Cornish Characters and Strange Events. Baring-Gould Sabine

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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."

СКАЧАТЬ