EDWARD WHALLEY, THE REGICIDE.

BY ROBERT PATTERSON ROBINS.

There has been much written and said concerning the life of this most remarkable man, and especially with reference to that part of it which was spent in this country, and not a few have been the theories concerning the last restingplace of one whose life was characterized by so much adventure. A most valuable, although somewhat discursive work by President Stiles, of Yale College, published in 1794,' opened a discussion which is even now being carried on with as much vigor and perseverance as characterized the worthy doctor's attempts to clear away the then almost impenetrable fog of mystery which surrounds the later years of the Regicide's life. Upon the many suppositions and theories concerning this much-mooted point, I propose to offer another theory, by endeavoring to adduce the evidence which leads me to believe that the regicide Whalley lies buried neither at New Haven nor Hadley, nor yet at Narraganset, but that his later years were spent on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, in the then county of Somerset, and that there he died and was buried.

Before entering upon the discussion of the points referred to above, a brief sketch of his career is necessary to preserve the continuity of the narrative, and to supply information to those who have not been able to obtain a history of the previous life and military services of Cromwell's relative and ally.

Major-General Edward Whalley was the second son of Thomas Whalley of Kirkton, Nottinghamshire, and Frances Cromwell, third daughter of Sir Henry Cromwell of Hinchinbrook (grandfather of the Protector), and was born about

'A History of Three of the Judges of King Charles I., etc., by Ezra Stiles, S.T.D., LL.D., President of Yale College.

1615. Bred to mercantile life, though in what branch we have no record, he pursued his avocations until the breaking out of the war between King Charles I. and the Parliament, when he gave up trade for arms, and embraced the side of the Parliament. In August, 1642, he is recorded as Cornet of the 60th regiment of horse, and his rise from that position was rapid, until he occupied a post of high honor in the army. In 1645, in reward of his gallant and distinguished bearing at the battle of Naseby, he was made a Colonel of Horse, and received other honors. "The first civil war lasted for two years longer, and no regiment was more busy than Col. Whalley's. We trace him at the defeat of Goring's army at Langport (July 10, 1645), at the sieges of Bridgewater (July 11-25, 1645), of Sherborne Castle (Aug. 1-15, 1645), of Bristol (Aug. 21 to Sept. 11, 1645), of Exeter (Feb. 1646), of Oxford (March, 1646), and of Banbury. On May 9, 1646, the day on which his letter to the Speaker, announcing the storming of Banbury Castle, was written and received, the House voted him their thanks and £100 for the purchase of two horses." In January, 1649, he was one of the fifty-nine who signed the warrant for the execution of King Charles, and was present at the execution of his unhappy sovereign. Continuing steadfast in his allegiance to his cousin, Oliver Cromwell, he was advanced by him to the rank of Major-General, and was entrusted with the government of the five counties, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester. He was one of the representatives for Nottinghamshire in the Parliament held in 1656-57, and a short time after was appointed by the Protector, Commissary-General for Scotland, and was called up into the other house, in which he sat as "Edward, Lord Whalley."

"During the eight months' Protectorate which succeeded. the death of Oliver Cromwell, Whalley was the mainstay of the Cromwell dynasty; but Richard's abdication came on

1 Vide "Memoranda concerning Edward Whalley and William Goffe," by Franklin B. Dexter. New Haven, 1876.

May 5, 1659, and the Long Parliament on reassembling withdrew Whalley's commission as General, through fear of his influence with the army. In October, when the army tried to seize the power, Whalley was sent as one of their Commissioners to treat with his old comrade Monk; but Monk refused to meet him, and presently the Restoration was accomplished."

When it was no longer safe for any of those immediately concerned in the murder of Charles I. to remain in England, Whalley, together with his son-in-law, Goffe, who also had played an important part in the bloody drama which had been enacting for the past twenty years, embarked from Gravesend in a swift-sailing vessel,' bound for Boston, and arrived in New England on July 27, 1660. Upon landing in Boston, they proceeded immediately to Cambridge, where they remained for seven months. When the act of Indemnity was brought over, and it was found that they were excepted from its benefits by name, and when Governor Endicott summoned his council of Assistants to consult about securing them, it became imperative for the judges to retire to a more secluded place. Accordingly on February 26, they left Cambridge, and after a nine days' journey arrived at New Haven, where they appeared openly as Mr. Davenport's guests for three weeks. But the news of a Royal Proclamation for their arrest coming to New Haven, on March 27, they went to Milford, and appearing openly there, they returned the same night to New Haven, and remained in concealment at Mr. Davenport's until May. After many narrow escapes, they contrived to turn away the Commissioners on a false scent, and for nearly four years they remained at Milford. In 1664, four Royal Commissioners arrived in Boston (towards the end of July), and "on the 13th of October, 1664, the judges removed to Hadley, near an hundred miles distant, travelling only by night; where Mr. Russel, the minister of the place, had previously consented to receive them. Here they remained

Under the names of Edward Richardson and William Stephenson.

concealed fifteen or sixteen years, very few persons in the colony being privy to it. The last account of Goffe is from a letter, dated Ebenezer, the name they gave their several places of abode, April 2, 1679." (Stiles, p. 26.)

All the New England historians agree in fixing the death of Whalley between 1674 and 1676, which is the first vital difference between the narratives published up to this time and the theory of the present essayist. Let us examine, then, their authorities for this assertion.

A letter of Goffe's to his wife, in England, dated 1674, in which he says of Whalley, "your old friend, Mr. R., is yet living, but continues in that weak condition of which I formerly have given you account, and have not now much to add." (See Stiles' Judges, pp. 118 and 119.)

Yet the same year we have him writing to Hooke, and saying, "I do not apprehend the near approach of his death more now (save only he is so much older) than I did two years ago." (See Dexter's Memoranda, p. 24.)

Yet the letter from Goffe to his wife, together with the discovery of a man's bones in the cellar wall of Mr. Russel's house, is the only evidence upon which this assertion (that Whalley died in 1675 or '76) can be based. And there is no reason to presume these remains to be those of Whalley any more than those of Goffe. As the matter stands, it is impossible for any one to say more than that both of the judges were living in 1674, and that there is no mention of Whalley after this date; that the bones found in Mr. Russel's cellar may as well have been the remains of Goffe as of Whalley.

With regard to the theory that both of the regicides were interred near the grave of Dixwell, in New Haven, a word must now be said.

President Stiles, in citing this evidence, says (p. 170): "When I first visited the E. W. stone, the moss of antiquity being yet upon it, both by inspection and feeling the lacunæ with my fingers, I read the date 1628, thinking it a mistake of the engraver, without once thinking or perceiving that the inverted might be 5. But afterwards revisiting it, I perceived that the inverted

was also 5. The moss being

now thoroughly rubbed off, the 5 is more obvious than the 2." Here the President himself acknowledges what he afterwards says must be either "error or deception." It is very evident that all the conclusions of Dr. Stiles with reference to the E. W. stone were forced judgments; in other words, that the theory that Whalley and Goffe were buried in New Haven was caused by the fact that two grave-stones with unsatisfactory and contradictory inscriptions were found near the grave of Dixwell, the other regicide. And it does not, moreover, seem to me that Dr. Stiles has proved satisfactorily that the M. G. stone is that of Goffe, and not that of Governor Gilbert. He merely says, "It will ever be difficult to persuade a New Haven man, and especially one of the family of Gilbert, that so small and insignificant a stone was put up at the grave of so honorable an ancestor, and so distinguished a person in civil life as Governor Gilbert." And then he proceeds to state that tradition had it that the Governor's grave was among those taken down in 1754 when the meeting-house was enlarged. If this be true, where could there be a more proper place for the stone to be transferred to than near the graves of Governor Eaton and Governor Jones? And even should such a conclusion seem forced, it could not be more so than that at which the President arrives, i. e., that M. G. means William Goffe, and 80 stands for 1680. Granting for the nonce that the M. G. stone is that of Governor Gilbert, how insignificant becomes the evidence that the E. W. stone is that of Whalley. Indeed, I see no reason to doubt that this stone also belonged to a citizen of New Haven, one Edward Wigglesworth, who died in that place on the first of October, 1653. "I acknowledge," says Mr. Dexter in his interesting "Memoranda," "that the 3 is more like an 8; but nobody except Dr. Stiles ever suspected that the 5 was a 7." I do not see that there can be any doubt that both these stones have obtained their notoriety because of their proximity to the grave of Dixwell. The curious resemblance between the lettering on the stones and the initials of the regicides, I regard as nothing more