Maj.Gen. William Goffe

William Goffe, d.c 1680, was a Radical army officer, regicide and Major-General who escaped to New England at the Restoration and became part of colonial folklore as the "Angel of Hadley."

From Wikipedia

William Goffe (1605?–1679?) was an English Roundhead politician and soldier, perhaps best known for his role in the execution of King Charles I and later flight to America.

He was son of Stephen Goffe, puritan rector of Stanmer in Sussex, and brother of Stephen Goffe (Gough), royalist agent. He began life as an apprentice to a London salter, a zealous parliamentarian. Goffe was a man of religious feeling, nicknamed "Praying William".[1]

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Inscription. In Memory of the Regicide Col William Goffe A member of the High Court of Justice which in 1649 tried and condemned King Charles 1st of England and a signer of the kings death warrant. He served with distinction in the Parliamentary Army and in 1655 was appointed one of the major generals who governed England under Cromwell. He was in turn a member of both Houses of Parliament. At the restoration of the monarchy he fled to New England with his father in law Col Edward Whalley. After several years of concealment in New haven the two regicides went to Hadley Massachusetts there remaining until the death of Whalley. Tradition relates that in 1675 during King Philips war Col Goffe suddenly appeared and rallied the citizens against the Indians and then vanished. From 1676 – 1679 he lived in Hartford under the name of T Duffell but of his death and place of burial nothing is known. By Michael Herrick

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By his marriage with Frances, daughter of General Edward Whalley, he became connected with Oliver Cromwell's family and one of his most faithful followers. Goffe's political aims appear not to have gone much beyond fighting "to pull down Charles and set up Oliver". He was imprisoned in 1642 for his share in the petition to give the control of the militia to the parliament.[2]

On the outbreak of the English Civil War he joined the army and became captain in Colonel Harley's regiment of the New Model Army in 1645.[2]

He was a member of the deputation which on 6 July 1647 brought up the charge against the eleven members. He was active in bringing King Charles I to trial and signed the death warrant. In 1649, he received an honorary M.A. at Oxford.[2]

He distinguished himself at the Battle of Dunbar, commanding a regiment there and at the Battle of Worcester. [2]

He assisted in the expulsion of Barebone's Parliament in 1653 and took an active part in the suppression of Penruddock's rising in July 1655. In October 1655 during the Rule of the Major-Generals was appointed major-general for Berkshire, Sussex and Hampshire. Meanwhile he had been elected member for Yarmouth in Norfolk in the parliament of 1654 and for Hampshire in that of 1656. He supported the proposal to bestow a royal title upon Oliver Cromwell, who greatly esteemed him, and was included in the newly-constituted House of Lords. He obtained Lambert's place as major-general of the Foot and was even thought of as a fit successor to Oliver Cromwell.[2]

As a member of the committee of nine appointed in June 1658 on public affairs, he was witness to the protector's appointment of Richard Cromwell as his successor. He supported the latter during his brief tenure of power and his fall involved his own loss of influence. In November 1659 he took part in the futile mission sent by the army to Monck in Scotland.[2]

In New England

Judges' Cave, where Goffe and Whalley hidIn 1660,

during the Restoration, he escaped with his father-in-law, General Edward Whalley, to Massachusetts. They landed in Boston on 27 July 1660, and settled in Cambridge. When the news arrived in Boston, on the last day of November, that the act of indemnity passed by parliament in August excepted them from its provisions, the government of the colony began to be uneasy, and a meeting of the council was held on 22 February 1661 to consult as to their security.[3]

Four days later, the two fled for New Haven, Connecticut, arriving on 7 March 1661.[3] There John Dixwell, also condemned as a regicide, was living under an assumed name. They were housed by Rev. John Davenport. After a reward was offered for their arrest, they pretended to flee to New York, but instead returned by a roundabout way to New Haven. In May, the Royal order for their arrest reached Boston, and was sent by the Governor to William Leete, Governor of the New Haven Colony, residing at Guilford. Leete delayed the King's messengers, allowing Goffe and Whalley to disappear. They spent much of the summer in Judges' Cave at West Rock.[4]

Letters to Dr. Increase Mather and others give hints as to Goffe's whereabouts, but very little is clear, perhaps due to his desire not to be captured and executed. He appears to have passed the rest of his life in exile in New England, separated from his wife and children, under one or more assumed names.[4]

Tradition has him sheltering for a decade in the home of Rev. John Russell at Hadley, Massachusetts, reappearing, according to legend, to lead the town's defence during King Philip's War, giving rise to the legend of the Angel of Hadley. Another traditional account has him later living under the name "John Green" in Stow, Massachusetts, where his sister resided, dying in Stow, and being buried in the Stow Lower Cemetery under an unmarked granite slab.[5]

The three regicides are commemorated by three intersecting streets in New Haven ("Dixwell Avenue", "Whalley Avenue", and "Goffe Street"), and in some neighbouring Connecticut towns as well.

Notes

• 1..^ Stephen C. Manganiello, The Concise Encyclopedia of the Revolutions and Wars of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 1639-1660: (2004), p. 225.
• 2.^ a b c d e f Chisholm 1911, p. 190.
• 3.^ a b Wilson & Fiske 1900.
• 4.^ a b Firth 1890.
• 5.^ "Colonial Stow". Town of Stow website. Virtual Towns & Schools. Retrieved 6 May 2012.
• References[edit] Firth, Charles Harding (1890). "Goffe, William". In Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee. Dictionary of National Biography 22. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 71–73.
• Wilson, James Grant; Fiske, John, eds. (1900). "Goffe, William". Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.

Attribution

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Goffe, William". Encyclopædia Britannica 12 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 190.

Information obtained through the Prince Edward Island Historical Center in Charlottetown paper records of "Genealogy of the Goff Family":

William represented Hampshire (or Hants) Co. in Parliament in 1641. He joined Cromwell's Army as Quartermaster, rose by his merit to the rank of Colonel and became ultimately Major General of Infantry. He was made General by Cromwell in 1641; and was at the taking of Wexford. He was one of the Regicides in 1648 and was a Colonel in the army that year and was an especial favorite of Cromwell. His wife was the daughter of Edward Whally (who was also a Regicide). They signed the death warrant of King Charles I. William accompanied Cromwell to Ireland when he held the rank of General. He was given a grant of land there. He was eventually made Lord Goffe and called to the House of Lords in Parliament in 1654. At the Restoration he was obliged to leave England and flee (leaving his wife and children behind) to America with his father-in-law, Whally. They went to Boston on board the Jurisdiction, leaving in March 1660. They made their way to New Haven - where they had to hide in a cave for a period of time to avoid the King's avengers.

With his father-in-law, General Whalley, he arrived in Boston in the summer of 1660, and shared his fortunes in America, becoming a major-general in 1665. When, during King Philip's War, Hadley was surrounded by the Indians, and the alarmed citizens every moment expected an attack (1675), Goffe suddenly appeared among them, took command, and led them so skillfully that the Indians were soon repulsed. He as suddenly disappeared. His person was a stranger to the inhabitants, and he was regarded by them as an angel sent for their deliverance. Soon after Goffe's arrival in Boston, a fencing-master erected a platform on the Common, and dared any man to fight him with swords. Goffe, armed with a huge cheese covered with a cloth for a shield, and a mop filled with muddy water, appeared before the champion, who immediately made a thrust at his antagonist. Goffe caught and held the fencing-master's sword in the cheese and besmeared him with the mud in his mop. The enraged fencing-master caught up a broadsword, when Goffe cried, " Hold! I have hitherto played with you ; if you attack me I will surely kill you." The alarmed champion dropped his sword, and exclaimed, " Who can you be? You must be either Goffe, or Whalley, or the devil, for there are no other persons who could beat me."

He died, either in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1679, or in New Haven, in 1680.

comments

This makes it impossible for France Goffe nee Whalley to be the mother of Richard Goffe in Waterford in 1645 - Frances Goffe would have only been 9 years old

References

• https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/goff/3108/ “ William Goffe, regicide, was the third son of Rev Stephen Goffe of Stanmer, Sussex, and was born ca 1614 in Haverford West, Wales. He married Frances Whalley, dau of Edward Whalley, regicide, and by her had three daughters: Elizabeth, Frances, Judith; and a son, Richard, who established a line of Goffes in co. Wexford, Ireland. Our line of Goffs is not from that line. It has been advanced that William Goffe had other sons but no proof of that has yet come to light.”
• http://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/goff/3124/ “6.1645? –1650: William Goffe married to Frances Whalley, dau of Col. Edward Whalley,before1650, exact date unknown; (Jagger, G. The Fortunes of the Whalley Family of Screvton Notts (1973) pp114, fn 2 PRO)The daughters born to this marriage were: Elizabeth, Frances, Judith (Coll Mass Hist. Soc. (1868) 4th ser. Vol viii pp 122-225) ; and a son, Richard, (Burkes Peerage & Baronetage, 99th ed. (1949) pp 838).”
• http://www.sonofthesouth.net/revolutionary-war/pilgrims/william-gof...
• A history of three of the judges of King Charles I. Major-General Whalley, Major-General Goffe, and Colonel Dixwell: who, at the restoration, 1660, fled to America; and were secreted and concealed, in Massachusetts and Connecticut, for near thirty years by Stiles, Ezra, 1727-1795. cn; Friends' Free Library, Germanton, provenance. Page 15 - 27. Archive.Org
• American Heritage Magazine, 1964 / VOLUME 16, ISSUE 1 / THE HUNT FOR THE REGICIDES link “ William Goffe had married Whalley’s only daughter, Frances. His career paralleled that of his father-in-law, and their lives were knit to the end. An able soldier, a frequent “prayer-maker, preacher and presser for righteousness and freedom,” he attended a meeting of officers gathered for mutual counsel on the fate of the King and spoke with such fervor, and invoked God’s wrath on Charles with such eloquence, that tears flowed. Goffe voted for the execution and signed the warrant in fourteenth place. ...” “... After 1667 Goffe gave up keeping a ciphered diary (it was destroyed when a mob sacked Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s Boston house in 1765) but continued a steady correspondence. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston sent Goffe’s letters to England under cover of his own. Goffe wrote to his wife, pretending that he was Walter Goldsmith, and that she was his mother, Frances Goldsmith. ...” “... He was in Hartford by early September of 1676. The loneliness, the loss of human society, the long separation from his family weighed upon him heavily. The last known letter from his pen—dated April 2, 1679—is a pitiable plea to Increase Mather for news of his wife and daughter. A year later a contemptible no-good named John London reported to Hartford authorities that Goffe was living in town with a Captain Bull. For his trouble, London was hauled out of bed on the Sabbath and brought before the appropriate Hartford officials, who gave him a cold reception. They forbade him to leave the county without permission. This order London promptly violated, making his way to New York (now British) and telling his story to Governor Edmund Andros. On order from Andros a sixth and final search was made throughout the colonies. No sign of Goffe was found. We hear no more of him; he may have been already beyond the reach of kings.“
• https://goff-gough.com/cpage.php?pt=12