William Goffe, c. 1613/1618 - 1679/1680, was a religious radical from London who fought for Parliament during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. Nicknamed “Praying William” by contemporaries, he was a leading advocate of putting Charles I on trial and later approved his execution in January 1649. He escaped prosecution as a regicide after the 1660 Stuart Restoration by fleeing to the New England Colonies.

Goffe held several senior military and political positions under the Commonwealth, including administrator of Berkshire, Sussex and Hampshire during the Rule of the Major-Generals from 1655 to 1657. A close associate of Oliver Cromwell, to whom he was distantly related by marriage, he lost most of his political influence after Richard Cromwell resigned as Lord Protector in April 1659.

Shortly before the Restoration in May 1660, Goffe sailed for Boston with his father-in-law and fellow regicide General Edward Whalley. Sheltered by Puritan sympathisers in New England, little is known for certain of his life there. It was once suggested he was the Angel of Hadley, a figure who in 1675 allegedly helped repulse an attack by Native Americans, but this is disputed on various grounds. He died sometime after April 1679, the date of his last known letter to his wife, and is thought to have been buried in Hadley, Massachusetts.

William Goffe was the fourth of five sons born to The Reverend Stephen Goffe (1575–after 1628), and his wife Deborah (1587–1626). The precise date and location of his birth are uncertain; his father was rector of Bramber, Sussex, but lost this position in 1607 for his part in organising a Puritan petition to James I.

His eldest brother Stephen (1605–1681), was baptised in the nearby village of Stanmer, while his mother was buried there in 1626, so Sussex seems most likely. William was probably born between 1613 and 1618, since he became an apprentice in 1634, the maximum age for which was 21, and admitted to the Worshipful Company of Grocers as a freeman in 1642, the minimum age being 24.

As for his brothers, Stephen and John attended Merton College, Oxford, and like their father became priests in the Church of England. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Stephen acted as a Royalist agent in Europe and converted to Catholicism in 1654, while John was removed from his living in Hackington, Kent, for refusing to subscribe to the Presbyterian-inspired 1643 Solemn League and Covenant. James (1611–1656) joined the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers, while Timothy (1626-after 1649) reportedly worked as a Ship chandler.

Sometime around 1650, Goffe married Frances Whalley (1635–1684?), daughter of General Edward Whalley, a cousin of Oliver Cromwell; they had three daughters, Anne, Elizabeth, and Frances.

In 1634, Goffe was contracted as an Apprentice to William Vaughan, a Presbyterian London drysalter, and member of the Company of Grocers. In early 1642, he was briefly imprisoned for organising a petition demanding that control of the London Trained Bands be transferred from Charles I to Parliament. The First English Civil War began in August, and by July 1643 Goffe was serving as a captain in an infantry regiment led by Colonel Harry Barclay, a Scottish veteran of the Thirty Years' War. Raised in autumn 1642 to reinforce the Parliamentarian field army commanded by the Earl of Essex, in 1643 this unit helped lift the Siege of Gloucester and fought at the First Battle of Newbury. During the 1644 Western Campaign, it was among the 5,000 troops forced to surrender at Lostwithiel in August, but released in time for the Second Battle of Newbury in September.