Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/131

 ii s. vii. FEB. io, 1913. j NOTES AND QUERIES.

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Madame Denis died on 6 Sept., 1846, and her husband some time afterwards married an English lady, a widow of the name of Dawes. This lady had considerable wealth, and she purchased outright the Stulz pro- perty at Hyeres, of which her husband had the usufruct. M. Denis died in 1876, and three years afterwards his widow sold her pro- perty, including the chateau and gardens, to the town for the sum of 200,000 fr. and a. life annuity of 5,000 fr. The house, externally a very unpretentious building, but rich in memories, now forms the Public Library and Museum of Hyeres, \vhile the garden of which the forbidding walls have long been removed and replaced by iron railings, and which is filled with tropical trees and plants collected by its former owners is one of the principal ornaments of the town.

For most of the information contained in this paper I am indebted to M. Jules Icard, whose valuable work, * Les Rues d'Hyeres,' is full of interesting historical and bio- graphical facts, conveyed in a very charming style. W. F. PBIDEAUX.

Villa Paradis, Hyeres.

HUGH PETERS. (See 1 1 S. vi. 221, 263, 301, 463 ; vii. 4, 45, 84.)

IX. PETERS'S PETITION, CAPTURE, AND TRIAL.

IN 1660 Peters was excepted out of the King's general pardon as being one of those who " had a hand in the late King's death." He then petitioned the House of Lords, asserting his innocence, and annexed a long defence to his petition. Both docu- ments are calendared in the Historical Manuscripts Commission's Seventh Report, pp. 115 and 116, and on 19 July, 1660, Samuel Speed published the defence under thf title of " The Case of Mr. Hugh Peters impartially communicated to the view f and censure of the whole world, written by his own hand/' The defence is an incoherent tissue of lies, carefully avoided by most of his biographers, and was the last document Peters ever wrote. He must have been quite mad at the time.

At the end of August, 1660, Peters's hiding-place was discovered, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. The account of his capture in Mercurius Puhlicus for 30 Aug.-6 Sept. is too lengthy to be tran- scribed, so I summarize the facts.

" On Friday, Aug. 31, Peters was discovered to In- hiding in the house of one Broad, a Quaker

in St. Thomas's parish, Southwark. He, how- ever, escaped by creeping into the bed of Broad's daughter, Mrs. Peach, who had lain in two days previously ; for the messenger, through modesty, did not search the woman's bed, so Peters escaped to the house of another Quaker, John Day, the cobbler. But on the Sunday following, 2 Sept.. at six at night, he was caught at the house of Nathaniel Mun, a tape weaver of the same parish. He denied his identity, saying his name was Thompson, but on the neighbours coming in was forced to come downstairs. He then, ' to gather his spirits,' called for and drank 'two full quarts of small beer, for the house had no strong.' After which he said, ' I will go, but I beg for the Lord's sake you call me not Peters, for,' said he, 'if it be known I am Hugh Peters, the people in the street will stone me.' "

He was then taken to the To\ver, where he remained under the custody of Sir John Robinson, Archbishop Laud's nephew, until his trial.

On 9 Oct. the regicides were removed to Newgate. Dr. Dolben, afterwards Arch- bishop of York, and Dr. John Barwick, afterwards Dean of St. Paul's, were sent by the King to minister to the regicides in Newgate ; and in the ' Life ' of the latter, by Peter Barwick, M.D,, pp. 297-9, it is said that Peters

" was deaf to all that either of them could say, and had so stopped his ears against the admoni- tions not only of these two excellent persons, but of those who also were his accomplices in the same crime, and were to suffer with him, and had so perfectly shook off all sense of piety and religion (if ever he had any) that they earnestly requested these divines to intercede with his Majesty, that a person so deaf to all advice, and so impene- trable to their sacred ministrations, might not bo hurried into another world till he were brought, if possible, to a better sense of his condition. The chief of these was John Cook, who yet had made no scruple that very day to vindicate and defend this wretch and to extol him as the brightest example of holiness .... Accordingly,, the next day, together with Cook, he was drawn upon a sledge to execution, still showing the utmost aversion to all good counsel, and even to the advice of Cook himself, seeming to believe very little in that God whom he had so often invoked to patronize his impious rebellion."

A tract published on 14 Dec., 1660, and entitled

" The true character of the educations, inclina- tions and dispositions of all and every one of those barbarous persons who sat as judges upon the life of our dread sovereign King Charles I. of ever blessed memory " (British Museum, press- mark E. 1080 [15]), " states :

" Being sentenced to death, he seemed after- wards in a kind of distracted condition and un- prepared to dye," &c.

J. B. WILLIAMS,

(To be continued.)