Regicides who had been caught had been treated harshly; first they were hanged until not quite dead, and then, still alive, drawn and quartered. Nevertheless, the authorities in Boston did not respond until February 22, 1661 when the Court of Assistants, the upper chamber in Massachusetts, met to discuss what to do about the Regicides. Gookin was a member of the Court; opinion was divided and no decision was reached.
Prudence held sway, however, and Whalley and Goffe left Boston on February 26 through heavy snows for New Haven. They traveled 160 miles by foot with an Indian guide, first to
Springfield, then to Hartford and on to New Haven. Once they were out of the Commonwealth, Governor Endicott issued a warrant for their arrest.
When they reached New Haven on March 7, Whalley and Goffe sought out William Jones (whom they met on their voyage across the Atlantic). Jones introduced them to John Davenport, pastor of the New Haven church. Davenport was a happy choice of contact. In his early career he had served under the infamous William Laud. Davenport was a committed Puritan Roundhead and was forced to flee England when Laud became Archbishop. Davenport first went to Europe, then on to one of the most remote parishes in the Colonies, New Haven. The first sermon that Reverend Davenport gave in New Haven prepared his congregation for further refugees from England; “Hide the outcasts, betray not him that Wandereth” from Isaiah was the text for his sermon.
At this point, private enterprise entered the picture. Two men in Boston decided to go for the reward. Thomas Kellond was an out of work merchant and Thomas Kirke was an out of work ship’s captain. 100 pounds was a lot of money in the 1660’s. Together, they lit out for the two Regicides traveling at the brisk pace of 40 miles per day. By May 10, they were in Hartford asking a lot of questions. By May 11, they were in Guilford, confronting the Deputy Governor, William Lette. Lette slowed them down, first claiming he had to call a meeting before he could give them any information or assistance, then claiming that he could not find horses for them. Meanwhile, Lette dispatched a messenger, one John Meggs, to warn the Regicides.
Lette had managed to stall the bounty hunters in Guilford until May 13. By the time they arrived in New Haven, the Regicides had left; in fact, they left on the 11th when Meggs gave the alarm. Nevertheless, the magistrates in New Haven debated for another four days before permission to search for the Regicides was given.
Whalley and Goffe were hidden in a cave in the New Haven hills. There they remained for months; food was provided every day by a local farmer. They named their new home “Providence Hill.” The news from England got even worse. The King had declared that anyone caught harboring a Regicide would suffer the same fate, hanging, to be followed by worse horrors. While Whalley and Goffe considered giving up, sparing their helpers the risk, their benefactors encouraged them to remain in hiding. Eventually, they were smuggled out of their cave to the private home of Micah Thompkins in Milford, Connecticut where they lived, quite secretly, for the next three years - “without so much as going into the orchard.”
In the spring of 1664, Charles II sent a small force of officers, four ships, and 450 men to Boston. The expedition had two objectives: to “liberate” New Amsterdam and to capture the Regicides. This small army arrived in the Colonies on April 23, 1664. They headed immediately to Southern Connecticut. Forewarned again, Whalley and Goffe once again returned to their cave on Providence Hill. They remained in their cave through the summer and fall. As winter approached, desperation set in. It was still not safe in New Haven. The decision was taken to head for Hadley, Massachusetts. Why Hadley?
Hadley was a brand new town founded just 5 years before in 1659. It was about as far “out there” as you could get and still have a few white people around. Hadley had been founded by a group from Wethersfield who had split with the church of Hartford over a “friendly ecclesiastical dispute.” One of the principal founders of Hadley was John Russell. Russell was born in England but moved to the Colonies as a child. He was educated at Harvard, fourteenth to graduate from that college. The dispute with Hartford really was friendly; Russell would later marry the daughter of the pastor of the Hartford church. Russell was another radical Roundhead supporter and a friend of William Davenport. Russell was the first preacher in Hadley and the
town’s leading citizen. It was to John Russell that the Regicides traveled, 80 miles north, moving only at night.
The area of the township of Hadley was larger than today, bordered by the Hadley Falls to the south and Sugarbush Mountain to the north. The town itself was built within a long,
lazy bend in the Connecticut river. The town proper consisted of two parallel streets forming a center “commons” which began at the bend across from present day Hatfield and ending just across the river from Northampton. Indeed, for years, Hatfield was formally a part of Hadley and shared the same meeting house and church in the commons. Some fifty families lived in houses arranged along the commons.
Until King Philip’s War, Nonotuck Indians lived peaceably in the commons in a symbiotic relationship with the townspeople; the Indians supplied the whites with fish and game while the townspeople gave the Indians produce from their gardens. The great meadows between the town and the river were divided amongst the townspeople into gardens. Animals were pastured on the
other side of town, in what is now the Hockenum Valley. The first homes built in 1659 were rough, single room log cabins; proper houses were not long in coming, however.
When the Regicides reached Hadley, they moved into an upstairs chamber in John Russell’s house. Conveniently, the room had a secret compartment under the floor boards near the fireplace. They remained in this room for the next ten years. It is not known how many of the town’s citizens shared John Russell’s secret. It seems inconceivable that someone did not go for the 100 pounds reward. It is known that John Russell never left his charges, never attended the usual conventions of ministers, never took positions offered him that would have required him to leave town, even for a few days. For a decade, John Russell cared for his guests and kept them safe - an amazing achievement and an awesome sacrifice.
Shortly after Whalley and Goffe arrived in Hadley, they were visited by John Dixon. Dixon had been living in Prussia but had traveled to the Colonies under the name of James Davids. He appeared in Hadley on February 10, 1665, spent a few days with his comrades in arms and quietly left, not to be heard of again for years.
In 1667, Goffe abandoned keeping his diary. He kept his correspondence with his wife and family, writing letters under the name of Walter Goldsmith. His letters were smuggled into England by Increase Mather. In 1674, he wrote that Whalley was ill; it is likely that Whalley died before the year was out. During this time, rumors abounded about the whereabouts of the Regicides. One prominent rumor had it that Whalley and Goffe had been killed at the same time the Regicide John Lisle was shot in Lausanne.
According to Goffe’s letters, the years with John Russell passed slowly, with boredom and isolation dominating their lives. These were, after all, worldly men, accustomed to high office and great adventure. Their years in hiding were a torture for them. They were confined to their room, except when the town was at meeting or church service, when they came out for a brief glimpse of the outside world and a bit of sunshine.
The peace of this world, if not the monotony of life for General Goffe, was disturbed by news of Indian unrest in the east. As the stories of trouble moved west, the settlers became nervous. They were made a lot more nervous when they awoke one morning in late August, 1675 to find that the Nonotucks had moved out of the village commons.
News of the “massacre” at Deerfield brought the entire town to meeting on September 1. According to the legend, Goffe, who was enjoying his customary moment in the sun, saw the Indians approaching and, grabbing his broadsword - badge of his former office - abandoned his
hideout to warn the citizens. Ezra Stiles makes much of the fact that General Goffe had extensive war experience as a commanding officer; it was natural for him to immediately take command of the villagers and to promptly seize the offensive against the Indian attackers. Whether the event happened or not, the Indian uprising in the Connecticut Valley brought troops
from the east, turning Hadley into a garrison town. For a fugitive, the situation became extremely dangerous. Goffe left Hadley, though it is not known exactly when. It is known that he was in Hartford by September 1676. The last known letter to his wife was dated April 2, 1679; in this letter he was obviously depressed and tired of hiding, pleading for news from his family.
In 1680, a man name John London attempted to inform authorities in Hartford that Goffe was living with a man named Captain Bull. For his trouble, London was harassed by the Hartford authorities and told to keep quiet and remain in the county. London got away anyway, went to New York (recently “liberated” by the same force hunting the Regicides), and reported his knowledge of Goffe to Governor Edmund Andros. Andros was a committed Royalist. He dispatched an effort, the sixth, to find the Regicides. No further word was ever heard of William
Goffe. There is some evidence that Goffe made it back to Hadley after Andros dispatched his forces to Connecticut in pursuit. Letters that Goffe had received while living in Hartford were found among John Russell’s papers. It, therefore, seems likely that Goffe found his Last Reward back in the loving care of John Russell.
In 1673, James Dixwell, living in New haven under the name of James Davids and posing as a retired merchant, married a Mrs. Benjamin Ling. Dixwell was 66. His new wife died within a month. Four years later, Dixwell married Bathsheba How, age 31; by her he had three children. He died peacefully on March 18, 1688; his marker simply said: “J.D. Remember.” In 1776, during the American Revolution, British forces (wearing the traditional Redcoats, of course) found Dixwell’s grave and defaced it with spit. That was the extent of the King’s revenge on the Regicides in America.
But did the Angle story really happen? Did William Goffe leap out of hiding to turn the tides on the Indians and then simply vanish back to his secret room? In his introduction to the reprinting of the classic “History of Hadley” by Sylvester Judd, George Sheldon advances the argument that the Angel story is merely a romanticized myth. Sheldon traces the Angel story back to a family tale of the Leveretts, told in print for the first time by Governor Thomas Hutchinson in his “History of Massachusetts,” published in 1764. Hutchinson was in possession of Goffe’s diary when he wrote his history (the diary was later lost in a fire). Hutchinson was the first to report the presence of the Regicides in Hadley. However, he only mentioned the Angel story in a footnote, admitting that it was an unsubstantiated “anecdote.” According to Sheldon, the Angel story was later embellished and presented as fact by Styles, in his book “History of the Three Judges.” Since few were willing to take on a Yale president, later historians have simply repeated the story without verifying the facts.
Sheldon argues that attempts to discover evidence of the Angel story have failed to uncover any references to the event prior to Hutchinson’s footnote. It is this lack of contemporary references of the event in the diaries, articles, and other sources from the same period that compels skepticism. In fact, Sheldon argues that there is no real evidence of an actual Indian attach on Hadley on that day. Increase Mather reported an “alarm” at Hadley on September 1, 1675; he does not mention a fight. Given what happened in Deerfield, an “alarm” would have been in order. Solomon Stoddard, preacher for Northampton, wrote detailed descriptions of the attacks on Deerfield, Northfield, and Northampton. He never mentions Hadley. Sheldon believe that this absence of contemporary evidence of the Angel story is sufficient to discard the story as myth.
Given of gulf of three hundred plus years, we will probably never know exactly what happened in Hadley that fall day. I would, however, propose a theory of my own, based on resolving two questions. To begin with, if Hadley were not attacked on September 1, we might ask why not. After all, every other town in the valley was attacked. Why not Hadley? It would be years before the town was barricaded. Hadley was as vulnerable to Indian attack as any other frontier town. And second, if the town was never attached and Goffe did not jump from his hiding place to warn the villagers, what prompted the story in the first place?
I suggest the following explanation behind the legend. As news of Indian attacks came to Hadley, the elders of the town - those who knew of the General’s presence - turned to Goffe for advice. Goffe was a military man with extensive experience in warfare. Goffe instructed the elders on how to deploy their forces in such a way as to discourage an Indian attack. His strategy worked, and the Indians passed by Hadley to attack other settlements on their way to Canada. After the threat of attack passed, the explanation given to the general people was that an angel saved the town. Later, the story was embellished as it passed from generation to generation, until no less than the president of Yale wrote a story which had General Goffe leaping to the rescue, broadsword in hand.
AFTERTHOUGHT
The age of Cromwell fell between the crack in time that separated the Elizabethan world from the Age of Enlightenment. The ordered, hierarchical world view of the Elizabethans was clearly under challenge; the Roundheads dared to kill the King, and so disturb the universe. Cromwell was willing to attack the old paradigm of the world but he did not have a replacement. The great leaps of understanding that were to transform the world had not happened in time to guide him. Newton was born in 1642, the year the Civil War began. It would be forty years before his writings on cause and effect and the rational “laws” of nature would usher in a new world view, a new paradigm. When next British citizens took arms against the King, the result would be very different. By the middle of the Eighteenth Century, the intellectual underpinnings of the Enlightenment were well in place. In the “Settlement of the Nation” after the American Revolution, men would assume the moral neutrality of nature which is at the heart of Newtonian thought as they spoke of all men being created equal.
And yet, these two “Great Experiments” were connected. Cromwell unleashed a powerful spirit when he dispatched the King. Discontent with Royalty would smolder on past the Restoration. The Regicides in America were like precious seeds, tended, protected, and finally planted in the soil itself, to one day bring forth new life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Cromwell: The Lord Protector: by Antonia Fraser. Alfred A. Knopf. 1973
2. “The Hunt for the Regicides”: by Alexander Winston. American Heritage. December,
1964.
3. History of Hadley: by Sylvester Judd, with an introduction by George Sheldon. H.R.
Huntting & Co. 1905.
4. The Diary of General William Goffe: by Jack Dunn. The Book Press.
5. The Columbia History of the World. Edited by John Garraty and Peter Gay. Harper
& Row. 1972.
6. Historic Hampshire in the Connecticut Valley: by Clifton Johnson. Milton Bradley
Company. 1932.
7. A History of Three Judges of King Charles I by Ezra Stiles. Printed by Elisha Babcock.
1794.
8. “Angel of Hadley: Legend or Fact”: by George A. Snook, M.D. An unpublished essay
catalogued at the Forbes Library in Northampton.
9. The Guardians of the New World: Pioneering in the Connecticut Valley: by Doris H.
Wackerbarth. The Country Squire; Winchester Center, CT.
The fears of the townspeople were justified; Indians were indeed attempting a surprise attack. One could imagine that if surprise were achieved, the townspeople, bottled up in their wooden meeting hall, could have been in for a rough time. However, as the Indians were approaching, the strange figure of an old man with long white hair and beard, dressed in odd, old-fashioned clothing, and brandishing a broadsword, suddenly appeared, sounding the alarm. The stranger quickly took charge of the situation, shrewdly organizing the citizens to attack the Indians from their rear. The stranger’s strategy worked and the Indians fled in disorder. Some versions of the story maintain that the defeat was so complete as to put an end to the King Philip’s War entirely. During the conflict, the old man simply disappeared, never to be seen again. Considering these rather unique circumstances. as well as the remoteness of Hadley, the townspeople were hard pressed to explain this event without resorting to a “supernatural” explanation. Actually, these people were devout Puritans, naturally taken to supernatural explanations. They viewed the stranger as an Angel from God, sent to the “elect”, the righteous “chosen” people, so that they might prevail against the primitive forces of evil.
A painting by Frederick Chapman hangs over the stairs at the Forbes Library in Northampton, Massachusetts, depicting the legend. Several authors have retold the story in works of fiction, including Sir Walter Scott in his novel “Peveril of the Peak” and James Fenimore Cooper’s “Wept of Wish-ton-Wish.” The first mention of the story by a serious historian, however, was by Governor Hutchinson in his “History of the Massachusetts Bay Colony”, published in 1764; the story was presented in a footnote by Hutchinson who claimed that the legend came from “family” stories, passed on through generations. The first important treatment of the Angel legend was published in 1794 by Ezra Stiles, then president of Yale University. Stiles not only maintained that the event actually happened, he presented a fantastic explanation behind the appearance of this strange apparition. To understand Stiles’ theory about the Angel of Hadley, we must go further back in time and to a different land. The story begins in England, at the end of the long reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
THE SEEDS OF DISCONTENT
During the second half of the Sixteenth Century, friction began to develop between the
Crown and the House of Commons. Taxes required to pay for Elizabeth’s ambitious foreign policy were a continuous source of aggravation in the land. Questions concerning the rights of the House of Commons to determine national policy were raised. Elizabeth was a skilled politician who was good at dealing with Parliament; her successor, James I (1603-1625) was not. Perhaps his greatest blunder came in the firing of the Chief Justice of Court of the King’s Bench, Sir Edward Coke. No longer working for the Crown, Coke entered Parliament to become the first great “leader of genius” in the House. Coke advanced the proposition of Law over King”. Naturally, James I felt otherwise.
The situation worsened as Charles I succeeded James I in 1625. Charles was determined to preserve the traditional rights of Kings, and he went about it with little diplomacy. To fan the fires of antagonism between Parliament and Crown, Charles married Henrietta Maria of France, a Catholic. This new Queen was deeply resented in Protestant England, and alarms of Popism were raised. Problems over taxes continued. Parliament denied the King the customary life grant of customs duties, called “Tonnage” and “Poundage”; the King proceeded to collect these taxes anyway. Also challenged was the highly resented Ship-Tax.” In 1628, Parliament passed the so-called “Petition of Right,” which sharply curtailed the powers of the Crown; specifically, the Petition made it illegal to quarter troops in private homes, to imprison citizens without showing cause, to apply martial law to civilians, and to raise taxes without consent of Parliament. Charles I simply ignored these restrictions to his power and continued to do all of these things.
Matters deteriorated. Charles appointed Thomas Wentworth, latter Earl of Strafford, as a virtual dictator of Northern England and Ireland. Strafford ruled with considerable cruelty, engendering much discontent. Charles I made another controversial appointment of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury, nominal head of Christianity in England. Laud emphasized ritual and the discipline of dogma, worsening fears of Popism. These two servants of the King put forth the doctrine of “Thorough,” which was a dressed up way of saying that they had the right to do anything they pleased, regardless of opposition, as long as they had the King’s blessings. One can imagine the response by Parliament.
The proverbial camel-back breaking straw came in 1637 with the decision to impose the Anglican prayer book on Presbyterian Scotland. Predictably, the Scots rebelled; they put forth the famous Covenant” which asserted the supremacy of law over the Crown and gave the exclusive right to make the law to Parliament. Charles sent in the army.
This first conflict in the English Civil Wars, called the First Bishop’s War, was inconclusive. The war itself was very unpopular with English Protestants and came to an end in 1639. The Scots did not back down from the ideals in the Covenant, and a dark foreboding of worse to come settled on the nation. Ironically, Charles needed to raise money to pay the army for the First Bishop’s War and was forced to call for Parliament to sit. This “Short Parliament” was deadlocked on the issue and was dissolved in 1640. This did not solve the problem of paying the army, and Charles called for a new Parliament late in 1640.
This new Parliament, called the “Long Parliament” was certainly more radical than the Short Parliament; this Parliament had no difficulty taking action, though the actions taken
hardly served the King’s needs. Archbishop Laud was promptly impeached and sent to the Tower in late 1640. Strafford was impeached, tried, and executed early in 1641. The Long Parliament put forward its own version of the Scottish Covenant, called the “Protestation.” This
doctrine asserted the same rights of Parliament and the same restrictions on the Crown - and then some. The Protestation claimed that Parliament must be called every three years and could not be dissolved without its own permission; further, it declared Ship-Money illegal and would have demolished much of the King’s government machinery, including the Concilliar Courts. Charles was not pleased.
In fact, the King was furious. In 1642, Charles sent troops to Parliament to arrest five members of the House. Riots broke out and the King left London. Negotiations continued at a distance. The King agreed to keep bishops out of the House of Lords but would not meet Parliament’s demands that they be given control over the military. In June 1642, Parliament passed the Nineteen Propositions, by far the most radical affront to traditional royal authority. The Nineteen Propositions would have deeded virtually all executive power, including direct control of the army, to Parliament. King Charles I responded by raising his standard at Nottingham in August 1642, and the Civil War began in earnest. For a brief time at the beginning of the war, Parliamentary forces wore their hair short, earning the name “Roundheads.” The fashion was short lived, but the name endured. The Royal cry became “God save King Charles, and hang up the Roundheads.”
For the next nine years, war between Parliament and the Crown raged across the British Isles. As the war progressed, from great battle to great battle, the King’s fortunes declined, while on the Parliament side, one man was to emerge the giant of his age; in time, he was to become one of the most interesting and controversial characters ever to walk the paths of history. That man was Oliver Cromwell.
THE LORD PROTECTOR
Cromwell was just four year old when Elizabeth passed away. He was born into a good family from Huntington. Part of his ancestry came from Wales. His family had a fine estate and several business interests, including a brewery and ale house. Cromwell attended Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge for one year but, upon the death of his father, returned home to run the family affairs. He was happily married to one woman, Elizabeth Bourchier, and had five children gown to adulthood. Cromwell was a committed family man and remained deeply involved in the lives of all his children throughout his life. He was a somewhat rotund man of ruddy complexion (the result of severe acne as a youth and lifelong warts), a rough man who enjoyed hunting and horseback riding to the end of his days. Unlike the stereotype of straight-laced Puritans, Cromwell adored music all his life and loved to tell and hear jokes. Like so many landowners and businessmen, Cromwell was deeply angered by the Royal arrogances - and the taxes of James and Charles. In 1628, Cromwell stood for Parliament and entered the House as MP for Huntington; he rapidly became one of the King’s most avid tormentors.
It was about this time when Cromwell experienced his “conversion.” Upon falling ill (perhaps from drinking the poison mithridate as an antidote to ward off the plague), Cromwell experienced delirium and hallucinations, images of the Cross and such. When the sickness passed, Cromwell was convinced that he had been chosen by God, through passage of the “dark night of the soul,” to do great things. For the rest of his life, Cromwell was a religious fanatic, interpreting every aspect of life as evidence of God’s will.
Throughout the 1630’s, Cromwell split his time between his growing family, his business affairs, and the politics of Parliament, largely fixed on the conflict with the King. Cromwell became a major voice in the opposition of the draining of the fells, a massive land conversion project of draining wetlands for agriculture; the draining of the fells meant greater land use profits for the aristocracy and the King but the end of hunting and fishing for the common people. He served on the endless committees designed to trouble the King. His direct rhetoric and his religious extremism made him a prominent figure in Parliament. It was in war, however,
that Cromwell came of his own. He was a natural military genius, credited with no less than the invention of the modern army.
Cromwell had seen first hand many of the shortcomings of the traditional approach to war in the First Bishop’s War. Armies were raised to meet an occasion and then disbanded quickly. There were no standards of dress or arms, no real battle tactics. Lines of men simply went at it, and the side that ran first lost; knowing who to kill was half the battle. Cromwell, as war was declared in the First Civil War, convinced Parliament to let him experiment with a new concept of warfare. Indeed, the result was termed “The New Model Army.” In this concept, men were conscripted as professionals, and given standardized dress (the famous Redcoats), standard arms, a formal command structure, and, above all else, training and discipline. The result was a quantum leap in warfare. The King’s forces, though about equally numbered, never stood a chance. In encounter after encounter, the New Model Army crushed the Royalists. The battles have become legend in English history: Edgehill, Grantham, Gainsborough, Winceby, Marstoon Moor, Newbury, Naseby, Langport, Basing House, Oxford, Pembrooke Castle, Preston, Pontefract Castle, and later, Drogheda, Wexford, Clonmel, Dunbar, Edinburgh, and Worcester. The New Model Army never lost a fight.
Charles I fled the field to Scotland in April of 1646; by June, his forces had collapsed. The poor King was seized by Parliamentary forces, escaped, and established new Royalist forces, touching off the Second Civil War. Once again, the Royalists were no match for the New Model Army. After several particularly one-sided slaughters, the Royalist forces finally disintegrated in late 1648. The King was once again captured, amazingly once again escaped, and was caught again, this time to stand trial for high treason and crimes against the nation.
What unfolded was a sordid chapter in British history. Cromwell had decided that the King must be found guilty and put to death. The Second Civil War, and no doubt the King’s uncanny ability to escape, had convinced him that Charles could not be left alive “for the good of the Nation.” A kangaroo court of sorts was rounded up, some 135 men who were to be both judge and jury. Cromwell had considerable difficulty finding judges, or “Commissioners,” as they were called. Many had to be strongly coerced to serve; about half of the commissioners never attended any of the proceedings. The trial was brief. Nine days after the opening of the commission, King Charles I was found guilty of the charges and sentenced to death. The King had refused to recognize the authority of the commission and had mounted no defense. Of the 135 commissioners, only 62 had found him guilty; of those 62, only 59 signed the death warrant itself. There was an air of the surreal about the whole affair; silliness broke out as several of the Judges splattered one another in an ink fight while signing the warrant. Nevertheless, the day after the verdict, on January 30, 1649, Charles I quietly stepped through a dismantled window of Whitehall Palace and on to a black-draped scaffold hastily built for the occasion; he was wearing two shirts because it was cold, and he was concerned that he would shiver and the people would believe that he was afraid. Cromwell himself did not attend the execution; as the King placed his neck on the block, Cromwell was at a prayer meeting with several other signers of the warrant.
It is impossible to overstate the enormity of this crime to the Elizabethan mind. The paradigm of the age described the universe as a morally organized hierarchy. God sat at the top of the order and Satan sat at the bottom. Between God and Satan was all existence, each entity occupying a specific place in the hierarchy. In Heaven, the angels were ordered according to their closeness to God. Purgatory came below Heaven, and the Temporal World came below Purgatory. Hell was at the bottom, again organized according to the crimes of the condemned.
Even inanimate matter was fit into this moral scheme; base metals were below noble metals. The principal science of the day, Alchemy, was the study of the relative moral level of matter. Among temporal existence, man was at the top of the hierarchy, above all other animals and plants. At the summit of mankind came the King. To kill the King, therefore, was not merely a political event. Regicide disturbed the universe.
Despite the death of the King, the struggle was not over. Royalists rallied around the King’s son, the Prince of Wales, who was promptly declared King Charles II. The country was in for two more years of bloody war. But the outcome was never really in doubt. Once again, the Royalist forces were no match for the New Model Army and the genius of Cromwell in the field. In 1651, Charles II fled England for the Continent and the Civil Wars finally came to a close.
During the Civil Wars, Parliament ran the Country through ordinances. An executive committee of Parliament, called the Council of State, was appointed and effectively became the executive branch of the government. Cromwell sat on this committee. As his record of phenomenal military accomplishment grew, so did his control of the government.
At the close of the war, in 1651, Cromwell and his close associates held several meetings to determine the “Settlement of the Nation.” There were some who felt that the fight had been with the Stewarts, and not with the concept of a King per say. Others felt strongly that a King would always present a threat to fundamental liberties. Issues such as the property requirement for voting, the right of the government to tax, the appointment of judges, and the role of the army were discussed. In many ways, the problems that these men struggled with were exactly what American revolutionaries debated 100 years later. Alas, the Roundheads had no Thomas Jefferson, no John Marshall, no James Madison. As the nation slowly drifted into unrest, the Roundheads debated to no conclusion. The Parliamentarians had won power in the field of battle but had no vision of what to do about it.
Several political parties vied for control: the Presbyterians, the Levellers, the Fifth Monarch. As his struggle with these fringe groups developed, Cromwell, justifying himself in the name of public order, became as ruthless and intolerant as Charles - and then some. In the process Cromwell acquired more and more authority. On December 16, 1653, Oliver Cromwell became the “Protector.” In reality the office of Protector, while not formally defined, approached the traditional authority of Kings.
For the next five years Oliver Cromwell ruled England. His rule was filled with ironies. He waged war with the Protestant Dutch; he formed alliances with Catholic France. He ordered and led the most terrible genocide policies for Ireland; he overthrew the law that banned Jews from England and encouraged Jewish settlement in England. He waged war with the Spanish in the West Indies suffering his first and only military defeat in a failed and costly attempt to seize Hispaniola; he did succeed in acquiring Jamaica. Throughout he had great difficulty with his own Parliament. The “Rump” Parliament (so called because it was what was left after the purges of Charles I) had been sitting since the outbreak of Civil War. In 1653, Cromwell had the Rump dissolved because of party frictions. The new Parliament, known as the “Bare Bones” Parliament was packed with Cromwell’s cronies. Nevertheless, it too proved impossible to control and was dissolved by Cromwell in 1654. This pattern of “rigging” Parliament with loyal associates only to find dissent growing would dog Cromwell through several more Parliaments.
In 1655, Cromwell abandoned all vestiges of democracy. He removed virtually all existing government machinery and replaced it with the army. The country was divided into 11 sections,
each ruled by a Major General who reported to Cromwell alone. Cromwell was now a virtual military dictator. The effectiveness of this form of government varied considerably with the
personalities of the 11 Major Generals. Some sections were ruled with tact and diplomacy; other sections were ruled with callous disregard for human rights. By 1657, discontent with the Major Generals was becoming widespread. Cromwell was encouraged to become King and to return the country to the “old ways.” Cromwell agonized over this question for some time. In reality he already had most of the power of a king. Left unanswered was the question of succession. In the end Cromwell refused the title as well as the system of government. Instead, in 1657, Cromwell had himself named “Lord Protector,” a subtle change. In his new position as Lord
Protector, succession would not be hereditary, but the position was given the right to chose his successor. At least the process for determining succession had been established.
1658 saw Cromwell’s greatest foreign victory when, at the battle of the Dunes, the Anglo-French forces defeated Spain and chased them from the Netherlands. The victory gave Dunkirk to the British, giving England a foothold on the Continent. He did not have long to savor this triumph. On August 6, his favorite daughter, Bettie Claypole, died. Cromwell was devastated and fell into melancholia. His depression quickly advanced; within a few weeks he was on his death bed.
To his associates great worry Cromwell lay despondent and ill and had not named his successor. There was a slight problem. Cromwell had two surviving sons, Richard and Henry. Henry had proven himself an able administrator; he had been given total authority in Ireland and had ruled that country with skill and ability. Henry was, however, the “second son.” Richard was the eldest. Richard was anything but an experienced leader. Shy, almost retiring, Richard had never left home; he had played no role in his father’s government. Nevertheless, Cromwell could not bear to “skip” Richard and at the moment of his death, he whispered “Richard.” Accordingly, Richard Cromwell was named Lord Protector upon his father’s death on September 3, 1658. But he had no stomach for it and in a matter of months, Parliament passed the Declaration of Breda (May 1660) which recalled Charles II from his continental exile and proclaimed him King. The Commonwealth Government was over.
Upon acceding to the throne, Charles II announced a general amnesty to all involved in the civil wars, the death of his father, and the Commonwealth government. This good mood changed, however. Soon, after much jostling by his advisors who urged a purge of all Roundheads, Charles issued a warrant for the arrest and trial of only those 59 judges who had signed his father’s death warrant; the signers were now officially “Regicides, “ killers of the King.
Several, like Cromwell, had passed away peacefully during the Commonwealth. In a dark rage, bodies were exhumed, abused, and put on mock trial. Twenty four of the living were indeed arrested, tried, convicted, and put to death or disappeared into dungeons. A few went into hiding. Twelve managed to flee the country. Three of the Regicides made it to the American Colonies.
THE REGICIDES IN AMERICA
Edward Whalley was Cromwell’s cousin and one of his closest associates. Whalley had been a general under Cromwell during the civil wars; he had been instrumental at virtually every major battle. Whalley had attended the meetings on the “Settlement of the Nation;” like Cromwell, he was a devout Puritan, frequently taken to outbursts of prayer. Whalley had been given direct responsibility over the security of the King during the trial and was appointed by Cromwell as one of the eleven Major Generals (for the Midlands). Whalley had served as a
commissioner for the trial of Charles I, signing the King’s death warrant in fourth place, just after the signature of Oliver Cromwell.
William Goffe was a general in the New Model Army. His status in the Commonwealth leadership took a big step forward when he married Edward Whalley’s daughter. Like his father-in-law, Goffe was one of the eleven Major Generals (for the Southern Counties from Southampton to Kent). Like his father-in-law, Goffe was a passionate Puritan, frequently prone to fervent prayer and such. Goffe had also served as a commissioner for the King’s trial and signed the warrant in fourteenth place. Whalley and Goffe had seen the writing on the wall. On May 4, 1660, before the new King singed the warrant for their arrest, Whalley and Goffe left England on the ship Prudent Mary, bound for Boston. From the day they left England Goffe kept
a diary. It is largely from this diary and Goffe’s correspondence home, that posterity has such remarkably complete information about their adventures.
Less is known about the third Regicide to escape to the American Colonies. John Dixwell had sat in three Parliaments and was a member of the Council of State when the King went on trial. Dixwell was never a distinguished soldier and was made a colonel in a Kentish troop only after the war. There is some evidence that Dixwell was unenthusiastic about the execution of Charles, but he did attend the trial and signed the death warrant in the thirty-eighth position. Dixwell remained hopeful in England until he was actually named personally as a Regicide. He then sent word that he was too ill to attend a trial and quietly slipped across the Channel, eventually making it to Hanau in Prussia. He appeared in the American Colonies five years later.
Whalley and Goffe, traveling under the names of Edward Richardson and William Stephenson, arrived in Boston on July 27, 1660. They obviously felt they were safer in the Colonies though they were still in domains under British control. There was good reason for their confidence. The Puritan Revolution, known as the Great Experiment, had spread to the Colonies. The hope of starting a New Society, based on God’s Word, free from the “established” corruption of England, had attracted many of the most extreme believers in the Puritan cause; Cromwell himself had frequently contemplated starting over in America. The Revolution was over in England but not necessarily in the Colonies.
On the passage over they met two fellow travelers who were to help them on their journeys: Daniel Gookin, who was a prominent member of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and William Jones, who was married to the daughter of a leading citizen in New Haven. After a cordial reception in Boston by no less than Governor John Endicott, they proceeded to Cambridge, guests of Mr. Gookin, where they were introduced to the Bay area society. Here they remained for several months, living the lives of heroes.
Their comfortable circumstances were shaken a bit when a ship from England arrived with the “Pardon and Oblivion” documents specifically exempting from pardon thirty men, including Whalley, Goffe, and Dixon. News later arrived that an explicit warrant for their arrest had been issued promising 100 pounds to anyone who helped bring the Regicides to justice. This glum news was followed by the even bleaker news that Regicides who had been caught had been treated harshly; first they were hanged until not quite dead, and then, still alive, drawn and quartered. Nevertheless, the authorities in Boston did not respond until February 22, 1661 when the Court of Assistants, the upper chamber in Massachusetts, met to discuss what to do about the Regicides. Gookin was a member of the Court; opinion was divided and no decision was reached.
Prudence held sway, however, and Whalley and Goffe left Boston on February 26 through heavy snows for New Haven. They traveled 160 miles by foot with an Indian guide, first to
Springfield, then to Hartford and on to New Haven. Once they were out of the Commonwealth, Governor Endicott issued a warrant for their arrest.
When they reached New Haven on March 7, Whalley and Goffe sought out William Jones (whom they met on their voyage across the Atlantic). Jones introduced them to John Davenport, pastor of the New Haven church. Davenport was a happy choice of contact. In his early career he had served under the infamous William Laud. Davenport was a committed Puritan Roundhead and was forced to flee England when Laud became Archbishop. Davenport first went to Europe, then on to one of the most remote parishes in the Colonies, New Haven. The first sermon that Reverend Davenport gave in New Haven prepared his congregation for further refugees from England; “Hide the outcasts, betray not him that Wandereth” from Isaiah was the text for his sermon.
At this point, private enterprise entered the picture. Two men in Boston decided to go for the reward. Thomas Kellond was an out of work merchant and Thomas Kirke was an out of work ship’s captain. 100 pounds was a lot of money in the 1660’s. Together, they lit out for the two Regicides traveling at the brisk pace of 40 miles per day. By May 10, they were in Hartford asking a lot of questions. By May 11, they were in Guilford, confronting the Deputy Governor, William Lette. Lette slowed them down, first claiming he had to call a meeting before he could give them any information or assistance, then claiming that he could not find horses for them. Meanwhile, Lette dispatched a messenger, one John Meggs, to warn the Regicides.
Lette had managed to stall the bounty hunters in Guilford until May 13. By the time they arrived in New Haven, the Regicides had left; in fact, they left on the 11th when Meggs gave the alarm. Nevertheless, the magistrates in New Haven debated for another four days before permission to search for the Regicides was given.
Whalley and Goffe were hidden in a cave in the New Haven hills. There they remained for months; food was provided every day by a local farmer. They named their new home “Providence Hill.” The news from England got even worse. The King had declared that anyone caught harboring a Regicide would suffer the same fate, hanging, to be followed by worse horrors. While Whalley and Goffe considered giving up, sparing their helpers the risk, their benefactors encouraged them to remain in hiding. Eventually, they were smuggled out of their cave to the private home of Micah Thompkins in Milford, Connecticut where they lived, quite secretly, for the next three years - “without so much as going into the orchard.”
In the spring of 1664, Charles II sent a small force of officers, four ships, and 450 men to Boston. The expedition had two objectives: to “liberate” New Amsterdam and to capture the Regicides. This small army arrived in the Colonies on April 23, 1664. They headed immediately to Southern Connecticut. Forewarned again, Whalley and Goffe once again returned to their cave on Providence Hill. They remained in their cave through the summer and fall. As winter approached, desperation set in. It was still not safe in New Haven. The decision was taken to head for Hadley, Massachusetts. Why Hadley?
Hadley was a brand new town founded just 5 years before in 1659. It was about as far “out there” as you could get and still have a few white people around. Hadley had been founded by a group from Wethersfield who had split with the church of Hartford over a “friendly ecclesiastical dispute.” One of the principal founders of Hadley was John Russell. Russell was born in England but moved to the Colonies as a child. He was educated at Harvard, fourteenth to graduate from that college. The dispute with Hartford really was friendly; Russell would later marry the daughter of the pastor of the Hartford church. Russell was another radical Roundhead supporter and a friend of William Davenport. Russell was the first preacher in Hadley and the
town’s leading citizen. It was to John Russell that the Regicides traveled, 80 miles north, moving only at night.
The area of the township of Hadley was larger than today, bordered by the Hadley Falls to the south and Sugarbush Mountain to the north. The town itself was built within a long,
lazy bend in the Connecticut river. The town proper consisted of two parallel streets forming a center “commons” which began at the bend across from present day Hatfield and ending just across the river from Northampton. Indeed, for years, Hatfield was formally a part of Hadley and shared the same meeting house and church in the commons. Some fifty families lived in houses arranged along the commons.
Until King Philip’s War, Nonotuck Indians lived peaceably in the commons in a symbiotic relationship with the townspeople; the Indians supplied the whites with fish and game while the townspeople gave the Indians produce from their gardens. The great meadows between the town and the river were divided amongst the townspeople into gardens. Animals were pastured on the
other side of town, in what is now the Hockenum Valley. The first homes built in 1659 were rough, single room log cabins; proper houses were not long in coming, however.
When the Regicides reached Hadley, they moved into an upstairs chamber in John Russell’s house. Conveniently, the room had a secret compartment under the floor boards near the fireplace. They remained in this room for the next ten years. It is not known how many of the town’s citizens shared John Russell’s secret. It seems inconceivable that someone did not go for the 100 pounds reward. It is known that John Russell never left his charges, never attended the usual conventions of ministers, never took positions offered him that would have required him to leave town, even for a few days. For a decade, John Russell cared for his guests and kept them safe - an amazing achievement and an awesome sacrifice.
Shortly after Whalley and Goffe arrived in Hadley, they were visited by John Dixon. Dixon had been living in Prussia but had traveled to the Colonies under the name of James Davids. He appeared in Hadley on February 10, 1665, spent a few days with his comrades in arms and quietly left, not to be heard of again for years.
In 1667, Goffe abandoned keeping his diary. He kept his correspondence with his wife and family, writing letters under the name of Walter Goldsmith. His letters were smuggled into England by Increase Mather. In 1674, he wrote that Whalley was ill; it is likely that Whalley died before the year was out. During this time, rumors abounded about the whereabouts of the Regicides. One prominent rumor had it that Whalley and Goffe had been killed at the same time the Regicide John Lisle was shot in Lausanne.
According to Goffe’s letters, the years with John Russell passed slowly, with boredom and isolation dominating their lives. These were, after all, worldly men, accustomed to high office and great adventure. Their years in hiding were a torture for them. They were confined to their room, except when the town was at meeting or church service, when they came out for a brief glimpse of the outside world and a bit of sunshine.
The peace of this world, if not the monotony of life for General Goffe, was disturbed by news of Indian unrest in the east. As the stories of trouble moved west, the settlers became nervous. They were made a lot more nervous when they awoke one morning in late August, 1675 to find that the Nonotucks had moved out of the village commons.
News of the “massacre” at Deerfield brought the entire town to meeting on September 1. According to the legend, Goffe, who was enjoying his customary moment in the sun, saw the Indians approaching and, grabbing his broadsword - badge of his former office - abandoned his
hideout to warn the citizens. Ezra Stiles makes much of the fact that General Goffe had extensive war experience as a commanding officer; it was natural for him to immediately take command of the villagers and to promptly seize the offensive against the Indian attackers. Whether the event happened or not, the Indian uprising in the Connecticut Valley brought troops
from the east, turning Hadley into a garrison town. For a fugitive, the situation became extremely dangerous. Goffe left Hadley, though it is not known exactly when. It is known that he was in Hartford by September 1676. The last known letter to his wife was dated April 2, 1679; in this letter he was obviously depressed and tired of hiding, pleading for news from his family.
In 1680, a man name John London attempted to inform authorities in Hartford that Goffe was living with a man named Captain Bull. For his trouble, London was harassed by the Hartford authorities and told to keep quiet and remain in the county. London got away anyway, went to New York (recently “liberated” by the same force hunting the Regicides), and reported his knowledge of Goffe to Governor Edmund Andros. Andros was a committed Royalist. He dispatched an effort, the sixth, to find the Regicides. No further word was ever heard of William
Goffe. There is some evidence that Goffe made it back to Hadley after Andros dispatched his forces to Connecticut in pursuit. Letters that Goffe had received while living in Hartford were found among John Russell’s papers. It, therefore, seems likely that Goffe found his Last Reward back in the loving care of John Russell.
In 1673, James Dixwell, living in New haven under the name of James Davids and posing as a retired merchant, married a Mrs. Benjamin Ling. Dixwell was 66. His new wife died within a month. Four years later, Dixwell married Bathsheba How, age 31; by her he had three children. He died peacefully on March 18, 1688; his marker simply said: “J.D. Remember.” In 1776, during the American Revolution, British forces (wearing the traditional Redcoats, of course) found Dixwell’s grave and defaced it with spit. That was the extent of the King’s revenge on the Regicides in America.
But did the Angle story really happen? Did William Goffe leap out of hiding to turn the tides on the Indians and then simply vanish back to his secret room? In his introduction to the reprinting of the classic “History of Hadley” by Sylvester Judd, George Sheldon advances the argument that the Angel story is merely a romanticized myth. Sheldon traces the Angel story back to a family tale of the Leveretts, told in print for the first time by Governor Thomas Hutchinson in his “History of Massachusetts,” published in 1764. Hutchinson was in possession of Goffe’s diary when he wrote his history (the diary was later lost in a fire). Hutchinson was the first to report the presence of the Regicides in Hadley. However, he only mentioned the Angel story in a footnote, admitting that it was an unsubstantiated “anecdote.” According to Sheldon, the Angel story was later embellished and presented as fact by Styles, in his book “History of the Three Judges.” Since few were willing to take on a Yale president, later historians have simply repeated the story without verifying the facts.
Sheldon argues that attempts to discover evidence of the Angel story have failed to uncover any references to the event prior to Hutchinson’s footnote. It is this lack of contemporary references of the event in the diaries, articles, and other sources from the same period that compels skepticism. In fact, Sheldon argues that there is no real evidence of an actual Indian attach on Hadley on that day. Increase Mather reported an “alarm” at Hadley on September 1, 1675; he does not mention a fight. Given what happened in Deerfield, an “alarm” would have been in order. Solomon Stoddard, preacher for Northampton, wrote detailed descriptions of the attacks on Deerfield, Northfield, and Northampton. He never mentions Hadley. Sheldon believe that this absence of contemporary evidence of the Angel story is sufficient to discard the story as myth.
Given of gulf of three hundred plus years, we will probably never know exactly what happened in Hadley that fall day. I would, however, propose a theory of my own, based on resolving two questions. To begin with, if Hadley were not attacked on September 1, we might ask why not. After all, every other town in the valley was attacked. Why not Hadley? It would be years before the town was barricaded. Hadley was as vulnerable to Indian attack as any other frontier town. And second, if the town was never attached and Goffe did not jump from his hiding place to warn the villagers, what prompted the story in the first place?
I suggest the following explanation behind the legend. As news of Indian attacks came to Hadley, the elders of the town - those who knew of the General’s presence - turned to Goffe for advice. Goffe was a military man with extensive experience in warfare. Goffe instructed the elders on how to deploy their forces in such a way as to discourage an Indian attack. His strategy worked, and the Indians passed by Hadley to attack other settlements on their way to Canada. After the threat of attack passed, the explanation given to the general people was that an angel saved the town. Later, the story was embellished as it passed from generation to generation, until no less than the president of Yale wrote a story which had General Goffe leaping to the rescue, broadsword in hand.
AFTERTHOUGHT
The age of Cromwell fell between the crack in time that separated the Elizabethan world from the Age of Enlightenment. The ordered, hierarchical world view of the Elizabethans was clearly under challenge; the Roundheads dared to kill the King, and so disturb the universe. Cromwell was willing to attack the old paradigm of the world but he did not have a replacement. The great leaps of understanding that were to transform the world had not happened in time to guide him. Newton was born in 1642, the year the Civil War began. It would be forty years before his writings on cause and effect and the rational “laws” of nature would usher in a new world view, a new paradigm. When next British citizens took arms against the King, the result would be very different. By the middle of the Eighteenth Century, the intellectual underpinnings of the Enlightenment were well in place. In the “Settlement of the Nation” after the American Revolution, men would assume the moral neutrality of nature which is at the heart of Newtonian thought as they spoke of all men being created equal.
And yet, these two “Great Experiments” were connected. Cromwell unleashed a powerful spirit when he dispatched the King. Discontent with Royalty would smolder on past the Restoration. The Regicides in America were like precious seeds, tended, protected, and finally planted in the soil itself, to one day bring forth new life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Cromwell: The Lord Protector: by Antonia Fraser. Alfred A. Knopf. 1973
2. “The Hunt for the Regicides”: by Alexander Winston. American Heritage. December,
1964.
3. History of Hadley: by Sylvester Judd, with an introduction by George Sheldon. H.R.
Huntting & Co. 1905.
4. The Diary of General William Goffe: by Jack Dunn. The Book Press.
5. The Columbia History of the World. Edited by John Garraty and Peter Gay. Harper
& Row. 1972.
6. Historic Hampshire in the Connecticut Valley: by Clifton Johnson. Milton Bradley
Company. 1932.
7. A History of Three Judges of King Charles I by Ezra Stiles. Printed by Elisha Babcock.
1794.
8. “Angel of Hadley: Legend or Fact”: by George A. Snook, M.D. An unpublished essay
catalogued at the Forbes Library in Northampton.
9. The Guardians of the New World: Pioneering in the Connecticut Valley: by Doris H.
Wackerbarth. The Country Squire; Winchester Center, CT.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteThe article on the Regicide Judges is great. Are you aware that there is both a Dixwell Ave and a Whalley Ave in New Haven?
OCon