#150 Regicides on the Run!

The History of the Americans

Jack Henneman

History

4.9 • 632 Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In May 1660, Oliver Cromwell now dead, Charles II was restored as King of England. The 59 judges who in 1649 had signed the death warrant of the king’s father, Charles I, were declared regicides, and exempted from the general amnesty Charles II offered to most people who had opposed his father. Some of the regicides were caught immediately and most gruesomely executed. Others fled to Europe. Three of them fled to New England. Their names were Edward Whalley, William Goffe, and John Dixwell. This is their story, an epic tale of bounty-hunting across old New England, a tale woven with the anti-Royalist attitude of the Puritans and concern for their status after the Restoration.

And, of course, there is the mysterious “Ghost of Hadley,” a depiction of which is the art for the episode on the website for the podcast.

[Errata: I am reliably informed by New Haveners that I blew the pronunciation of “Whalley,” which apparently is pronounced like the cetacean rather than the diminutive for Walter. Also, I said “Morris” when I meant “Harris” at least once for entirely unknown cognitive reasons. Finally, I said that the attack on Hadley was in June 1675, when in fact it was June 1676.]

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Selected references for this episode

(Commission received on Amazon links, if clicking through the website)

Robert Harris, Act of Oblivion: A Novel

Matthew Jenkinson, Charles I’s Killers in America: The Lives & Afterlives of Edward Whalley & William Goffe

Christopher Pagluico, The Great Escape of Edward Whalley and William Goffe

Edward Elias Atwater, History of the Colony of New Haven Until its Absorption Into Connecticut

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the History of the Americans podcast, episode 150. If episodes were years, this one would be the sesquicentennial. I'm your host, Jack Heneman, and I'm recording this episode on May 1st, 2024 in New Orleans.
0:23.5	We are telling the history of the lands now encompassed by the United States from the beginning without intentional presentism to carryover announcements before we get going.
0:35.8	I'm going to be in downtown Houston for the afternoon and early
0:39.0	evening of Friday, May 17th, and would be delighted to meet up with listeners. Shoot me an email at
0:45.3	the History of the Americans at gmail.com or through the contact page on the website, thehistory
0:50.9	theamericans.com, or by direct message on X, Twitter, and let me know if you think
0:56.9	you would do if we set it up. Also, don't forget to check out the timeline tab on the homepage of
1:03.1	the website. I've now put in everything from the first 30 or so episodes through the rise of
1:08.5	the merchant adventurers in England. It's kind of been fun to go back
1:12.6	through and read the old scripts. There was a lot there even I had forgotten. This episode will be
1:19.6	more satisfying if you know something of the English Civil Wars or if you have listened to our
1:25.4	overview. Oliver's Army,
1:27.7	what you need to know about the English Civil Wars,
1:30.7	which went up on April 2, 2024.
1:34.3	It also wouldn't hurt to have listened to the two recent episodes on New Haven Colony.
1:40.3	Careful study of the map of New Haven, Connecticut.
1:45.0	Not that most people ever have reason to do that.
1:48.3	We'll discover a long street called Wally Avenue and a shorter one called Goff Street.
1:54.9	They converge with Dixwell Avenue near Yale's campus, just across from a residential college named after Yale's second
2:02.8	president, Ezra Stiles. This intersection memorializes a moment from early America that's fascinated
2:10.9	historians and local history buffs for generations. The story of three of the 59 judges who signed the death warrant of the English King Charles I
2:22.0	1st in January 1649.
	...

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