Cornish Characters and Strange Events

When Mary came to the throne there was an immense outburst of enthusiasm, the time of the Protestant protectorates was looked back on as a bad dream. In spite of the fact that England was under an interdict, the Mass was restored, and no rector or vicar cared a straw for the Papal bull, nor indeed did Mary, who heard Mass in the chapel of the Tower, and afterwards in S. Paul's.

If Mary had only accepted the advice tendered to her by Charles V, she would have reigned as a popular monarch, and have settled the condition of the Church of England on lines that commended themselves to nobles, commons, and clergy alike, Catholic but not Papal. But she had looked too long to the see of Peter as her support, and she managed completely to alienate the affections of her people. The fires of Smithfield brought the fanatics who had been discredited in the former reign into favour once more; and when Elizabeth came to the throne, and had been deposed by Pope Pius V, and her subjects released from allegiance to her, and plots formed for her assassination, under favour of the Pope, the religious sentiment in England was cleft as with a hatchet – some who loved the religion of their fathers were constrained against their will and consciences to become Papists, and others became wild and reckless fanatics in a Puritan direction. Between these two parties sat the vast bulk of the English people, looking this way, that way, and deeming all religion foolishness, and self-interest the only thing to be sought after. All the foundations of the religious world were out of course. The via media is all very well in theory and when well trodden, but when it is experimental, and one road to the right leads to Rome and that to the left to Geneva, the via media may be taken to lead nowhere, and those who tread it have to do so uncertainly. A session between two stools is precarious, and the Church of England had been forced by the folly of Mary to adopt this position. The consequence was that in the reigns of Elizabeth and James and Charles I there was no enthusiasm in the clergy of the Church. The bishops were grasping, self-seeking worldlings. Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, was the best among an ignoble crew. When he died, says Froude, "he left behind him enormous wealth, which had been accumulated, as is proved from a statement in the handwriting of his successor, by the same unscrupulous practices which had brought about the first revolt against the Church. No Catholic prelate in the old easy times had so flagrantly abused the dispensation system. Every year he made profits by admitting children to the cure of souls, for money. He used a graduated scale in which the price for inducting an infant into a benefice varied with the age, children under fourteen not being inadmissible, if the adequate fees were forthcoming."2

The great majority of the nobility and gentry of England clung to the doctrine and ceremonies of the ancient Church, and yet were united in determination to oppose the Papal claims. Benefices in their presentation were held by priests who said the Communion Service, which was but the Mass in English, with the ancient vestments and ritual; and others, next door, were held by men who could hardly be compelled to wear even the surplice, and who celebrated the Eucharist but once in the year.

The Church was a hodgepodge of conflicting doctrines and ceremonial. As Froude says: —

"So long as a single turn of the wheel, a violent revolution, or the Queen's death, might place a Catholic (Papist) on the throne, the Established Church held a merely conditional existence. It had no root in the nation, for every earnest man who was not a Puritan was a Catholic; and its officers, for the most part, regarded their tenures as an opportunity for enriching themselves, which would probably be short, and should in prudence be made use of while it remained. Benefices were appropriated to laymen, sold, or accumulated upon favourites. Churches in many places were left unserved, and cobblers and tailors were voted by the congregations into the pulpits. 'The bishops,' said Cecil, 'had no credit either for learning, good living, or hospitality.' The Archbishop of York had scandalized his province by being found in bed with the wife of an innkeeper at Doncaster. Other prelates had bestowed ordination 'on men of lewd life and corrupt behaviour.' The Bishop of Lichfield had made seventy 'lewd and unlearned ministers, for money,' in one day."3

Bishop Barlow, of S. David's, had torn the lead roof off his palace and the castle at Lawhadden to provide dowers for his daughters, and would have unroofed his cathedral had he not been prevented by Elizabeth, because in it was the monument of Edmund, Earl of Richmond, the father of Henry VII. When translated to Bath and Wells he destroyed the lady chapel, the finest Perpendicular building in the West of England, surpassing even Sherborne and Bath, and sold it – lead, roof, stones, and all. Some of the clergy were mere temporizers, without convictions, taking their colour from their patrons, and ready to believe or pretend to believe this or that, as suited their pockets. The majority were indifferent – ignorant – not knowing where they stood. Many had thrust their way into Holy Orders for the sake of the loaves and fishes that might be obtained in the Established Church, with no work to do, without education, without zeal, without convictions, and consequently totally without the least enthusiasm, without any fixed principles.

Laud and the Star Chamber sought to produce conformity by cutting off ears and slitting noses. But what Laud failed to see was that the only men in religious England who knew their minds, who had any fixed principles in religion, were the Papists and the Puritans. What they should have done, but what probably they could not do, was to inspire the clergy of the Church with zeal and enthusiasm. But the clergy could not catch the fire from off the altar; they had entered Orders for the sake of a rectory, a glebe and tithe, and cared for nothing else. If one half – nay, one quarter – of the charges brought against them by the Tryers be true, they were a most unworthy set. In Elizabeth's reign there had been a difficulty in filling the benefices, and any Jack and Tom who could gratify the bishop and could read was ordained and appointed to a benefice. And these were the men to maintain the doctrine of the Universal Church and Apostolic tradition against fiery enthusiasts on one side who took their own reading of Scripture for divine inspiration, and on the other against the Papists who set their back against the Rock of Peter.

With churches picked bare, with sermons without fire, services performed without dignity, often with indecorum, without religious instruction from teachers who did not know what to teach, it is no wonder that the people turned away to hot-gospellers and tub-thumpers who, if they could not kindle in them love and charity, could set them on fire with self-righteousness and religious animosities.

At Rotterdam Peters threw over creed and liturgy of the Church of England, and leaving the English chapel, became co-pastor with Dr. William Ames of an Independent meeting-house at Rotterdam, and Ames died there in his arms. In Holland Peters made the acquaintance of John Forbes, Professor of Divinity in the University of Aberdeen, a great Hebraist. In a pamphlet published by Peters in 1646 he says: "I lived about six years near that famous Scotsman, Mr. John Forbes, with whom I travelled into Germany, and 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.'"

After Peters had spent six years in the United Provinces, he suddenly threw up his pastoral charge and departed for New England, with five hundred pounds in his pocket, which his friends furnished, and a young waiting-maid, Mary Morell, whom he shortly after married to one Peter Folger.

"In this year (1635)," says one account, "came over that famous servant of Christ, Mr. Hugh Peters. He was called to office by the Church of Christ at Salem, their former pastor, the Rev. Mr. Higginson, having ended his labours resting in the Lord."

Salem had been planted but a few years before, the first colonists in Massachusetts having settled there in 1628. Here he remained for over seven years, combining his duties as a minister of religion and trading, so that he was spoken of as "the father of our commerce and the founder of our trade."

He was also a militant Christian, and was present in the fighting against the Pequot Indians. Concerning the prisoners taken, Hugh Peters wrote: —

"Sir, – Mr. Endicott and myself salute you in the Lord Jesus, etc. [sic]. We have heard of a divisioning of women and children in the Bay, and would be glad of a share, viz. a young woman or girl, and a boy if you think good. I wrote to you for some boys to Bermuda.

"Hugh Peters."

These prisoners were used as slaves, and sold just as were the negroes later. Peters, we are informed, was not friendly to the notion of converting the Indians to Christianity. He would entertain compunction about enslaving them should they embrace the gospel. However, money was sent over from England for this purpose, and – at the suggestion of Peters. In the Colonial State Papers (Saintsbury, America and West Indies, 1661-8, p. 86), is this passage: "Through the motion of Hugh Peters, England contributed nine hundred pounds per annum to Christianize the Indians of New England; which money found its way into private men's purses, and was a cheat of Hugh Peters."

In New England Peters married a second wife, in 1639, another widow, by name Deliverance Sheffield.

In 1641 he left for England, deputed by the colony to act as ambassador at the Court of Charles I, to endeavour to procure some mitigation of the excise and customs duties, which weighed heavily on the colonists.

But on reaching England he found that the Crown and the Parliament were at variance, and he did not care to return to America and to his wife whom he had left there, but elected to be the stormy petrel of the rebellion, flying over the land, and, as Ludlow says, advising the people everywhere to take arms in the cause of the Parliament.

He was appointed chaplain to a brigade of troops sent into Ireland against the rebels, and he had no hesitation in wielding the sword as well as the tongue, the latter to animate the soldiers, the former to extirpate the Baal-worshippers.

Then he hastened to Holland, where he collected thirty thousand pounds for the relief of the Protestants of Ireland,4 who had been plundered and burnt out of their homes by the rebels.

When Peters had effected his various purposes in Ireland, he returned to England, and made his report of the condition of affairs there to Sir Thomas Fairfax and Cromwell.

In 1643 he was appointed, or thrust himself forward, to minister to Chaloner on the scaffold, as that man had been condemned to death for participation in Waller's plot. So again in 1644 he was on the scaffold haranguing and praying for and at Sir John Hotham, who probably would have preferred to die in quiet.

Peters was now engaged as chaplain to the Parliamentary forces, and especially as a conveyer of despatches, for all which he received liberal payment. He was with the Earl of Warwick at the taking of Lyme, and was despatched by that nobleman to London to give an account of the affair in Parliament. On another occasion he was entrusted with letters from Sir Thomas Fairfax relating to the capture of Bridgwater, on which occasion he was voted a sum of £100. In the same year, 1645, he was commissioned by Sir Thomas to report the taking of Bristol. In March of that year Hugh Peters was with the army in Cornwall, and harangued at Bodmin against the Crown and the Church, and exhorted all good men and true to adhere to the cause of the Parliament.

Peters had uniformly, since he had been in the Low Countries, postured as an Independent hot and strong. Hitherto the Presbyterians had the prevailing party in Parliament, and among the discontents in the country, but now the Independents began to assert themselves and assume predominance. Their numbers were greatly increased by the return of the more fiery spirits who had, like Peters, abandoned England during the supremacy of Laud. Many of these, coming back from New England, had carried the doctrines of Puritanism to the very verge of extravagance, and not the least fiery and extravagant of these was Hugh Peters. These men rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, would admit of no spiritual authority in one man above another, and allowed of no interposition of the magistrate in religious matters. Each congregation, voluntarily united, was an integral and independent church, to exercise its own jurisdiction. The political system of the Independents was one of pure republicanism. They aspired to a total abolition of monarchy, even of the aristocracy, and projected a commonwealth in which all men should be equal. Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St. John, the Solicitor-General, were regarded as their leaders, and Hugh Peters as their prophet.

Peters brought the news to Parliament of the capture of Winchester Castle, for which service he was paid £50. When Dartmouth was taken, he hastened thence to London, laden with crucifixes, vestments, papers, and sundry church ornaments, of which he had despoiled the beautiful church of S. Saviour's; and received in recompense from the Parliament an estate of which the House had deprived Lord Craven.

When the city of Worcester was besieged in the year 1646 by the Parliamentary forces, the governor consented to surrender on condition that passes were given to the soldiers and to the principal inhabitants. Peters negotiated the surrender.

A Mr. Habingdon, who wrote an account of the siege at the time, and who died in the ensuing year, relates that on the 23rd July, 1646, many gentlemen went to six o'clock prayers at the cathedral to take the last sad farewell of the church services, the organs having been removed three days before, and that at ten o'clock in the morning the several regiments marched forth, and all the gentlemen with the baggage; and that at one o'clock Peters brought them their passes, and importuned every one individually to pass his word not again to bear arms against the Parliament.

Hugh Peters was now such a favourite with the Parliament that they made an order for £100 a year to himself and his heirs for ever; later an additional £200 per annum was voted to him, and all this in addition to his pay as preacher, and to sundry grants as bearer of news from the army. He was also accorded Archbishop Laud's library. Nevertheless, as he lamented in his Legacy of a Dying Father, he found it impossible to keep out of debt.

There is this in Peters' favour to be urged, that he opposed the execution of Archbishop Laud, and urged that instead he should be sent to New England. So he begged the life of Lord George Goring, Earl of Norwich, and of the Marquis of Hamilton, and again of the Marquis of Worcester.

The Presbyterians were in force in the House of Commons, but the army was composed mainly of Independents, worked up to enthusiasm by their preachers. It had been six months in the field in the summer of 1648, engaged against the Cavaliers and Scots. The soldiers were thoroughly incensed against the King, and they had no respect for the Presbyterians. Their officers resolved on assuming the sovereign power in their own hands, and bringing the King to justice, and converting the Government into a commonwealth.

To accomplish this they presented a remonstrance to the Parliament by six of their council on November 20th, demanding: (1) that the King be brought to trial for high treason; (2) that a day be set for the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York to surrender themselves, or to be declared incapable of government, and that in future no king should be admitted but by the free election of the people.

The Commons were struck with dismay, and deferred debate on the remonstrance for ten days. But the officers despatched Colonel Ewes to the Isle of Wight with a party of horse to secure the King's person, and to bring him to Windsor, in order to his trial. The officers then, on November 30th, sent a declaration to the House to enforce their late remonstrance, and requiring the majority in the House to exclude from their councils such as would obstruct the King's trial.

On December 2nd Fairfax arrived in London at the head of the army, and the House of Commons found itself cornered by the armed force. Nevertheless, they had the courage to vote that the seizure of the King, and the conveying him a prisoner to Hurst Castle, had been done without their advice and consent.

The officers were resolved to carry their point. A regiment of horse and another of foot were placed at the door of the Parliament House, and Colonel Pride entered and took into custody about forty of the members who were disposed to obstruct the cause the army sought to pursue, and denied entrance to about a hundred more; others were ordered to leave; and the number of those present was thus thinned down to a hundred and fifty or two hundred, most of them officers of the army.

The secluded members published a protestation against all these proceedings as null and void till they were restored to their places; but the Lords and Commons who remained in the House voted their protestation false, scandalous, and seditious.

The army, having vanquished all opposition, went on to change the whole form of government; and to make way for it determined to impeach the King of high treason, as having been the cause of all the blood that had been spilt in the late war.

There was commotion in the House and in town and the country. In the House some declared that there was no need to bring the King to trial; others said that there existed no law by which he could be tried; but all this was overruled.

Meanwhile Hugh Peters was not idle. In a sermon addressed to the members of the two Houses a few days before the King's trial he said: "My Lords, and you noble Gentlemen, – It is you we chiefly look for justice from. Do you prefer the great Barabbas, Murderer, Tyrant, and Traitor, before these poor hearts (pointing to the red coats) and the army who are our saviour?"

In another sermon before Cromwell and Bradshaw he said: "There is a great discourse and talk in the world, What, will ye cut off the head of a Protestant Prince? Turn to your Bibles, and ye shall find it there, Whosoever sheds man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. I see neither King Charles, Prince Charles, Prince Rupert, nor Prince Maurice, nor any of that rabble excepted out of it."

Evelyn in his Diary, under date 17th January, 1648-9, says: "I heard the rebel Peters invite the rebel powers met in the Painted Chamber to destroy his Majesty." Bishop Burnet says: "That he (Peters) had been outrageous in pressing the King's death with the cruelty and rudeness of an inquisitor."

Prynne, one of the secluded members, published "A brief memento to the present unparliamentary junto, touching their present intentions and proceedings to depose and execute Charles Stuart, their lawful King of England."

The officers now decided to gain the approval of the ministers – Presbyterian – in London, or at least persuade them to remain neutral.

Hugh Peters was selected for the purpose, and he went among them, but all his efforts were fruitless. They declared unanimously for the release of the King. He then invited several of them, Calamy, Whitaker, Sedgwick, etc., to a conference with some of the officers; but instead of attending, the ministers assembled in Sion College and drew up "A serious and faithful representation of the judgment of the ministers of the Gospel within the province of London," dated 18th January, 1648-9. In this they protested against the coercive measures adopted toward the Parliament, and bade them beware of proceeding to extremities. "Examine your consciences, if any number of persons of different principles from yourselves had invaded the rights of Parliament, imprisoned the King, and carried him about from place to place, and attempted the dissolution of the whole government, whether you would not have charged them with the highest crimes."

This was subscribed by forty-seven ministers.

A second paper, "A vindication of the London ministers from the unjust aspersions … as if they had promoted the bringing of the King to capital punishment," appeared shortly after, signed by fifty-seven ministers.

Even the Independent preachers shrank from approving the proceedings of the council of officers in the trial of the King, with the exception of Hugh Peters and John Goodwin. Some of the Independent ministers in the country joined the Presbyterians in protesting against them.

But it was all in vain. The King was tried and sentenced to death, and executed on 30th January, 1649. Rumour had it that the masked executioner was none other than Peters himself. This he denied, asserting that on the day of the King's death he was ill in bed. He had certainly been about and preaching not many days before.

Who the executioner was, was never discovered, and Peters was not charged as such when tried for his life in 1660.

In Epulæ Thyestæ, printed in 1649, Peters is accused of having been the executioner of King Charles: —

There's Peters, the Denyer, (nay 'tis sad)He that, disguised, cut off his Master's head;That godly pigeon of ApostacyDoes buz about his Ante-Monarchy,His scaffold Doctrines.

But there was an element of kindness in Hugh Peters that induced him to do gracious acts even to those whom he hated. Whitelocke assures us that "at a conference between him (Peters) and the King, the King desired one of his own chaplains might be permitted to come to him" on the occasion of his execution; he had refused the ministrations of the Presbyterian divines, "and thereupon the Bishop of London was ordered to go to his Majesty."

On a former occasion a message from the Queen was allowed to be transmitted to the King through the instrumentality of Peters.

In his letter to his daughter Peters says: "I had access to the King – he used me civilly, I, in requital, offered my poor thoughts three times for his safety." It was an impertinence in the man to approach the King, when he had stirred up the army to demand his death, and had raced about London endeavouring to get the approval of the sentence from the ministers. Although we cannot believe that Hugh Peters was the executioner of Charles, yet he cannot be acquitted of being a regicide, on the same principle as the trumpeter in the fable was condemned to be hanged. His plea that he had not drawn a sword in the battle was not held to justify him – he had sounded the charge and summoned to the battle.

Peters was one of the Triers appointed by Cromwell to test the parochial clergy, and to eject from their livings such as did not approve themselves to their judgment as fitting pastors to the flock either by their morals or theological opinions.

Every parishioner who bore a grudge against his pastor was invited to lay his grievances before the Grand Committee. Lord Clarendon says: "Petitions presented by many parishioners against their pastors, with articles of their misdemeanours and behaviours … were read with great delight and promptly referred to the Committee about Religion." The matter of these accusations was for the most part, as Clarendon informs us, "bowing at the name of Jesus, and obliging the communicants to the altar, i.e. to the rails which enclosed the Communion table, to receive the sacrament." What the Puritans desired was that the minister should walk about the church distributing to the people in the pews. The observance of all holy days except Sundays had already been forbidden. A priest who said service on Christmas Day or Good Friday was certain of deprivation. But the great question put to each rector or vicar was, "whether he had any experience of a work of grace" in his heart, and the answer to this determined whether he should be allowed to hold his cure or be thrust out, apart from all question of moral fitness. That there were a host of lukewarm, indifferent men in the ministry, caring little for religion and knowing little, without fixed convictions, cannot be wondered at, after the swaying of the pendulum of belief during the last reigns, and these would be precisely the men who would be able volubly to assert their experience of divine grace, and abandon doctrines they never sincerely held and ceremonies about which they cared nothing. There were vicars of Bray everywhere.