(_Connecticut, 1675_)
One of the most interesting stories in the history of the American
colonies is that of the adventures of the judges who voted for the
execution of King Charles I of England and who fled across the water
when his son came to the throne as Charles II. They were known as the
regicides, a name given to them because they were held to be responsible
for the king's death. When Charles II came back to England as king,
after the days when Oliver Cromwell was the Lord Protector, he pardoned
many of the men who had taken sides against his father, but his friends
urged him not to be so generous in his treatment of the judges. So he
issued a proclamation, stating that such of the judges of King Charles I
as did not surrender themselves as prisoners within fourteen days should
receive no pardon. The regicides and their friends were greatly alarmed.
Nineteen surrendered to the king's officers; some fled across the ocean;
and others were arrested as they tried to escape. Ten of them were
executed. Two, Edward Whalley and William Goffe, reached Boston Harbor
in July, 1660. Another, John Dixwell, came afterward.
Governor Endicott and the leading men of Boston, not knowing how King
Charles intended to treat the judges, welcomed them as men who had held
posts of honor in England. They were entertained most hospitably in the
little town, and they went about quite freely, making no attempt to
conceal from any one who they were.
Then word came to Boston that the king regarded the escaped judges as
traitors. Immediately many of those who had been friendly to the
regicides slunk away from them, avoiding them as if they had the plague.
The judges heard, moreover, that now Governor Endicott had called a
court of magistrates to order them seized and turned over to the
executioner. So, as they had fled from England before, the hunted
regicides now fled from the colony of Massachusetts Bay.
At the settlement of New Haven there were many who had been friends and
followers of Oliver Cromwell, and the regicides turned in that
direction. They reached that town in March, 1661, and found a haven in
the home of John Davenport, a prominent minister. Here they were among
friends, and here they went about as freely as they had done at first in
Boston; and everybody liked them, for they were fine, honorable men, who
had done their duty as they saw it when they had decreed the execution
of King Charles I.
There came a royal order to Massachusetts, requiring the governor to
arrest the fugitives. The governor and his officers were anxious to show
their zeal in carrying out all the wishes of the new king, and so they
gave a commission to two zealous young royalists, Thomas Kellond and
Thomas Kirk, authorizing them to hunt through the colonies as far south
as Manhattan Island for the missing judges and to bring them back to
Boston.
The searchers set out at once, and went first to Governor Winthrop at
Hartford. He gave them permission to arrest the regicides anywhere in
the colony of Connecticut, but he assured them that he understood that
the judges were not in his colony, but had gone on to the colony of New
Haven. So they set forth again, and next day reached the town of
Guilford, where they stopped to procure a warrant from Governor Leete,
who lived there.
Governor Leete appeared to be very much surprised at the news the two
men brought. He said that he didn't think the regicides were in New
Haven. He took the papers bearing the orders of Governor Winthrop and
read them in so loud a voice that the two men begged him to keep the
matter more quiet, lest some traitors should overhear. Then he delayed
furnishing them with fresh horses, and, the next day being Sunday, the
pursuers were forced to wait over an extra day before they could
continue their hunt.
In the meantime an Indian messenger was sent to New Haven in the night,
to give warning of the pursuers. Then Governor Leete refused either to
give the pursuers a warrant or to send men with them to arrest the
regicides until he should have had a chance to consult with the
magistrates, which meant that he himself would have to go to New Haven.
The upshot of all this was that the pursuers stayed chafing in Guilford
while the men they were hunting had plenty of time to escape.
John Davenport, the minister at New Haven, preached that Sunday morning
to a congregation that had heard the news of the pursuit of the English
judges. Davenport knew that the king of England had ordered the capture
of the judges and that this colony of New Haven was part of the English
realm. Yet, for the sake of mercy and justice, he urged his hearers to
protect the fugitives who had taken refuge among them. Not in so many
words did he urge it, but his hearers knew what he meant, for the text
of his sermon, taken from the sixteenth chapter of Isaiah, read: "Take
counsel, execute judgment, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of
noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not him that wandereth. Let mine
outcasts dwell with thee; Moab, be thou a covert to them from the face
of the spoiler." The congregation understood his meaning.
Early Monday morning Kellond and Kirk rode into New Haven, where the
people met them with surly faces. They had to wait until Governor Leete
arrived, and when he did he refused to take any steps in the matter
until he had called the freemen together. The two pursuers, now growing
angry, told the governor flatly that it looked to them as if he wanted
the regicides to escape. Spurred on by this the governor called the
magistrates together, but their decision was that they would have to
call a meeting of the general court.
More exasperated than ever, the two hunters spoke plainly to Governor
Leete. They pointed out that he was not behaving as loyally as the
governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut had; they warned him against
giving aid to traitors, and then they flatly asked whether he meant to
obey King Charles or not.
"We honor His Majesty," answered Governor Leete, "but we have tender
consciences."
The pursuers lodged at a little inn in New Haven. There the governor
went that evening, and taking one of them by the hand, said, "I wish I
had been a plowman, and had never been in office, since I find it so
weighty."
"Will you own His Majesty or no?" demanded the two men from
Massachusetts.
"We would first know whether His Majesty would own us," was the
governor's guarded answer.
The officers of New Haven would not help them, the people were openly
hostile, and so Kellond and Kirk left the colony, without having dared
to search a single house. They went south to Manhattan Island, where
the Dutch Governor Stuyvesant received them very politely, and promised
to help them arrest the fugitives if the latter came to New Netherland.
Then they went back to Boston, baffled of their quarry.
Now when the Indian messenger had come to New Haven the fugitive judges
had fled from the town and spent the night at a mill two miles away.
Then they went to a place called "Hatchet Harbor," where they stayed a
couple of days, and from there to a cave upon a mountain that they
called Providence Hill. This cave, ever since known as the "Judges'
Cave," was a splendid hiding place. On the top of the mountain stood a
group of pillars of trap rock, like a grove of trees. These rocks
slanted inwards and so formed a room, the door of which could be hidden
with boughs. Here the regicides hid for almost a month. A friend named
Sperry, who lived in the neighborhood, brought them food. Sometimes he
sent the provisions by his small son, who left the basket on the stump
of a tree near the top of the mountain. The boy couldn't understand what
became of the food and how it happened that he always found the basket
empty when he returned for it the next day. The only answer the cautious
father would give him was, "There's somebody at work in the woods who
wants the food."
That part of the country near the "Judges' Cave" was full of wild
animals. One night the regicides were visited by a panther that thrust
its head in at the door of their cave and roared at them. One of the
judges fled down the mountain to Sperry's house and gave the alarm, and
the farmer and the fugitives hunted the panther the rest of the night.
After a while the fugitives decided that it would be better for their
friends in the colony, and particularly for Mr. Davenport, if they
should give themselves up in obedience to the command of King Charles.
They left their cave and went to Guilford to see Governor Leete. But the
governor and the other officers did not want to surrender them to the
king. The judges hid in the governor's cellar, and were fed from his
table, while he considered the best course to adopt. The colony of New
Haven decided that it would not arrest them, and so the fugitives moved
to the house of a Mr. Tompkins in Milford, where they stayed in hiding
for two years.
The people of Milford did not know that the fugitives were there. One
day a girl came to the house and happened to sing a ballad lately come
from England, that made sport of the fugitive regicides. She sang the
song in a room just above the one where the fugitives were, and they
were so amused by the words that they asked Mr. Tompkins to have her
come again and again and sing to her unseen audience.
Officers came out from England in 1664, charged, among other duties,
with the arrest of the fugitive judges, and the friends of the regicides
thought it best that they should leave Milford for some new hiding
place. So in October they set out for the small town of Hadley, on the
frontier of Massachusetts, a hundred miles from Milford, and so distant
from Boston, Hartford and New Haven that it was thought that no one
could trace them there. They traveled only at night, lying hidden in the
woods by day. The places where they stopped they called Harbors, and the
name still remains attached to one of them, now the flourishing town of
Meriden, which bears the title of Pilgrim's Harbor. They reached Hadley
in safety, and were taken in at the house of John Russell, a clergyman.
He gave them room in his house, and there they spent the rest of their
lives, safe from royal agents and spies in the small frontier
settlement. So three of the men, who, doing their duty as they saw it,
had voted for the execution of King Charles I, found a refuge in the
American wilderness from the pursuit of his son, King Charles II.
Ten years later a very different sort of man came to the colony of
Connecticut. King Charles I had made large grants in America to his
brother the Duke of York, and among other territory that which had
belonged to the Dutch, called New Netherland. The Duke of York made
Major Edmund Andross, afterward Sir Edmund Andross, governor of all his
territories, and sent him out to New England. With full powers from the
Duke, Andross expected to do about as he pleased, and rule like a king
in the new world.
By way of making a good start Edmund Andross at once laid claim to all
the land that had belonged to the Dutch and also to that part of
Connecticut that lay west of the Connecticut River. Unless the settlers
in that part of Connecticut consented to his rule he threatened to
invade their land with his soldiers. Now the people of Connecticut had
received the boundary of their colony in an early grant, and though they
already had the prospect of a war with the Indians under King Philip on
their hands, their governor and his council determined to resist the
cutting in two of their colony.
Word came to Hartford that Andross was about to land at the port of
Saybrook and intended to march to Hartford, New Haven and other towns,
suppress the colonial government and establish his own. At once colonial
soldiers were sent to Saybrook and New London, and Captain Thomas Bull,
in command at the former place, strengthened the fortifications there to
resist the Duke of York's new governor.
July 9, 1675, the people of Saybrook saw an armed fleet heading for
their fort. The men hurried to the fort and put themselves under the
command of Captain Bull. Then a letter came from the governor at
Hartford telling them what to do. "And if so be those forces on board
should endeavor to land at Saybrook," so ran the order, "you are in His
Majesty's name to forbid their landing. Yet if they should offer to
land, you are to wait their landing and to command them to leave their
arms on board; and then you may give them leave to land for necessary
refreshing, peaceably, but so that they return on board again in a
convenient time."
Major Andross sent a request that he might be allowed to land and meet
the officers of Saybrook. The request was granted, and Captain Bull,
with the principal men of the town, met the Englishman and his officers
on the beach. Captain Bull stated the orders he had received from the
governor of Connecticut. Andross, with great haughtiness, waved the
orders aside, and told his clerk to read aloud the commission he held
from the Duke of York.
But Captain Bull was not easily cowed. He ordered the clerk to stop his
reading of the commission. The surprised clerk hesitated a minute, then
went on with the reading. "Forbear!" thundered the captain, in a tone
that startled even Major Andross.
The major, however, haughty and overbearing though he was, could not
help but admire the other man's determined manner. "What is your name?"
he asked.
"My name is Bull, sir," was the answer.
"Bull!" said Andross. "It is a pity that your horns are not tipped with
silver."
Then, seeing that the captain and his men would not listen to his
commission from the Duke of York, Andross returned to his small boat,
and a few hours later his fleet sailed away from the harbor.
The colony of Connecticut, like those of Massachusetts and New York,
now had a checkered career. Governor John Winthrop, who had done so much
for his people, died. False reports of the colony were carried to
England, the people were accused of harboring pirates and other outlaws.
Finally, in 1686, Andross, now Sir Edmund Andross, was given a royal
commission as governor of New England.
Sir Edmund went to Boston, and from there sent a message to the governor
of Connecticut saying that he had received an order from the king to
require Connecticut to give up its charter as a colony. The governor and
council answered that, though they wished to do the king's bidding in
all things, they begged that they might keep the original grants of
their charter.
Sir Edmund's answer to that was to go to Hartford. October 31, 1687, he
entered Hartford, accompanied by several gentlemen of his suite and with
a body-guard of some sixty soldiers. He meant to take the charter in
spite of all protests.
The governor and council met him with all marks of respect, but it was
clear that they were not over-pleased to see him. Andross marched into
the hall where the General Assembly was in session, demanded the
charter, and declared that their present government was dissolved.
Governor Treat protested, and eloquently told of all the early hardships
of the colonists, their many wars with the Indians, the privations they
had endured. Finally he said that it was like giving up his life to
surrender the charter that represented rights and privileges they had so
dearly bought and enjoyed for so long a time.
Sir Edmund listened to the governor's speech attentively. Looking about
him at the citizens who had gathered in the Assembly Hall he realized
that it would be well for him to obtain the charter as quietly as he
could, and without waking too much spirit of resentment in the men of
Hartford. Governor Treat's speech was long, the sun set, twilight came
on, and still the charter of the colony had not been handed over to Sir
Edmund.
The governor and the people knew that Sir Edmund meant to have the
charter; he himself was prepared to stay there until they should hand
the paper over to him. Candles were brought into the hall and their
flickering light showed the spirited governor still arguing with the
determined, haughty Sir Edmund. More people pressed into the room to
hear the governor's words. Sir Edmund Andross glanced at the crowd; now
they seemed peaceful people, not of the kind likely to make trouble.
Sir Edmund had listened to Governor Treat long enough. He grew
impatient. He slapped his hand on the table in front of him, and stated
again that he required the people of Connecticut to hand him over their
charter, and that at once. The governor saw that Sir Edmund's patience
was at an end, and whispered a word to his secretary. The secretary
left the room, and when he returned he brought the precious charter in
his hand.
The charter was laid on the table in full view of Sir Edmund and the men
of the Assembly and the people who had crowded into the hall. Sir Edmund
smiled; he had taught these stubborn Connecticut colonists a
well-deserved lesson. He leaned forward in his chair, reaching out his
hand for the parchment. At that very instant the candles went out, and
the room was in total darkness.
No one spoke, there were no threats of violence, no motion toward Sir
Edmund. In silence they waited for the relighting of the candles.
The clerks relighted the candles. Andross looked again at the table. The
charter had disappeared. Andross stared at Governor Treat and the
governor stared back at him, apparently as much amazed as was Sir Edmund
at the disappearance. Then both men began to hunt. They looked in every
corner of the room where the charter might have been hidden. But the
charter had vanished in the time between the going-out of the candles
and their relighting.
Sir Edmund, baffled and indignant, hid his anger as well as he could,
and with his gentlemen and soldiers left the Assembly Room. Next day he
took over control of the colony, and issued a proclamation that stated
that by the king's order the government of the colony of Connecticut was
annexed to that of Massachusetts and the other colonies under his rule.
The orders he gave were harsh and tyrannical, and the people of the
colony had little cause to like him.
What had become of the charter? When Governor Wellys, a former governor
of Connecticut, had come to America he had sent his steward, a man named
Gibbons, to prepare a country home for him. Gibbons chose a suitable
place, and was cutting trees on a hill where the governor's house was to
stand when some Indians from the South Meadow came up to him and begged
him not to cut down an old oak that was there. "It has been the guide of
our ancestors for centuries," said the leader of the Indians, "as to the
time of planting our corn. When the leaves are of the size of a mouse's
ears, then is the time to put the seed in the ground."
The tree was allowed to stand, and flourished, in spite of a large hole
near the base of its trunk.
When the candles had been blown out in the Assembly Hall Captain
Wadsworth had seized the charter and stolen away with it. He knew of the
oak with the hole that seemed purposely made for concealing things.
There he took the charter and hid it, and neither Andross nor his men
ever laid hands on it. The tree became famous in history as the Charter
Oak.
As long as James II was king of England Andross and other despotic
governors like him had their way in the colonies. But when James was
driven from his throne by William, the Prince of Orange, conditions
changed. William sent a messenger with a statement of his new plans for
the government of New England, and when the messenger reached Boston he
was welcomed with open arms. Andross, however, had the man arrested and
thrown into jail. Then on April 18, 1689, the people of Boston and the
neighboring towns rose in rebellion, drove Andross and his fellows from
their seats in the government and put back the old officers they had had
before. They thought that William III would treat them more justly than
James II had done, and they were not disappointed.
Already, in their protection of the regicides and in their saving of
their charter, the people of Connecticut had shown that love of liberty
that was to burst forth more bravely than ever in the days of the
Revolution.