Evelyn seems to have got off with only a severe catechizing; but many of his fellow-worshippers were imprisoned, and otherwise severely punished. The examination was probably conducted by the theologically exercised Goffe, for the specimen preserved by Evelyn is worthy of his genius in every way. The amiable confessor was asked how he dared to keep "the superstitious time of the Nativity;" and was admonished that in praying for kings, he had been praying for Charles Stuart, and even for the king of Spain, who was a Papist! Moreover, he was told that the Prayer-book was nothing but the Mass in English, and more to the like effect; "and so," says Evelyn, "they dismissed me, pitying much my ignorance."
This anecdote, accidentally preserved by Evelyn, shows what kind of characters they were. They seem to have been as sincere as any of their fanatical comrades, though it is always hard to say of the Puritan leaders which were the cunning hypocrites, and which the deluded zealots. Whatever they may have been, their time was short, so far as England is concerned with them; and in three years after this event, they suddenly disappeared. So perfectly did they bury themselves from the world, that from the year 1660, till the romance of Scott[37] again brought the name of Whalley before the world, it may be doubted whether any thing was known in England of lives, which in another hemisphere were protracted almost into another generation. Nobody dreamed there was yet an American chapter in the history of the regicides.
Yet, considering the known disposition of the colonies, and their inaccessible fastnesses, it is remarkable that only three of the fugitives found their way across the Atlantic. Another, indeed, there was, a mysterious person, of whom it is only known, that though concerned in the regicide, he was not probably one of "the judges." He lived in Rhode Island till he was more than a hundred years old, begetting sons and daughters, to whom he bequeathed the surname of Whale. Whoever he was, he seems to have been a sincere penitent, whose conscience would not let him rest. He slept on a deal board instead of a bed, and practised many austerities, accusing himself as a man of blood, and deprecating the justice of God. The particulars of his guilt he never disclosed; and as his name was probably an assumed one, it is difficult to surmise what share he had in the murder of his king. There was in Hacker's regiment one Whalley, a lieutenant; and Stiles, the American writer, thinks this Whale may have been the same man. But then, what did this Whalley perpetrate to account for such horrible remorse? Considering Hacker's active part in the bloodiest scene of the great tragedy, and the conflicting testimony in Hulet's trial,[38] as to the man that struck the blow; and coupling this with the fact, that an effort was made to procure one of several lieutenants to do the work,[39] I confess I once thought there was some reason to suspect that this fellow's accusing conscience was terribly earned, and that he at least had been one of the masks that figured on the scaffold. This surmise, though shaken by nothing that came out on the state trials, I have since discharged, in deference to the opinion of Miss Strickland,[40] who is satisfied that the greybeard was Hulet, and the actual regicide, Gregory Brandon.