An Essay on the Life and Character of Hugh Peters, Chaplain to Oliver Cromwell and the Parliament.

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Th E example which was exhibited to the world by the cution of Charles I. astonished and confounded all the potentates of Europe, who till then had considered themselves to be wholly exempt from human chastisement, and not amenable for their conduct to any earthly tribunal whatever. The parasites of the court, and the defenders of the hierarchy, in every Christian country, poured out the most violent and indignant denunciations against the sacrilegious wretches who had dared to sit in judgment upon their hereditary sovereign, and had impiously assailed the life of a monarch who was the peculiar favourite of heaven.

The

friends of liberty, on the other hand, hailed the news of this unprecedented

catastrophe as the harbinger of better times, and as an indubitable surety against any future attempt at arbitrary power or tyrannical domination. So desirous was each of these parties to obtain possession of the public mind, that the British press for a long time was exclusively employed upon publications either to anathematize or to justify the late revolutionary

event.

"The sufferings of the Royal Martyr (for so the deceased monarch was termed) were compared to those of Christ the Redeemer. In the comparison, the hardships of the king's case (on account of his rank) were ridiculously and impiously preferred; and the crucifiers of their God were,, by churchmen and their adherents, regarded with an inferior detestation to the murderers of their king."

passage:

"From

A letter from General Digby to the Marquis of Ormond, given in the State Letters which were published by Carte, the historian, has the following remarkable the creation to the accursed day of this damnable murther, nothing parallel to it was ever heard of. Even the crucifying our blessed Saviour, did nothing equal this; his kingdom not being of this world; and he, though unjustly condemned, yet he was judged at a lawful tribunal."*

A sermon, preached by the Bishop of Down, before Charles II. in the year 1649, which was printed at Breda, may be adduced as a fair specimen of the language of the highchurch divines, and of the methods which they resorted to, in order to inflame the minds of the public. "The person," says he, murdered, was not the Lord of glory, but he was a glorious Lord; Christ's

66 now

own vicar; his lieutenant and vicegerent here on earth; and, therefore, by all laws, human and divine, he which could be inflicted by men. Alwas privileged from any punishment beit he was an inferior to Christ, as of inviolability far more clear than man is to God; yet was his privilege

vouchsafed to come into the world, was Christ's-for Christ, when he and to become the son of man, he did subject himself to the law; but our gracious sovereign was a free monarch, to whom they did all owe and had sworn allegiance." Again: "The Scripture doth teach us to honour and obey the king, as God's minister kings, though ever so great, are to be set over us; and that the injuries of endured by their subjects, who have no other remedy, and are to use no other arms against their king than to

* State Letters, III. 607.

pray to God for him, who hath the hearts of kings in his hands, and may turn them when he sees fit."

The writings of Salmasius, Sir Robert Filmer, Symmons, and of a thousand inferior authors, abounded for half a century with such violent declamation, until the practice was checked by the House of Lords, who, in the year 1701, passed a severe censure on a sermon of this kind, preached on the 30th of January in that year, by Dr. Binks, before the Lower House of Convocation, and which they called, a " just scandal and offence to all Christian people."

Powerful antidotes to these arbitrary and slavish doctrines were, however, carefully disseminated by a host of contemporary worthies, whose works are now highly esteemed by the wise and the good, and whose ranks were adorned with the names of Locke, Milton, Sydney and Goodwin; the latter of whom had the boldness to publish a work upon the death of Charles, which he en titled, "A Defence of the Honourable Sentence." He was a strenuous republican, and had the honour of having one of his political works burnt by the hands of the common hangman, in the same fire which consumed Milton's "Defence of the People of England."

When the violence of these contending parties is considered, we cannot wonder that the Court of Charles the Second should have employed itself in inflicting the severest punishments upon all those who had been active in procuring the death of the late king, and also in traducing the characters of such as were connected with the parliament which sat in judgment upon him.

In the business of systematic calumny the royal party has so far succeeded, that it is difficult at this dis tance of time to ascertain the true characters of those who suffered with the regicides; and as one document perishes after another, this will become still more and more difficult. Whatever may be thought of the

* See Milton's Prose Works, I. 362. + Mendley's Memoirs of Sydney, 8vo. 1813, p. 85.

merit or demerit of taking the life of the king, no one who is fond of historical researches, but must take an interest in all the transactions of the eventful period in which Charles suffered, and in the characters of those who were concerned in them. Hence it may not be altogether a useless attempt, endeavour to clear away the mass of obloquy which has been heaped upon these men, and to place the personal qualities of each in their true light.

From this list I have selected HɩGR PETERS, as he was the person whom the Royalists seem to have pursued with the greatest hatred. † In order, however, to examine the character of this individual with impartiality, I shall first notice the prominent charges which his personal cuemies, and those other persons who had an interest in vilifying Cromwell's adherents, have brought against him; aud then shall relate the principal incidents of his life, with such observations thereon as the facts scem to justify.

It was given out generally, that Hugh Peters was very instrumental in procuring the king's death. It was said, that when he addressed the ruling powers, he styled the king a tyrant, and insisted upon it, "that the office itself was dangerous, chargeable and useless." I

Walker, in his History of Indepcudency, when speaking of the subject of this paper, calls him, "that carnal prophet and Jesuitical chaplain to the trayterous high court."§

Mr. John Evelyn, in his Diary, lately published, writes thus: on the 17th January, 1648, “I heard," says he, "the rebel Peters invite the rebel powers, met in the painted chamber, to destroy his Majestic." I. 253. He tells us, however, in a subsequent part of his Journal, that when Peters and some of the regicides were car

tensions to religion; and the cause they fought for, they always spoke of as the cause of God. Is it then, at all likely, that their acknowledged chaplain should have been a very vicious man? The supposition appears to me to be ridiculous. We shall, however, be better able to judge, when we have considered the principal incidents of his life, which I shall now endeavour to relate with as much brevity as is consistent with the subject.

Hugh Peters was born in the year 1599, at Foy, in Cornwall, of very respectable parents. His parentage ou the mother's side was very reputable, so much so, that Dr. Harris, when speaking of the antiquity of her family, asserts, that " it does not yield in gentility to any in Cornwall." His father was a very respectable merchant at Foy, whose ancestors were driven thither from Antwerp for their adherence to the Reformed Religion.

At the age of 14, young Peters was sent to the University of Cambridge, (his elder brother being at the same time a student at Oxford,) and was entered at Trinity College. When of the age of 17, he took the degree of Bachelor of Arts, which was as early as it could have been conferred upon him, according to the rules of the University; and six years afterwards, when he was in his twenty-third year, he obtained that of Master of Arts.† Upon his leaving the University he came to London, and was licensed as a preacher, or admitted into holy orders, by Dr. Mountaine, then bishop of that See. I have met with no account of the place where he first preached, but it appears that soon after his ordination he was appointed Lecturer at St. Sepulchre's, on Snowhill, where he preached to an audience consisting of six or seven thousand persons.

In an interesting little volume which Peters prepared but a short time before his death, entitled “A Dying Father's Last Legacy," he relates

See "An Historical and Critical Account of Hugh Peters," prefixed to Dr. Harris's Lives, in five volumes. Vol. I. p. 9.

+ Harris's Life, p. 10.

The Last Legacy, p. 99.

This curious and scarce book was printed in 24mo. in 1661, and the whole title runs thus: "A Dying Father's Last

that a young man, who had acciden tally heard him preach, made interest to have him appointed Lecturer at St. Sepulchre's, and subscribed £50. per annum to the Lecture, which was certainly a large sum in those days. The resort to these Lectures became so great that it occasioned much envy, and procured the preacher many ene mies; a circumstance which occasioned his biographer, Dr. Harris, to remark, that "church governors are apt to dislike popular preachers, especially if they teach in a manner dif ferent from themselves." †

How long Peters continued to preach, in London does not appear. I find nothing upon this point except what is said in Ludlow's Memoirs, where we are told that he "had been a minister in England for many years, till he was forced to leave his native country by the persecution set on foot, in the time of Archbishop Laud, against all those who refused to comply with the innovations and superstitions which were then introduced into the public worship." ‡

From this account we may conclude that he left the University very young, for Laud's persecution of the Puritans began about the year 1629, when Peters was only thirty years of age; and as few men would be more obnoxious to that proud prelate, it is not likely that Peters could have remained in this country long after that period. This supposition is indeed confirmed by what he himself related upon his trial, for he told the judge that he had lived fourteen years out of England, and that the war between the king and the parliament had already begun when he returned to his native country. §

When he left England he went directly to Holland, and was chosen co-pastor with the celebrated Dr. William Ames, of an Independent

Legacy to an only Child: or Mr. Hugh Peters' Advice to his Daughter: written by his own hand, during his late imprisonment in the Tower of London, and given her a little before his death."

* See Last Legacy, p. 100.

+ Historical and Critical Account, p. x. Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, Esq. III. 61.

§ See "An Account of the Tryals of the Regicides," 4to. 1660, p. 172.

Church at Rotterdam. It was probably while he resided here that he became acquainted with the learned John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in the University of Aberdeen. This celebrated man, who was eminent for his great knowledge of Hebrew, and such other learning as peculiarly fitted him for theological inquiries, was educated at the University of Heidel berg, in the Palatinate, under the renowned David Pareus, and so great were his acquirements, that Bishop Burnet pronounced him to be the most learned man of the age in which he lived. In a pamphlet which Hugh Peters published in 1646, entitled "Peters's Last Report of the English Wars," he speaks of his acquaintance with this great scholar, in the following terms: "I lived," says he, “about six years near that famous Scotsman, Mr. John Forbes, with whom I travelled into Germany, aud enjoyed his society in much love and sweetness constantly from whom I received nothing but encouragement, though we differed in the way of our churches."

Peters, while at Rotterdam, also acquired the esteem and friendship of the learned Amesius, who relinquished a professorship in Friesland for the purpose of residing with him, and was soon afterwards appointed to be his colleague and co-pastor of the Church at Rotterdam. That these men were of congenial dispositions and habits may be supposed from the circumstances already mentioned; but more especially from the incident which Peters himself, in the pamphlet already alluded to, thus relates: "The learned Amesius breathed his last breath into my bosom."

intolerant and cruel fanatics, who were patronized by that cold-hearted and unrelenting monarch. When Peters arrived in the New World, he took up his abode at Salem, a place which is now become the chief town of Essex County, and the most important sea-port of the state of Massachusetts, about eighteen miles from Boston. It may not be quite irrele vant to our purpose to remark, that the planters of the Massachusett colony, made their first settlement in that place in the year 1628,* and that this was only about eight years before the arrival of Hugh Peters.

Here a question naturally occurs, what could have induced Peters to leave the United States of Holland, where he had acquired so great a character, and where he was held in so much consideration, to reside in a new colony, where he could have had no associates but the wild Indians of the desert, or those unfortunate Europeans who were wanderers upon the face of the earth, and who had expatriated themselves for conscience' sake? In my opinion, nothing could have determined him to have adopted such a measure, but an enthusiastic love of liberty; an anxious desire to minister to the comforts of those who were suffering for having borne their testimony to the cause of truth; and a heart glowing with piety to God and benevolence to man. And in reviewing the general tenor of the life of Hugh Peters, I think I am fully justified in attributing to him such exalted motives.

When he arrived in New-England, it is probable that he resumed his former occupation, viz. that of a Christiau minister of religion; and as he had been in the habit of considering it not at all incompatible with that character, to be at the same time the undaunted advocate of the civil and religious rights of mankind, he would not fail to administer the comforts of religion to, and justify the conduct of those who had fled to the uninhabited parts of the earth, rather than forfeit their characters as men, by continu ing to submit to the capricious ordiuances of an unprincipled tyrant.