No one of the New-England Colonies had formally
expressed approval of the execution of King Charles the First, nor is
there any other evidence of its having been generally regarded by
them with favor. It is likely that in New England, as in the parent
country, the opinions of patriotic men were divided in respect to the
character of that measure. In New England, remote as it was from the
scene of those crimes which had provoked so extreme a proceeding, it
may be presumed that there was greater difficulty in admitting the
force of the reasons, by which it was vindicated. And the sympathy of
New England would be more likely to be with Vane, who condemned it,
than with Cromwell. But the strangers, however one act of theirs
might be regarded, had been eminent among those who had fought for
the rights of Englishmen, and they brought introductions from men
venerated and beloved by the people among whom a refuge was sought.

Edward Whalley, a younger son of a good family, first cousin of the
Protector Oliver, and of John Hampden, distinguished himself at the
Battle of Naseby as an officer of cavalry, and was presently promoted
by Parliament to the command of a regiment. He commanded at the storm
of Banbury, and at the first capture of Worcester. He was intrusted
with the custody of the King's person at Hampton Court; he sat in the
High Court of Justice at the trial of Charles, and was one of the
signers of the death-warrant. After the Battle of Dunbar, at which he
again won renown, Cromwell left him in Scotland in command of four
regiments of horse. He was one of the Major-Generals among whom the
kingdom was parcelled out by one of the Protector's last
arrangements, and as such governed the Counties of Lincoln,
Nottingham, Derby, Warwick, and Leicester. He sat as a member for
Nottinghamshire in Cromwell's Second and Third Parliaments, and was
called up to "the other House" when that body was constituted.

William Goffe, son of a Puritan clergyman in Sussex, was a member of
Parliament, and a colonel of infantry soon after the breaking out of
the Civil War. He married a daughter of Whalley. Like his
father-in-law, he was a member of the High Court of Justice for the
King's trial, a signer of the warrant for his execution, a member of the
Protector's Third and Fourth Parliaments, and then a member of "the
other House." He commanded Cromwell's regiment at the Battle of
Dunbar, and rendered service particularly acceptable to him i