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Charles I's Killers in America: The Lives and Afterlives of Edward Whalley and William Goffe Hardcover – August 1, 2019

by Matthew Jenkinson (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 31 ratings
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When the British monarchy was restored in 1660, King Charles II was faced with the conundrum of what to 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.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    288 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Oxford University Press
  4. Publication date
    August 1, 2019
  5. Dimensions
    9.3 x 0.9 x 6.2 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0198820739
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0198820734
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...well researched and well crafted" -- John Coffey, University of Leicester, Milton Quarterly

"Intriguing account." -- Philip Terzian, The Wall Street Journal

"The book's forte is its careful analysis of the available material and the patient exposure of its frustrating inadequacies." -- Andrew Taylor, The Times

"A delightful read." -- Colin Kidd, The Guardian

"Jenkinson's work ... offers a refreshing corrective to recent popular accounts, which have tended to rehearse the now familiar story of the dramatic pursuit of these 'king killers' across the wilds of New England by Royalist bounty hunters ... The picture presented by Jenkinson of the increasingly cloistered existence endured by two ageing revolutionaries wracked with spiritual doubt may make for poorer fiction but is certainly the stuff of excellent history." -- Edward Vallance, Literary Review

"Exhaustive research and penetrating analysis." -- James Baresel, HistoryNet

"A lively and engaging account of two of the regicides who fled to New England and how they subsequently came to be remembered and mythologized in eighteenth-, nineteenth-, and twentieth-century America. Drawing on a wide range of both historical and fictional sources (including novels, plays, and visual art), this fascinating study reveals the crucial role that the subsequent refashioning of the story of the regicides played in forging a nascent American national identity." -- Tim Harris, Munro-Goodwin-Wilkinson Professor in European History, Brown University

Book Description

The story of Charles I's killers, their espace to America upon the Restoration in 1660 and how they became folk heroes after their deaths as forebears of the American Revolution.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press (August 1, 2019)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0198820739
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0198820734
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.13 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.3 x 0.9 x 6.2 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 31 ratings

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Matthew Jenkinson

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
31 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Thoughts.
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2024
An absorbing and impressive read!! Highly
Recommend.
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Batsey9
5.0 out of 5 stars Fast delivery
Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2020
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Good book
One person found this helpful
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Shannon C
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible read
Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2023
Wonderfully written, interesting and thoughtful. Loved every page and would highly recommend!
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Wittelsbach
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and impeccably researched
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2019
"Charles I's Killers in America" is a fascinating read about an overlooked aspect of English and American history. Tying together the politics and culture of colonial New England in the aftermath of the Restoration, Jenkinson illuminates the lives--and legend--of two men who signed the death warrant for Charles I. Whalley and Goffe became more famous during their time in exile in colonial New England than back in England. The book sheds light on a forgotten history of these men and the politics of the time, and it shows how the true story of these men became important propaganda for prominent New Englanders in the run up to the Revolutionary War. Well worth the read for anyone interested in the history of New England or the Restoration.
5 people found this helpful
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Bernard R. Levine
3.0 out of 5 stars But there were three.
Reviewed in the United States on August 5, 2019
Why omit Dixwell? There were three regicides in Connecticut, their names immortalized in New Haven's street grid.
4 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Vicuña
5.0 out of 5 stars A lively and astonishing account
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2019
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Matthew Jenkinson’s account of Whalley and Goffe’s escape to America is exciting and compelling. I polished off the entire book in a couple of sittings, totally amazed by what happened and the way their story has reverberated through American culture.

I came to this with no knowledge at all of those involved in the regicide of Charles I. It was not a topic given much consideration when I last studied history at school many moons ago. Jenkinson sets the scene for the execution in the opening pages. He explains how an autocratic monarch, whose belief in Divine Right, was effectively sealing his own death warrant. There were some 50 signatories to the document, with Whalley and Goffe being two of the most notable. They realised prior to the Restoration that CharlesII was unlikely to be sympathetic and fled to the USA.

At that time, New England was populated by those looking for a new place to develop their political and religious beliefs. These two made no secret of their involvement in the regicide and appear to have been welcomed. There is limited contemporary source material to confirm fact from fiction, but the research appears meticulous. What I found fascinating was the way the stories of these individuals took on a life of their own and they became part of American folk culture, more notable over there than in their own country. It’s astonishing.

The references are detailed and many of the source documents or articles can be accessed online. There’s an extensive index and the book has some black and white prints of maps and pictures which add to the various dramas.

In summary, this is one of the most enjoyable biographies I’ve read. Well written, lively and these people really came to life. I’ve learned a great deal and it’s whetted my appetite to find out more about this period. Charles Spencer’s book, Killers of the King, is a useful complementary title for anyone wanting more detail about the regicide.
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Book fiend
4.0 out of 5 stars Slightly dry tale of two of Charles I's assassins
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 9, 2019
Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
The story and consequences of the actions of Whalley and Goffe are far better known in America where these two Parliamentarians of the 17th century acquired almost a mythical status. If your knowledge of American history is good you will understand why these two fairly ordinary military types, who had been signatories and involved in the killing of Charles I, were initially welcomed as heroes when they arrived on the east coast of the States. They were upholders of the Protestant faith and considered very godly - Puritans in every way. They had dodged arrest in England and set off by ship and were taken in to various households in Massachusetts and Connecticut, at first being welcomed with open arms and invited to give sermons. However, warrants for their arrest were sent to the powers that be in America and, although not very much effort was expended in actually trying to bag them and return them to England, their welcome became rather less public and they did sometimes have to resort to hiding in a chilly damp cave. I doubt that most people here have even heard of Whalley and Goffe - their story is quite interesting but not one that regarded with huge importance here. However the significance to Americans lies in the fact of the eastern States being under English control which was obviously resented to the point that regicide was considered almost to be a good thing. It is quite instructive to read how big an impact their actions had in America but in terms of the book it makes a fairly dry read. It's not terribly exciting stuff - and of course it doesn't end well for the regicides. The historical implications are almost more interesting. I can't say that this is a book I would take on holiday for an entertaining read and I doubt I shall read it again, but I did find it interesting.
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Ms E
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend!
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
I have always found the period of Stuart history fascinating, in particular the events that took place during, and after the life of Charles I. This book provides an absorbing and compelling account of a piece of the story about which I had very little prior knowledge. A superb read, and accessible for all interested in historical events from the 1600s.
One person found this helpful
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Sheenagh Pugh
4.0 out of 5 stars Lives and Afterlives
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 30, 2019
Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
This announces itself as being about the "lives and afterlives" of Edward Whalley and William Goffe, two signatories to Charles I's death warrant who, on the eve of the Restoration, escaped to America. Lives, in the sense of what became of them in their new land; afterlives in the sense of their posthumous reputation there and its effect on later events.

This is the sort of odd corner of history that always attracts me, but I felt the "afterlives" bit was considerably the more interesting, and where the book really came alive. You would think that two men trying desperately to stay one step ahead of the officials sent out to arrest them would make a gripping narrative. If it doesn't, I think that is because Whalley and Goffe never really come alive as people. From the chapters dealing with the war and the Commonwealth, we learn that they were both good soldiers and very religious, which one might have guessed, and later we learn that Goffe was prone to depression and always felt a stranger in America. But that's about it. These men had wives and families in England, and were in correspondence with them, but we learn nothing of their personal relationships, and much as I sympathised with their cause, it was hard to get really interested in the fate of two men practically without personalities. In fact, the interest lies more in how their survival becomes tangled up with the political differences between Charles II and his already-murmuring American colony.

This may not be altogether the author's fault, because to judge by the fragment of Goffe's diary that remains to us, and is included as an appendix, he at least was an obsessively god-bothering bore of the first order. It is after he and Whalley die that they become part of America's mythology, and a good deal more interesting in legend and fiction than they ever were in life. The story of the "Angel of Hadley", which just might, fascinatingly, be true, has Goffe surfacing from hiding to lead the inhabitants of a town in fighting off an attack by indigenous tribes (who, you may not be surprised to hear, were entirely in the right of the quarrel). Hawthorne may have had this tale in mind in his short story "The Gray Champion", where an ancient Puritan returns from the dead at critical moments in his country's history, and the Angel story, true or not, is clearly related to legends in which other countries' champions - Arthur, Joan, Theseus, Holger Danske - appear to soldiers in battle centuries later. Other stories cluster around these two in folk memory - everyone seems to have wanted to claim a family connection to them, especially at times of conflict with England.

Their myth was helped to prosper by an astonishingly silly act on the part of the English government, which I hadn't previously known about. In 1662, just after the restoration, a statute was passed decreeing that the anniversary of Charles I's death, January 30th, should be observed in all churches of England, Ireland, Wales and the dominions as "an anniversary of fasting and humiliation" on which sermons should be preached lamenting disobedience to monarchs. Given that many, certainly in New England, regarded the day in question as anything but lamentable, this was a provocative folly which served only to keep grudges and resentment alive. "30th of January sermons", both in England and America, quite frequently became subversive, drawing attention to the faults of kings rather than their supposed divinity.

The way the two men become part of a country's myth and fiction is intrinsically interesting, and well documented here, as is the way their star rises and falls in popular estimation according to what is happening in politics at the time - heroes during the War of Independence, less so after the murders of Lincoln and Kennedy, both of which, at the time, were described as "regicides". I think the writing style could be livelier, and less inclined to repeat points already made. The contemporary pictures and engravings reproduced in the book are welcome, if a bit blurry.
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W& E. Black
3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 25, 2019
Vine Customer Review of Free Product( What's this? )
This is an odd book. I was expecting some sort of analysis of the incident known as 'The Angel of Hadley', something I'd been interested in for many years now, but what I got was a slow recitation of what sparse evidence still exists of the Carolingian regicides who escaped to the English colonies in North America.

What the author misses in his long recital of diary mentions and long trails walked is that the people of that date in North America protected these men from their hunters, although it's quite possible that their hunters weren't that keen on finding them.

There's not a word about social conditions in North America at that time, not a word about 'King Phillips War' except in passing, very little about Hadley and its population and a very great deal about American romantic fiction of two hundred years ago.

I'd have liked to know a great deal about the skirmish that was fought, the numbers of people involved, their equipment and organisation. This reads like a collection of statistics rather than popular history.
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