Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847Various
General
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 377, March 1847
Various
England -- Periodicals; Scotland -- Periodicals
Goffe, too, was of the Cromwellian cousinry, having married a daughter
of Whalley.[31] He was a soldier, but could do a little exposition
besides, when there was any call for such an exercise; as, for instance,
at that celebrated groaning and wrestling which was performed at
Windsor, and ended in resolving on the murder of the king,[32] after
extraordinary supplication and holding forth. When father Whalley
removed the mace, son-in-law Goffe led in the musqueteers, and bolted
out the Anabaptists, against whom he rode circuit through Sussex and
Berks, growing rich, and indulging dreams of disjointing the nose of
Richard, and thrusting himself into the old shoes of the Protector, as
soon as they should be empty.[33] He, too, sacrificed his feelings so
far as to become a lord; and, perhaps, thinking that royal shoes would
fit him as well as republican ones, he at last consented to making
Oliver a king.[34] Nor were his honours wholly of a civil character, for
he was made an M.A. at Oxford, and so secured himself a notice in
Anthony Wood's biographies, where his story concludes with a set of
mistakes, so relishably served up, that I must give it in the very words
of the _Fasti_, as follows:--"In 1660, a little before the restoration
of King Charles II., he betook himself to his heels to save his neck,
without any regard had to his majesty's proclamation; wandered about
fearing every one that he met should slay him; and was living at
Lausanna in 1664, with Edmund Ludlow, Edward Whalley, and other
regicides, when John l'Isle, another of that number, was there, by
certain generous royalists, despatched. He afterwards lived several
years in vagabondship; but when he died, or where his carcase was
lodged, is as yet unknown to me."[35]
On Christmas day, 1657, good John Evelyn went to London, in spite of
many severe penalties incurred thereby, to receive the holy sacrament
from a priest of the Church of England.[36] Mr. Gunning, afterwards
Bishop of Ely, was the officiating clergyman, and preached a sermon
appropriate to the festival. As he was proceeding with the Eucharist,
the place where they were worshipping was beset by Oliver's ruffians,
who, pointing their muskets at the communicants, through the doors and
windows, threatened to shoot them as they knelt before the altar. Evelyn
surmises that they were not authorised to go so far as that, and
consequently they did not put their threat into execution; but both
priest and people were taken prisoners, and brought under guard before
the magistrates to answer for the serious misdemeanour of which they had
been guilty. Before whom should the gentle friend of Jeremy Taylor find
himself standing as a culprit, but these worshipful Justices, Whalley
and Goffe! It was, doubtless, by their orders that the solemnities of
the day had been profaned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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