Historical memory comes and goes, much like personal memory. Some events seem vitally important for a short while, but then gradually fade, until what was once crucial is barely remembered. Such is the case of the American idyll of Edward Whalley and his son-in-law William Goffe, two of the commissioners who signed the order sentencing King Charles I of England to death in 1649. For a time, the story of the regicide judges formed an important part of American memory, but by the mid-twentieth century they were forgotten. Matthew Jenkinson has written a new book that brings the story of two of these refugees back into prominence, and explores both their place in building American national identity and the process by which they were forgotten. Charles I's Killers in America is a lively and engaging read that traces the stories of Whalley and Goffe as they were told and retold across several centuries.

The book begins with Whalley and Goffe's story from the time Charles I went on trial until their respective deaths in the late seventeenth century. Their sojourn in the New England colonies occupies two chapters, which describe the continuous cat-and-mouse game between the regicides, the colonial officials, and the newly restored royal government. Whalley and Goffe first arrived in Boston in 1660 and were welcomed by some (though not all) of the colony's leaders. Just before orders for their arrests arrived in Boston, Whalley and Goffe fled south to New Haven, where they felt the more radical Puritan settlers would welcome them. The English officials were hot on their trail, however, and after a brief stay in a cave outside of New Haven (now a local landmark), the two men fled to Hadley, MA, where they lived out their lives, supported by sympathetic locals and money sent from supporters in England. All the while, officials in Massachusetts and Connecticut paid lip service to enforcing royal arrest warrants, while subtly managing to stymie all attempts at actually taking Whalley and Goffe into custody. Jenkinson does an excellent job of describing the complex politics and relationships that shaped the story of Whalley and Goffe in America.

The second half of the book deals with what Jenkinson calls the “afterlife” of Whalley and Goffe's story. Interest in Whalley and Goffe was rekindled in the years leading up to the American Revolution, first by loyalist governor Thomas Hutchinson and later by revolutionary sympathizer and Yale president Ezra Stiles. In both cases, the story of the regicides became propaganda. Hutchinson portrayed them as miserable fugitives always looking over their shoulders, even as loyal colonial officials did their duty in pursuing them. In this depiction, Whalley and Goffe served as an object lesson in the consequences of defying royal authority. For Stiles, on the other hand, Whalley and Goffe epitomized courageous resistance to English tyranny, and their acts foreshadowed the revolution. It was Stiles's portrayal that lasted. Throughout the nineteenth century, historians, artists, and novelists canonized Whalley and Goffe as patriotic saints. However, by the mid-twentieth century, their fame began to decline. Jenkinson argues that the events of the 1960s, which began with the assassination of John Kennedy and ended with the murders of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., made the glorification of regicides unpalatable. As time went on, Whalley and Goffe were too English and too Puritan to catch the interest of late twentieth-century America.

The book is an entertaining and engaging read, replete with interesting characters and amusing anecdotes. The illustrations add another important dimension to the text, demonstrating that historical memory is not limited to the written word. However, while the story of Whalley and Goffe's afterlife has some interest, it becomes repetitive, without much fresh analysis to provide new insights. Similarly, the discussion of Whalley and Goffe's disappearance from historical memory seems perfunctory—a reader is left wanting more explanation. Still, this is a story worth telling, and it is told well. The book would be very useful as a course reading in cultural history, historical memory, or early America.