Edward Whalley

Edward Whalley (c. 1615 - c. 1675) was an English military leader during the English Civil War, and was one of the regicides who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England.

The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was the second son of Richard Whalley, who had been sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1595, by his second wife Frances Cromwell, an aunt of Oliver Cromwell. His great-grandfather was Richard Whalley (1499-1583), a prominent adherent of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and a member of parliament. Edward Whalley is said to have started out as a woollen-draper, but on the outbreak of the English Civil War he took up arms for Parliament, became major of Cromwell's regiment of horse, and distinguished himself in the field. His conduct at Gainsborough in 1643 was especially praised by Cromwell; he fought at the Battle of Marston Moor, commanded one of Cromwell's two regiments of cavalry at the Battle of Naseby and at the capture of Bristol, was then sent into Oxfordshire, took Banbury, and was besieging Worcester when he was superseded, according to Richard Baxter, the chaplain of his regiment, because of his religious orthodoxy.

He supported his regiment in their grievances against Parliament in 1647. When the king was seized by the army, he was entrusted to the keeping of Whalley and his regiment at Hampton Court Palace. Whalley refused to remove Charles's chaplains, and treated his captive with courtesy, so much so that Charles later wrote him a letter of thanks. In the Second English Civil War, Whalley again distinguished himself as a soldier. He was chosen to be a Commissioner (judge) at the trial of Charles I and was the fourth to sign the king's death-warrant, immidiatly after Cromwell. The King was executed in London on January 30 1649.

In April 1649 soldiers in his regiment took part in the Bishopsgate mutiny. They refused to go to on the Irish expedition until the Levellers' political demands were met and they received back pay. They were ordered out of London and when they refused to go, fifteen soldiers were arrested and court martialled, of whom six were sentenced to death. Of this six, five were subsequently pardoned while Robert Lockier, a former Levellers agitator, was hanged.

Whalley took part in Cromwell's Scottish expedition, was wounded at the Battle of Dunbar, and in the autumn of 1650 was active in dealing with the situation in the north. The following year, he took part in Cromwell's pursuit of Charles II and took part in the Battle of Worcester. He followed and supported Cromwell in his political career, presented the army petition to parliament (August 1652), approved of the protectorate, and represented Nottinghamshire in the parliaments of 1654 and 1656, taking an active part in the prosecution of the Quaker James Naylor. He was one of the administrative major-generals, responsible for Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick and Leicester. He supported the "Petition and Advice," except as regards the proposed assumption of the royal title by Cromwell, and became a member of the newly constituted House of Lords in December 1657.

On Cromwell's death, at which he was present, he in vain gave his support to Richard Cromwell; his regiment refused to obey his orders, and the Long Parliament dismissed him from his command as a representative of the army. In November 1659 he undertook an unsuccessful mission to Scotland to arrange terms with George Monck. At the Restoration, Whalley, with his son-in-law, General William Goffe, escaped to North America, and landed at Boston on July 27 1660. The two fled for New Haven, Connecticut when their safety was compromised, where 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. Whalley left New Haven for Hadley, Massachusetts. Every attempt by the British government to procure his arrest failed. He was alive, but in poor health, in 1674, and probably did not live long afterwards.

Whalley was married twice: first to Judith Duffell, by whom, besides other children, he had a son John and a daughter Frances (who married Goffe, another regicide); and secondly to Mary Middleton, sister of Sir George Middleton, by whom he had two sons, Henry and Edward.

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

References

An account of Whalley's life is in Noble's Lives of the Regicides, and of his family in Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, vol. ii.. This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.