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The Sussex Regicides, &c. 175 |
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member of a noble family, several of which took part with the King, he, like Peregrine Pelham, steadily adhered to the popular cause, and being put on the High Court was present at all its sittings and signed the warrant of execution. When the Regicides were excepted from the Bill of Indemnity, James Temple surrendered himself and was tried at the Old Bailey, October 16, 1660. At first he pleaded "Not Guilty," but eventually acknowledged his crime and begged for mercy. He was sentenced to death, but was not executed, and is supposed to have died in the Tower. His relation, Peter Temple, who served, it is said, an apprenticeship to a London draper, but who sat in the Long Parliament, served as a Captain in the army, sat on the King's trial, and signed the death-warrant, shared the fate of the Member for Bramber. He was sentenced to death, but died in prison.
William Goffe was a man springing from another class. He was a son of the Rev. Stephen Goffe, the Puritan Rector of Stanmer, Sussex, and, it is clear, imbibed the rigid principles of his father. His original vocation was that of a dry-salter in London, but, on the breaking out of the war between King and Parliament, he left trade and became a soldier, and was doubtless a brave and able one, for he rose to the rank of Major-General, and was one of the officers most trusted by Cromwell, and who adhered faithfully to his fortunes and those of his son. His name occurs frequently in the long struggle between the Royalists and Cavaliers, and he was sent into Sussex by Cromwell, in 1665, to report on the state of feeling in that county, writing frequently to Thurloe, Cromwell's Secretary, on the reception he met with from Morley, Fagg, &c. He married a daughter of his fellow-Regicide, General Whalley. He sat on the High Court of Justice (though not as a Sussex Member), and signed the death-warrant. When Cromwell resuscitated the Upper House, General William Goffe was named as one of the new Lords, and was a person of weight and authority until the return of the Stewarts. He then fled, with his father-in-law, Whalley, to North America, |
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