Thomas Hutchinson, Ezra Stiles, and the Legend of the Regicides
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4888094 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Mark L Sargent (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1992 |
| Volume | 49 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 431 |
| Publication date | 1992-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The William and Mary Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0043-5597 • E-ISSN: 1933-7698 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/2947106 |
| OpenAlex | W2328225289 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
WYP HEN Nathaniel Hawthorne chose Gray Champion as the first of his Twice-Told Tales, he selected a tale already told by nearly a dozen Romantic writers. Few episodes in the history of the British American colonies intrigued nineteenth-century novelists and playwrights more than the flight of the Puritan regicides to New England just before the coronation of Charles II. In i66o, William Goffe, Edward Whalley, and John Dixwell-three of the fifty-six judges who had sentenced Charles I to death eleven years earlier-sought asylum in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Dixwell lived in relative security in New Haven by hiding behind a false name; Goffe and his father-in-law, Whalley, retreated into the backwoods of New England once they realized that Charles II did not intend to pardon them. The two fugitives managed to avoid the king's agents, finding refuge in a cave as well as in the homes and cellars of sympathetic Puritans. No one is certain when the fugitives died or where they were buried, and their final years are wrapped in rumor and legend. Historians lose track of them after i667. At that point they were sheltered in a minister's home at Hadley, Massachusetts. According to one tale, Whalley's body was interred in the cellar of that home in i667. Another story had it that Goffe helped rescue the frontier town during King Philip's War, when one Sunday morning in I 67 5 he left his hiding place in the woods, entered the village church, and warned the worshippers of attack by the Algonkians. After rallying the town to victory, Goffe disappeared into the forest, leaving some to believe that he was an Angel sent of God upon that special occasion for their deliverance.1
Art · Art history · Legend · American Literature and Humor Studies · American Sports and Literature · Archaeology and Natural History
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,14 |
| Citation span | 2004 - 2025 (22) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |