The Great Escape of Edward Whalley and William Goffe by Christopher Pagliuco

Author:Christopher Pagliuco
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 3

IRONSIDES

As mere commoners, Whalley and Goffe could only follow these political whirlwinds from the outside. Goffe’s arrest in 1642 for his role in circulating a petition to give control of the militia to Parliament shows that he was actively engaged in the issues. 14 The fact that the petition concerned control of the militia suggests that Goffe shared Parliament’s deep distrust of Charles. Part of what made the English civil war so significant and intriguing was that the war itself fundamentally transformed English society. The sheer destruction caused by the war provided opportunities for Whalley and Goffe to climb to a level of national prominence never otherwise possible. Although Charles could never have known it at the time, it would have been far easier to negotiate with Parliament early in the war than it would be to deal with the likes of Whalley and Goffe at the end.

Goffe began his military career as a cornet, the lowest-ranking military officer, in the cavalry troop of John Fiennes. Fiennes was the son of the incredibly influential English viscount Saye and Sele. It was Edward Whalley, however, who found himself at the center of the action, playing a central role in the most pivotal battles of the war.

Whalley may have also began as a cornet in the Earl of Essex’s army and thus fought in the first battle of the war, Edgehill. 15 After ten months of preparations, Charles’s forces began an advance on London, a parliamentary stronghold, and the two armies fought to a draw on the vale of Red Horse in Warwickshire. While it quickly became clear that neither side was going to achieve a quick and decisive knockout blow, a seed was planted in this fight that would ultimately determine the outcome of the entire war. Although he arrived too late to influence the result, Oliver Cromwell was able to observe the action on the battlefield. He noted the high quality of the king’s men and concluded that he would need men of superior conviction to be victorious, not, as he put it, “mere’serving men and tapsters.” 16 In a famous report to the Suffolk commissioners shortly thereafter in 1643, Cromwell stated, “If you choose godly honest men to be captains of horse, honest men will follow them…I had rather have a plain russet coated captain that knows what he fights for and loves what he knows, than that which you call a gentleman and is nothing else.” 17 In his cousin Edward Whalley, Cromwell found his man. In March 1643, the same year Cromwell wrote about “godly honest men,” Whalley was promoted to captain in Cromwell’s newly formed regiment of horse. 18

Whalley quickly distinguished himself under Cromwell at the Battle of Gainsborough in 1643. After he led a brilliant charge up a sandy hill to overwhelm Royalist forces, thereby seizing control of the town, a much larger Royalist force arrived and forced Cromwell’s withdrawal. Major Whalley held off the larger Royalist army while the rest of Cromwell’s forces retreated.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.