 FIFTY-NINE judges who has been appointed
by the Commons House of Parliament for the trial of King Charles the I of
England signed the warrant for his execution in 1649. Twenty-four of
these were still living at the time of the restoration of the monarchy in
1660. With other persons charged with being accomplices they were tried
and condemned after the end of the protetorate of Oliver Cromwell. Sixteen
of the judges fled and finally escaped, two of whom, Major General Edward
Whalley and Major General William Goffe secreted themselves in New England
and spend the remainder of their lives there.
After it had become certain that the monarchy was to be restored,
Whalley and Goffe left England before Charles the II ascended the throne.
They arrived in Boston July 27th, 1660, where they were all received,
but when it appeared late in November that they were not excepted from the
sentence imposed on the other regicides the principal persons of the Government
of Massachusetts became alarmed. With the help of loyal friends Whalley
and Goffe fled to New Haven, arriving on the 7th of March, 1661. They
were hospitably treated in New Haven by the ministers and magistrates, and
after the proclamation of King Charles the II ordering their return to England
for trial, they were hidden in the home of Reverend John Davenport, pastor
of Center Church, until April 30th. From that time they were concealed
at various homes in New Haven and the districts about New Haven for over
a year, the magistrates, ministers and other citizens refusing to give them
up.
When the English Government sent searchers to New Haven for them in
1662 they were concealed in Westville and Woodbridge until it was finally
decided that it was necessary for them to go into the woods to escape capture.
With the help of the Sperry family they covered with boughs of trees
and otherwise some large rocks on the summit of what is now West Rock and
remained there until after the searchers had disappeared. Since that
time these rocks have been known as Judges' Cave. Goffe's Journal says:
They entered this Cave on the 15th of May and continued in it until
the 11th of June, where Richard Sperry supplied them with food from his house
a mile away. On the night of June 11th they were frightened away by
a panther and fled to Mr. Sperrys home for safety.
Soon after this they disappeared and spend the remainer of their lives
in Tadley, Massachussetts.
Colonel John Dixwell, another regicide, did not come to New Haven
until much later and his identity was not known until his death. He
is buried on the New Haven Green.
The account of the visit of the regicides to New Haven is given by
Ezra Stiles, President of Yale, in a book published November 20th, 1793,
and dedicated "To all the patrons of real, perfect and unpolluted liberty,
civil and religious, throughout the world; this history of three of its most
illustrious and heroic, but unfortunate defenders is humbly submitted and
dedicated, by a hitherto, uncorrupted friend to universal liberty." |
