This week, we tell a story from very early in Boston’s history, a story partly shrouded in legend. The cast of characters includes everyone from Increase Mather to Nathaniel Hawthorne, encompassing two kings, two continents, two colonies, and Royal governors Endecott, Andros, and Hutchinson. It is the story of two judges who signed the death warrant for a king, famously known as the regicides, or king killers. Edward Whalley and William Goffe became celebrities in Boston, before being forced to flee in the face of what one historian called “the greatest manhunt in British history.”
Hunting the King Killers
18th Century texts & primary sources
- Royal Governor Thomas Hutchinson’s account of Whalley and Goffe, drawn from Goffe’s diary and letters.
- Reverend Ezra Stiles’ account of Whalley and Goffe, based on Hutchinson’s work, plus interrogation of local Connecticut folklore.
- Charles II offers a reward for the capture of Whalley and Goffe (transcript)
- “The Gray Champion,” by Nathaniel Hawthorne, from Twice-Told Tales.
Scholarly articles
- “In Defense of Regicide: John Cotton on the Execution of Charles I,” by Francis J. Bremer, The William and Mary Quarterly, January 1980
- “Thomas Hutchinson, Ezra Stiles, and the Legend of the Regicides,” by Mark L. Sargent, The William and Mary Quarterly, July 1992
- “Review: Regicides on the Run,” by Matthew Jenkinson, Huntington Library Quarterly, Summer 2013
Popular press
- “The Regicides In New England,” by Frederick Hull Cogswell, New England Magazine, October 1893
- “The Hunt for the Regicides,” by Alexander Winston, American Heritage, December 1964
- “King Killers in America (and the American Who Avenged the King),” by Michael Walsh and Don Jordan, excerpted from The King’s Revenge: Charles II and the Greatest Manhunt in British History, August 2016
- For more on the 1689 uprising against Sir Edmund Andros in Boston, check out HUB History Episode 6.
Our header image is the death warrant for King Charles I. See the signatures of Whalley (far left) and Goffe (center) highlighted below.
Featured Historic Site
Since our story is from the 1600s, this week we’re sending you to the 1661 James Blake House, headquarters of the Dorchester Historical Society and oldest house in the city of Boston. It’s unique for its architecture and construction methods, as their website explains:
The house is one of only a few examples of West England country framing in the United States. Most of the early colonial homes in Dorchester were built by housewrights from the south and east of England, where brick and plaster building predominated. However, the Blake House was built in the manner of the homes of western England, which had long used heavy timber-framing methods. The James Blake House is a two-story, central chimney, gable-roof dwelling of timber-frame construction. It is on a rectangular plan, three bays wide and one bay deep and measures 38 by 20 feet. Built in 1661, the house is one of a relatively small number of its type – the post-Medieval, timber-frame house – surviving anywhere in New England.
Visit the exterior of the house at 735 Columbia Road in Dorchester any day. To get a tour of the inside, stop by on the third Saturday of each month between 11am and 4pm.
Upcoming Event
One of the pivotal events in this week’s story takes place during King Philip’s War, so it’s only appropriate to feature a talk about that conflict. On Wednesday, September 19, St Paul’s Cathedral is hosting a special lecture titled “The Lust for Land and the Roots of King Philip’s War.” It’s part of the Partnership of Historic Bostons’ Charter Day celebrations, where commemorating the naming of Boston on September 7, 1630. This talk will be given by Lisa Brooks, who is Professor of English and American Studies at Amherst College, the author of Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip’s War, and comes from an Abenaki heritage. Here’s how the Partnership describes the event:
King Philip’s War (1675-1678) was the largest conflict of 17th-century New England and resulted in mass casualties to both Native nations and English settlers. Underlying the conflict was the English drive towards colonizing Native lands, but in this insightful presentation, we’ll go beyond the usual facts and figures to hear individual people’s stories. We’ll visit people at every level of early New England’s hierarchies: from Puritan merchants to Harvard-educated Native scholars to Indigenous women leaders, we’ll see how their status played a role in their decisions. We’ll also hear the dramatic saga of the captive Mary Rowlandson in this fascinating talk on the origin, conflicts, resolution, and legacy of King Philip’s War.
The venue for the event, St. Paul’s Cathedral, also has roots in the 17th century. It was built partially on land owned in the 1670s by John Wampus, a member of Nipmuc tribe who one of the first natives to attend Harvard College.
The talk will begin at 6pm. Registration is not required, but they do ask for an RSVP.
We’re also featuring a book talk on September 19 from our friends at the South End Hisorical Society. Dina Vargo will be discussing her book A Hidden History of Boston, which is described as:
Boston is one of America’s most historic cities, but it has quite a bit of unseen past. Riotous mobs celebrated their hatred of the pope in an annual celebration called Pope’s Night during the colonial era. A centuries-long turf war played out on the streets of quiet Chinatown, ending in the massacre of five men in a back alley in 1991. William Monroe Trotter published the Boston Guardian, an independent African American newspaper, and was a beacon of civil rights activism at the turn of the century. Author and historian Dina Vargo shines a light into the cobwebbed corners of Boston’s hidden history.
The event is free and begins at 6pm at the South End Historical Society at 532 Mass Ave in the South End.