Charles I's killers in America: the lives & afterlives of Edward Whalley & William Goffe

Description

When the British monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II was faced with the conundrum of what to do with those who had been involved in the execution of his father eleven years earlier. Facing a grisly fate at the gallows, some of the men who had signed Charles I's death warrant fled to America. 'Charles I's Killers in America' traces the gripping story of two of these men - Edward Whalley and William Goffe - and their lives in America, from their welcome in New England until their deaths there. With fascinating insights into the governance of the American colonies in the seventeenth century, and how a network of colonists protected the regicides, Matthew Jenkinson overturns the enduring theory that Charles II unrelentingly sought revenge for the murder of his father. 'Charles I's Killers in America' also illuminates the regicides' afterlives, with conclusions that have far-reaching implications for our understanding of Anglo-American political and cultural relations. Novels, histories, poems, plays, paintings, and illustrations featuring the fugitives were created against the backdrop of America's revolutionary strides towards independence and its forging of a distinctive national identity. The history of the 'king-killers' was distorted and embellished as they were presented as folk heroes and early champions of liberty, protected by proto-revolutionaries fighting against English tyranny. Jenkinson rewrites this once-ubiquitous and misleading historical orthodoxy, to reveal a far more subtle and compelling picture of the regicides on the run. PART I: Lives1: Introduction2: Regicides on the Run I: Gravesend to Milford3: Regicides on the Run II: Milford to HartfordPART II. Afterlives4: Thomas Hutchinson and the Regicides' Rediscovery5: Ezra Stiles, the Regicides, and the American Revolution6: The Spirit of the Regicides, Liberty, and American National Identity7: The Regicides' Revival, Rise, and Decline8: ConclusionAppendix I - Dramatis PersonawAppendix II - Timeline of the Movements of Whalley and GoffeAppendix III - The Diary of William GoffeAppendix IV - The (Dis)appearance of John DixwellBibliographyNotesIndex