MU History Department Lecture Series- The Angel of Hadley

Miskatonic University Department of History Lecture Series:  The Angel of Hadley Presented by: Dr. Charles Gerard In 1649, at the height of the English Civil War, 59 judges signed the death warrant for King Charles the First. The Roundheads, led by Oliver Cromwell, overthrew the monarchy and ruled for five years. But when Charles’s son was restored to the throne, many of the rebel judges were caught. They were publicly hanged, drawn and quartered for the crime of “regicide.” Even those who had already died in the war were dug up from their graves for “posthumous executions,” their corpses hanged and torn apart. But three of the judges fled to New England and lived in the English colonies as fugitives. Two of them, Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe, ended up in New Haven, Connecticut, and hid in a cave outside of the town for months. One night, when the two were asleep, they were awakened by a horrible wailing. At the mouth of the cave they saw what they thought was a panther, its eyes blazing in the darkness. From there they fled north, and ended up in a remote outpost town called Hadley in Massachusetts, but after that details of their fate remain murky. Then, in 1676, during the brutal conflict between colonists and native American tribes, colonial soldiers protecting Hadley were lured to the north, leaving the town undefended. But then, according to legend, a fearsome, spectral figure with a white beard materialized. He was dressed in outdated clothes and wielded an old weapon known as a Mortuary Sword. The figure burst into a church where many townsfolk had gathered, and warned them about the coming attack. The mysterious apparition quickly organized a militia of settlers. The Wampanoag warriors were repelled, and ran in terror from the bearded figure. After the battle, he vanished and was never heard from again. Many have speculated that it was William Goffe, alive or dead, who came out of hiding to protect the settlers. The legend of the “Angel of Hadley” has been retooled and used as propaganda for various causes over the years. After the revolution, the legend was used as an example of frontier heroism. But those loyal to the crown painted him as a wretch who lived in hiding – some even saying he was in league with the Devil. It’s noteworthy that during Goffe’s flight from New Haven to Hadley, he would have passed through Hartford, Connecticut. At the time, in 1662, Hartford happened to be in the throes of a brutal witch hunt, one that predated the famous hysteria of Salem by some 30 years. And the powers of this strange specter, who appeared out of the woods, predicted the Indians’ attack, and struck fear in his enemies, might have been considered witchcraft at the time. Did this figure really repel the attack using only military tactics and a completely untrained militia? If not, what arcane forces or entities might he have summoned to the cause? In this case, the line between miracle and witchcraft seems vanishingly thin. Perhaps one day Goffe’s lost journal will answer questions after popping up in an old bookstore, in the basement of an old New England house, or even among the stacks at our very own Orne Library.   This lecture was sponsored by the Miskatonic University Department of History.]]>