deavoured to promote sound religion, the reformation of learning, and the law, and employment of the poor; that, for the better effecting these things, he had espoused the interest of the parliament, in which he had acted without malice, avarice, or am

black light. To take no notice of his writings against Salmasius and More; what could be more cruel against Charles, than his Iconoclastes! How bitter are his observations, how cutting his remarks on his conduct! How horribly provoking, to point out sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia, as the book from whence the "prayer in the time of captivity," delivered to Dr. Juxon, immediately before his death, was chiefly takena? One should have thought this an indignity never to have been forgotten, nor forgiven, especially as it was offered by one who was secretary to Cromwell, and who had spent the best part of his life in the service of the anti-royalists. But yet Milton was preserved as to life and fortune (happy for the polite arts he was preserved) and lived in great esteem among men of worth all his days. Goodwin had the same good fortune; and Martin escaped the fate of many of his fellow judges; though on his trial, he behaved no way abjectly or meanly. All this had the appearance of clemency, and Peters might reasonably have expected to share in it. But, poor wretch! he had nothing to recommend him, as these had, and therefore, though more innocent, fell without pity. Martin, as it was reported, escaped merely by his

2 Vid. Bayle's Dict. Article Milton. Milton's Works, or Toland's Amyntor.-See also Vol. II. p. 119, of the present work.

bition; and that whatever prejudices or passions might possess the minds of men, yet there was a God who knew these things to be true.

At the place of execution, when chief justice Coke was cut down and embowelled,

vices: Goodwin having been a zealous Arminian, and a sower of division among the sectaries, on these accounts had friends: but what Milton's merit with the courtiers was, Burnet says not. Though, if I am not mistaken, it was his having saved sir William Davenant's life formerly, which was the occasion of the favour shewn to him. Merit or interest, in the eyes of the then courtiers these had; but Peters, though he had saved many a life and estate, was forgotten by those whom in their distress he had served, and given up to the hangman.-But the sentence passed on him, and much more the execution of it, will seem very rigorous, if we consider that it was only for words; for words uttered in a time of confusion, uproar and war. I am not lawyer enough to determine, whether by any statute then in force, words were treason. Lord Strafford, in his defence at the bar of the house of lords, says expressly, "No statute makes words treason." But allowing they were, such a law must be deemed to have been hard, and unfit for execution: especially as the words were spoken in times of civil commotion. For in such seasons men say and do, in a manner, what they list, the laws are disregarded, and rank and

2

* Burnet, vol. I. p. 265.

b Trial, p. 561. fol. Lond. 1680.

Hugh Peters was then ordered to be brought that he might see it; and the executioner came to him, rubbing his bloody hands, asked him how he liked that work? He told him, that he was not at all terrified, and that he might do his worst. And when

character unminded. Contempt is poured on princes, and the nobles are had in derision. These are the natural consequences of wars and tumults; and wise men foresee and expect them. But were all concerned in them to be punished, whole cities would be turned into shambles. To overlook and forgive what has been said on such occasions, is a part of wisdom and prudence, and what has been almost always practised. Never were there greater liberties taken with princes, never more dangerous doctrines inculcated by preachers, than in France, during part of the reigns of the third and fourth Henry. "The college of Sorbonne, by common consent, concluded that the French were discharged from the oath of allegiance to Henry the Third, and that they might arm themselves in opposition to him." In consequence of which, the people vented their rage against him, in satires, lampoons, libels, infamous reports and calumnies, of which the most moderate were tyrant and apostate. And the curates refused absolution to such as owned they could not renounce him. And the same Sorbonists decreed all those who favoured the party of Henry the Fourth, to be in a mortal sin, and liable to damnation; and such as resisted him, champions of

a

Maimbourgh's History of the League, translated by Dryden, Oct. 1684. Lond. p. 432 and 437.

he was upon the ladder, he said to the sheriff, Sir, you have butchered one of the servants of God before my eyes, and have forced me to see it, in order to terrify and discourage me; but God has permitted it for my support and encouragement.

the faith, and to be rewarded with a crown of martyrdom. These decrees produced terrible effects: and yet, when Henry the Fourth had fully established himself on the throne, I do not remember that he called any of these doctors to an account, or that one of them was executed. That wise prince, undoubtedly, considered the times, and viewed these wretches with pity and contempt, for being the tools of cunning artful men, who veiled their ambitious designs under the cloke of religion.

So that really considering what had passed abroad, and what passed under his own observation, Peters had reason to think that the act of indemnity would have included him.-But setting aside all this, I believe all impartial judges will think he had hard measure dealt him, when they consider that those who preached up doctrines in the pulpit as bad as Peters's, and those likewise who, though guardians of our laws and liberties, and sworn to maintain them, delivered opinions destructive of them, even from the bench: I say, whoever considers the comparatively mild treatment these men have met with, will be apt to judge the punishment of Peters very severe.. What was the crime of Peters? Was it not the justifying and

Maimbourgh's History of the League, translated by Dryden, Oct. 1684. Lond. p. 805.

One of the prodigies of those times attended Peters going to the gibbet"; which,

magnifying the king's death? And is this worse than the doctrine of Montague, Sibthorp, and Manwaring, which set the king above all laws, and gave him a power to do as he list? Is this worse than the opinion of the judges in Charles the First and James the Second's time, whereby it was given for law, that the king might take from his subjects without consent of parliament, and dispense with the laws enacted by it? Far from it. For the depriving of the people of their rights and liberties, or the arguing for the expediency and justice of so doing, is a crime of a higher nature, than the murdering or magnifying the murder of the wisest and best prince under heaven. The loss of a good prince is greatly to be lamented; but it is a loss which may be repaired: whereas the loss of a people's liberties is seldom or ever to be recovered: and, consequently, the foe to the latter is much more detestable than the foe to the former.

1

But what was the punishment of the justifiers and magnifiers of the destruction of the rights and liberties of the people? Reprimands at the bar of one or other of the houses, fines, or imprisonment: not a man of them graced the gallows, though none, perhaps, would better have become it. Peters, therefore, suffered more than others, though he had done less to deserve it than others, which we may well suppose was contrary to his expectation.

16 One of the prodigies of those times attended Peters going to the gibbet.] "Amongst the innumerable libels which they (the fanatics) published for two years together, those were most pregnant with sedi