Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/168

 164

NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. vn. MAR. i, 1913.

of the old Charing Cross, crying out it was as old <as Popery itself and that it had caus'd more super- stition and done more mischief than any pulpit in England had done good (though, among sober men, the superstition was begotten only by pulling it down) and that now this Trumpet of sedition should be hang'd upon a gibbet in the same place where the old cross stood, with his face towards the place where the scaffold was erected, and where Peters gave orders for knocking down staples to tye our martyr'd sovereign fast rto the block ! "

2. A broadside, published at the time,
 * gives the following account :

"Mr. Cooke .... taking notice that Hugh Peters was there and to be executed next after, he heartily wished that he might be reprieved, being as he conceived, not prepared to dye.

" And, indeed, it is very remarkable that Hugh tPeters, who heretofore had expressed himself a -violent enemy against the Letany, and for this -..reason, amongst some others, that it taught to vpray against sudden death, should now at the hour of his death and after many weeks of im- -prisonment be himself so unprovided as to be -pitied by all that knew him and to have such .violent distempers that he was fitted neither for "life nor death.

" He came now to the ladder unwillingly, and by degrees was drawn up higher and higher. Cer-

- tainly he had many executioners within him. He leaned upon the ladder, being unwilling to

j>art from it, but being turned off the spectators

gave a great shout, as they did when his head was cut off and held up aloft upon the point of a spear. The very soldiers themselves, whom heretofore he did animate to slaughter and a thorough execution of their enemies, were now ashamed of him and xipon the point of their spears

-.showed that guilty head which made them guilty of so much blood." ' A True and Perfect Rela- tion of the Grand Traitor's Execution, 1660 ' : B.M. press-mark, 669, f. 26 (31).

3. William Smith, writing to John Lang- ley on 20 Oct., 1660, said briefly : " On Tuesday, despairing Hugh Peters and John

'Cook, the only penitent, were hanged and

quartered." The letter is calendared in the Hist. MSS. Commission's Report V., Ap- pendix, p. 174.

4. In his ' Motus Compositi,' &c., a con- tinuation of George Bate, M.D.'s (not

- to be confounded with the other George Bate afterwards cited) ' Elenchus motuum nuperorum,' &c. (ed. in English, 1685, p. 55), Thomas Skinner, M.D., wrote :

" The day following, Cook and Peters in the same place, suffered the same punishment ; where Peters, by a drunken and base death, dis- graced his infamous life."

5. Bishop Burnet, in his ' History of My Own Time ' (ed. O. Airy, vol. i. pp. 281-2), states :

" It was indeed remarkable that Peters, a sort of enthusiastic buffoon preacher, though a very vicious man, that had been of great use to

Cromwell and had been outrageous in pressing the King's death with the cruelty and rudeness of an inquisitor, was the man of them all that was the most sunk in his spirit and could not in any sort bear his punishment. He had neither the honesty to repent of it, nor the strength of mind to suffer as all the rest of them did. He was observed all the while to be drinking some cordiah to keep him from fainting."

6. In the book entitled

" The Lives, Actions and Execution of the Prime Actors and Principal! Contrivers of that Horrid Murder of our late Pious and Sacred Sovereigne . . . .By George Bate, an observer of those trans- actions. Printed for Tho. Vere, 1661,"

there is, p. 50, the following description of Peters's end :

" He was drawn upon a hurdle from Newgate to Charing Cross, sitting therein like a sot all the way he went, and either plucking the straws therein, or gnawing the fingers of his gloves. Being come to the place aforesaid, not like a minister, but like some ignorant atheist, he ascended the ladder, but knew not what to say or how to carry himself at the hour of his death. But standing there awhile, at length he perfectly burst forth into weeping ; and then, after a little pause, he held his hand before his eyes, he prayed ! or a short space ; and now, the hangman being ready, he very often remembered him to make mste by checking him with the rope, and at last very unwillingly he turned him off the ladder ind, after he had hung almost a quarter of an lour, he was cut down, drawn and quartered. 3is head was set on London bridge and his limbs on the city gates.

" Upon Hugh Peters, written by an ingenuous Spectator of his Execution.

See here the last and best edition Of Hugh, the author of Sedition, So full of errors, 'tis not fit To read, till Duns corrected it But now 'tis perfect, nay far more 'Tis better bound than 'twas before And now I hope it is no sin To say, ' Rebellion take thy swing.' For he that sayes, sayes much amiss That Hugh an Independent is."

7. William Yonge adds in his ' England's Shame ; or, the Unmasking of a Politick atheist : Being a full and faithful relation of the Life and death of that Grand Impostor, Hugh Peters ' (1663), p. 87 :

" But to shew his end was as desperate as his life was abominable, when several ministers came to comfort him in Newgate, some hours before his death and exhorting him to lay hold upon Gospel

Eromises made to repentance, he replied : ' What ave I to do with them, seeing I am guilty of the blood of my King ? ' Then, hearing the bell ring, cried out, ' Away, away to judgment, for the Trumpet sounds,' and so goes down the stairs, thence to the gibbet, where he behaved himself more impenitent, not being able to pray, though intreated to it, he dying sullenly and desperately that as was his life such was his end. O Quam dulce mori, quam mors sit sola malorum Terminus et vitse fons et origo novae," &c.