Evelyn seems to have got off with only a severe catechizing; but many of his fellow-worshippers were imprisoned, and otherwise severely punished. The examination was probably conducted by the theologically exercised Goffe, for the specimen preserved by Evelyn is worthy of his genius in every way. The amiable confessor was asked how he dared to keep "the superstitious time of the Nativity;" and was admonished that in praying for kings, he had been praying for Charles Stuart, and even for the king of Spain, who was a Papist! Moreover, he was told that the Prayer-book was nothing but the Mass in English, and more to the like effect; "and so," says Evelyn, "they dismissed me, pitying much my ignorance." This anecdote, accidentally preserved by Evelyn, shows what kind of characters they were. They seem to have been as sincere as any of their fanatical comrades, though it is always hard to say of the Puritan leaders which were the cunning hypocrites, and which the deluded zealots. Whatever they may have been, their time was short, so far as England is concerned with them; and in three years after this event, they suddenly disappeared. So perfectly did they bury themselves from the world, that from the year 1660, till the romance of Scott[37] again brought the name of Whalley before the world, it may be doubted whether any thing was known in England of lives, which in another hemisphere were protracted almost into another generation. Nobody dreamed there was yet an American chapter in the history of the regicides.