Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 45.djvu/420

 city members, both in the Westminster and Oxford parliaments (1678, 1679, and 1680–1), and helped to inflame public opinion respecting the ‘popish plot’ in the autumn of 1678 by stating in the house that protestant citizens might expect to wake up any morning with their throats cut. When, on an alarm of the king's illness, the Duke of York unexpectedly returned from Brussels in August 1679, Player led a deputation to the lord mayor to express fear of the papists, and to ask that the city guards should be doubled. In January 1682 he was included in the committee formed to contest the quo warranto brought against the charter of the city, and in October of the same year he was nominated a whig member of the committee appointed to inspect the poll at the election for the mayoralty. In June 1683 he was fined five hundred marks for participation in a riot at the Guildhall at the election of sheriffs on midsummer-day 1682 [see ]. Three months later he laid down his office of chamberlain. Player was accused of libertinism in a pasquinade entitled ‘The Last Will and Testament of the Charter of London, 1683,’ and in the second part of ‘Absalom and Achitophel’ Dryden gibbeted him among other prominent city politicians in the lines: Next him, let railing Rabshakeh have place, So full of zeal he hath no need of grace; A saint that can both flesh and spirit use, Alike haunt conventicles and the stews. He died in the early part of January 1686, and was buried at Hackney beside his father on 20 Jan. His widow, ‘the lady Joice Player,’ was buried there on 8 Dec. in the same year.

[Foster's Alumni Oxon.; State Papers, Dom. 1652, 1653, 1654, 1658, 1659, 1664–5, passim; State Papers, Colonial, America, and West Indies, 1669–74; Luttrell's Brief Historical Relation, passim; Echard's Hist. of England, iii. 671; Lysons's Environs, ii. 497; Sharpe's London and the Kingdom, ii. 458; Dr. W. Sparrow Simpson's St. Paul's an Old City Life, 1894; R. Simpson's Monuments of St. John's, Hackney, i. 106; Raikes's Hist. of the Hon. Artillery Company, i. 137, 195; Le Neve's Pedigrees of the Knights; Somers Tracts, ed. Scott, viii. 392; Members of Parliament, Official Lists, i. 536, 542, 548; Dryden's Works, ed. Scott; Twelve Bad Men, ed. Seccombe, p. 98; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 133.]  PLAYFAIR, HUGH LYON (1786–1861), Indian officer and provost of St. Andrews, was the third son of Dr. James Playfair [q. v.] He was born on 17 Nov. 1786 at Meigle, a village of East Perthshire, where his father was minister, and was educated at the grammar school of Dundee, whence he proceeded to St. Andrews. In June 1804 he obtained a commission as cadet in the artillery branch of the East India Company's Bengal army, and went to Edinburgh, where he studied mathematics for three months. In April 1804 he proceeded to Woolwich to obtain technical instruction. He passed out of Woolwich on 8 Jan. 1805, and on 8 March 1805 he sailed for Calcutta, where he arrived in the August following. He had been gazetted lieutenant on 14 May 1805.

Playfair remained at Calcutta, engaged in perfecting himself in military knowledge, till November 1806, when he was sent in command of a detachment of European artillery proceeding to the upper provinces. He obtained much commendation for having conducted his troops the whole distance of eight hundred miles to Cawnpore without having had a single man invalided or sentenced to punishment. On 22 March 1807 General Sir John Horsford appointed him to the command of the artillery at Bareilly. He greatly improved the discipline and condition of the troops there stationed, and succeeded in suppressing a robber chief in Oudh, named Tumon Singh. In November 1807 Playfair was appointed to the horse artillery and sent to Agra; and in January 1809 he marched to join the army at Saharunpoor, under Generals St. Leger and Robert (afterwards Sir Robert) Gillespie [q. v.] In February 1809 he was sent forward to Sirhind and Lascarrie, where he took part in several skirmishes with the sikhs. He returned to Agra in April 1809, and on 5 Nov. was appointed adjutant and quartermaster to the increased corps of horse artillery, ‘as the fittest officer in his regiment.’ He was removed to Meerut in March 1811, where the horse artillery was then stationed. In the autumn of 1814, General Gillespie, commanding Playfair's division, was sent up north from Meerut to attack the Kalunga or fortress of Nalapani, a stronghold of the marauding goorkhas. Gillespie was killed in the first attempted assault; Playfair's artillery corps was therefore ordered up, the batteries were opened, and the fortress capitulated on 30 Nov. 1814. During the bombardment Playfair was twice wounded. On 5 Oct. 1815 he was promoted to be captain of horse-artillery. In 1817 Playfair, owing to ill-health, obtained furlough and sailed for Europe. On the way he touched at St. Helena, and had an interview with the ex-emperor Napoleon I. He reached London on 1 June 1817. On 1 Sept. 1818 he was promoted captain. He spent the next three years in extensive travels in Scotland,