Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 6.djvu/273

 us. vi. SEPT. si, i9i2.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

221

LOXDOX, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER, 21, 191*.

CONTENTS. No. 143.

NOTES: Hugh Peters, 221 The Royal Society's 250th Anniversary, 223 George Meikle Kemp and Freemasonry, 225 John Taylor, the Water-Poet, 226 A Fifteenth- Century Inventory Latin Quotations, 227 Kersey's English Dictionary" W. Shakespare," 1544" Touching for a Loan," 228.

QUERIES : " Let severely alone " Joseph Fussell Napper Tandy, 228 Report of Trial : Yspytty Ifan Pen Rhos Stable : Print " Divine discontent " Thomas Moricz. Common Serjeant of London Countess of Lanes- borough Psalms in Metre John Bannister, Musician temp. Charles II. " Rothiemurchus " Grant, 229 Authors of Quotations Wanted East Anglian Families Emblem on a Ring Fireback : Relic of 1660 " Lease for three lives" Rocket Troop, Royal Horse Artillery- Author of Song Wanted Concave Mirror with Ragle, Chain, and Ball, 230 Sheffield Family Lieut. Bussy Mansell, R.N. Trussells and Swynnertons, 231.

REPLIES : The Stone's End, Borough, 231 Lifting the Bride over the Threshold, 232 -Third Pennies The Word " Broker," 233 Cleopatra's Portrait Detached Portions of Counties Powdered Alabaster, 234 Brewerne Abbey Casanova and Carlyle A Relic of Bunyan Almanacs in Dialect Handel's Compositions and the Triennial Fes- tivals " Chalk Sunday," 235 Double Meanings Dedication of Nonconformist Chapels Sir Walter Ralegh's Descendants C. Keene : Article by George Moore Whittington and his Cat "According to Cocker "Henry Hunt Piper, 236 " Blue Peter" Col. Lowther, 237 "Dacia"= Denmark Corio, Victoria " Yelver" in Place - Names " Visto" = " Vista" Reference Wanted, 238.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Catalogue of J. Willis Clark's Books and Papers' Shotley Parish Records ' " The People's Books " ' Durham Marriage Bonds.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

Jlofcs.

HUGH PETERS.

1. PETERS' s MILITAJRY CAREER.

THE 'D.N.B.' states of Peters that, in 1649,

Cromwell


 * ' even commissioned him to raise a regiment of

foot in Ireland, but that project seems to have

fallen through owing to the illness of Peters

himself and to some difficulties raised by the

Council of State."

This is the only reference to be found in any modern writer to one of the most shame- ful episodes in this unreverend rascal's career. American writers have had at their service the valuable 'Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society' (cited by me for brevity's sake as C.M.H.S.), but have persistently disregarded the damaging state- ments contained in them ; and in England the Thomason tracts have only recently been catalogued. All modern lives of Peters are apocryphal.

Peters, and another preacher Weld or Wells states the ' History of New England,' published on 29 Nov., 1653,

" steered their course for England as soon as they heard of the chaining up of those biting beasts who went by the name of spiritual lords [i.e., the bishops]."

The pretext, of course, was " relief of excise or customs " the real fact being that they came as incendiaries. Peters, also, was very glad to get rid of his wife, whom he abandoned in New England. His first wife he had abandoned in Holland some years previously in just the same way.

Peters, then, arrived in England at the end of 1641. Presbyterianism being in the ascendant and extremely hostile to his sect, he accompanied Lord Forbes' s army against the rebels in Ireland, ostensibly as " chaplain," in 1642. On his return he published a narrative of the expedition, in which the reader will fail to find a word of his exploits as a fighting man against the Irish.

In 1647 Mrs. Peters was anxious to come to England. Peters wrote to Win- throp on 5 May, 1647 :

" I pray sir have an eye to my wife. If she come hither I hinder not, but I thought she might be better there." C.M.H.S., Series V., vol. vi. p. 101.

Accordingly Mrs. Peters arrived in England in January, 1648, bringing with her her maid. Their joint arrival is noted in Mercurius Aulicus for 25 Jan. 3 Feb., 1648. The assertion in the 'D.N.B.' that Mrs. Peters " had been despatched thither [to New England] in 1645 " is incorrect. For seven years she had not seen her husband.

Peters went mad early in 1649, not for the first time. On 9 May the " Council of State " sent a doctor to him at Sandwich (' Cal. State Papers, Domestic, 1649-50,' pp. 130 and 132). By the end of the month he had recovered and returned to London (Mercurius Britanniciis, 2229 Mav, 1649, p. 39).

Cromwell left London for Milford Haven, on his way to Ireland, on Tuesday, 10 July, leaving his house in King's Street, West- minster, " about six-a-clock in the evening," wrote Henry Walker in his Perfect Occur- rences for that week. He took with him John Owen as his chaplain. Quarrels between Peters and his wife then became the talk of London, and Peters ran away once more. The Man-in-the-Moon for 1-8 Aug., p. 135, published a satirical ' Hue and Cry ' after him as follows :

" O yes O yes O yes. If any manner of man or woman can tell tale or tydings of the