Edward Whalley (c. 1615 - c. 1675) was an English military leader during the English Civil War, and was one of the regicides who signed the death warrant of King Charles I of England.

The exact dates of his birth and death are unknown. He was the second son of Richard Whalley, who had been sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1595, by his second wife Frances Cromwell, an aunt of Oliver Cromwell. His great-grandfather was Richard Whalley (1499-1583), a prominent adherent of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and a member of parliament. Edward Whalley is said to have started out as a woollen-draper, but on the outbreak of the English Civil War he took up arms for Parliament, became major of Cromwell's regiment of horse, and distinguished himself in the field. His conduct at Gainsborough in 1643 was especially praised by Cromwell; he fought at the Battle of Marston Moor, commanded one of Cromwell's two regiments of cavalry at the Battle of Naseby and at the capture of Bristol, was then sent into Oxfordshire, took Banbury, and was besieging Worcester when he was superseded, according to Richard Baxter, the chaplain of his regiment, because of his religious orthodoxy.

He supported his regiment in their grievances against Parliament in 1647. When the king was seized by the army, he was entrusted to the keeping of Whalley and his regiment at Hampton Court Palace. Whalley refused to remove Charles's chaplains, and treated his captive with courtesy, so much so that Charles later wrote him a letter of thanks. In the second Civil War, Whalley again distinguished himself as a soldier, and when the king was brought to trial he was chosen to be one of the tribunal and signed his death-warrant. He took part in Cromwell's Scottish expedition, was wounded at Dunbar, and in the autumn of 1650 was active in dealing with the situation in the north.

The following year, he took part in Cromwell's pursuit of Charles II and took part in the Battle of Worcester. He followed and supported Cromwell in his political career, presented the army petition to parliament (August 1652), approved of the protectorate, and represented Nottinghamshire in the parliaments of 1654 and 1656, taking an active part in the prosecution of the Quaker James Naylor. He was one of the administrative major-generals, responsible for Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Warwick and Leicester. He supported the "Petition and Advice," except as regards the proposed assumption of the royal title by Cromwell, and became a member of the newly constituted House of Lords in December 1657.

On Cromwell's death, at which he was present, he in vain gave his support to Richard Cromwell; his regiment refused to obey his orders, and the Long Parliament dismissed him from his command as a representative of the army. In November 1659 he undertook an unsuccessful mission to Scotland to arrange terms with George Monck. At the Restoration, Whalley, with his son-in-law, General William Goffe, escaped to North America, and landed at Boston on July 27 1660, living successively at New Haven and at Hadley, Massachusetts. Every attempt by the British government to procure his arrest failed. He was alive, but in poor health, in 1674, and probably did not live long afterwards. Whalley was married twice: first to Judith Duffell, by whom, besides other children, he had a son John and a daughter Frances (who married Goffe, another regicide); and secondly to Mary Middleton, sister of Sir George Middleton, by whom he had two sons, Henry and Edward.

The three judges who condemned Charles I to death (Whalley, Goffe, and Dixwell) are commemorated by having three streets named for them (Whalley Avenue, Goffe Street, and Dixwell Avenue) in New Haven, Connecticut.

References

An account of Whalley's life is in Noble's Lives of the Regicides, and of his family in Noble's Memoirs of the Protectoral House of Cromwell, vol. ii.. This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.