III. CHAS. I. CHAPTER at the last moment "exhorted them to do their duty." Within a week he presented himself before the house of commons with letters from Fairfax 1643-4-5. the general: again he made "a large relation " of the siege, and was rewarded with a hundred pounds "for his unwearied services."* He was at the siege of Winchester and the storming of Bristol; and was again deputed by the successful general to bear to the house of commons the tidings of his victory. Peters was rewarded with £100 a year for himself and his heirs; and as the war closed, the parliament, though now compelled to levy a weekly tax, were still in a condition to grant their faithful servant an annuity of £200 a year. He now girded on the sword in earnest, and became the colonel of a regiment in Ireland. He was at the fall of Drogheda, and wrote to the speaker in laconic terms: "Sir; the truth is, Drogheda is taken; 3552 of the enemy slain, and 64 of ours. Colonel Castles and colonel Simons of note. Ashton the governor killed, none spared. We have also proceeded to Trim and Dundalk, and are marching to Kilkenny. I come now from giving thanks in the great church. We have all our men well landed. I am yours, Hugh Peters." Yet this wretched man, when freed from the trammels of a direful fanaticism, was not inhuman. He had thoroughly convinced himself that the saints should have a two-edged sword in their hands, and the praises of God upon their lips. This was one of a favourite class of texts with himself and with his party. His *Whitelocke, p. 157. + Ibid. p. 204–222. Brooke's Lives of the Puritans, vol. iii. p. 355. III. CHAS. I. A.D. religion was soured with this jewish leaven. But CHAPTER where its influence did not extend, he was generous and even humane. The sufferings of the Irish protestants who survived the popish massacre had 1643-4-5. touched his heart; and he went over to Rotterdam and begged thirty thousand pounds for their relief: a prodigious sum to be raised by the exertions of one man, and alike honourable to himself and to the German churches. He repaid the Hollanders for the sanctuary they had afforded him with valuable diplomatic services; and he was an earnest solicitor in behalf of the protestants of the valleys of Piedmont, who were suffering the most inhuman persecutions from the duke of Savoy.* Religion at home still occupied his care; and the parliament requested his advice how Wales should be evangelized. He gave a lion's counsel. It was, to sequester all the livings, appropriate the tithes, and send out six preachers to evangelize the country on a stipend of £100 a year. The parliament approved of his advice, and acted on it. Wales was placed under the six evangelists, and their own coffers were replenished. In the interval of his laborious missions Peters continued to preach in London. He had now attached himself to the extreme democratic party in the house of commons, and to the army, which, conscious of its power, had begun to dictate to its former masters. In the pulpit his hand, like Ishmael's, was against every man. He improved the whole of his time, says one of his rivals and cotemporaries, in preaching against the presbyterian government, against the assembly, against unifor III. CHAS. I. A.D. CHAPTER mity, against the common council, against the city of London; and (towering above all other delinquencies) he preached in favour of a universal tolera1643-4-5. tion.* Such were the strange contradictions in this man's character: good and evil, the extremes of liberty and of a griping bigotry by turns prevailing. That his influence was great, we may infer from the respect paid to him by the house of commons; and he contributed his full share to the introduction of that gloomy ferocity which began to distinguish the parliamentary cause towards the conclusion of the war. His faults were great; but still he had some virtues; and he is a fearful instance that a man of weak judgment and impetuous feelings may lend himself to the commission of the greatest crimes, and yet delude himself with the notion that he is acting in obedience to the will of heaven. At the restoration Peters was excepted from the general amnesty, and suffered death as one of those who had sat in judgment on the king. He had been a minister of Christ and yet a man of blood, and he perished unregretted. In him all men acknowledged the fulfilment of God's own decree; whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed. He met his dreadful death undaunted; and had he lived like a saint, we should have been forced to own that he died like a martyr. The state of society and religion throughout England at this period must be collected from such incidental notices as gleam here and there upon us through the miseries of a civil war. The vindictive * Edwards's Gangræna, p. 88-156; a furious book against the sectarians and independents. III. A.D. passions were not all at once let loose, nor did CHAPTER rapine and lawlessness prevail. In Devonshire, it is true, a body of "clubmen," marauders who fought CHAS. I. and plundered indiscriminately, gave some uneasi- 1643—4—5. ness; but they were soon suppressed. Elsewhere the current of life was not much ruffled for a state of war. Except where the armies lay, or where a town was besieged, the affairs of life proceeded in the usual course. The land was tilled, the markets were thronged, the parish church was crowded. Individual hate and personal rancour had not yet appeared to any great extent. There was even an interchange of courtesies between the rival parties. Newsbooks, as they were termed, were now profusely distributed through England. In 1643 their number was enormous; yet, upon the whole, the temper they display on both sides is less acrimonious than that of our modern newspapers upon slighter provocations. Judging by these productions, posterity will say of us, that the reform bill occasioned more bad passions than the civil war. The queen was at Oxford, and the parliamentary journalist heard that her majesty was deaf. He contents himself with a prayer that "her ears may be opened, and her eyes and heart too!" There is much of this harmless jesting; and but little malice. But this forbearance could not last. Nor must it be assigned entirely to the influence of religion. The same absence of revenge and cruelty had been observed two hundred years before, in the wars of York and Lancaster; and Philip de Comines, an illustrious foreigner, who chanced to be then in England, re K III. CHAPTER lates with admiration the forbearance of the two hostile parties, except upon the field of battle. CHAS. I. Baxter was preaching in the village of Alcester 1643-4-5. when the roaring of the cannon announced the battle of Edge-hill. It was fought on Sunday: as was the second battle of Newbury. The puritans held the Jewish doctrine of the sabbath to its full extent, but they drew different conclusions from the Jews of old. The Jews, if we may believe the author of the book of Maccabees, perished unresisting on the sabbath; the puritans fought without a moment's hesitation; for they regarded the work before them as the special work of God. The distant thunder of the cannon increased, but it disturbed neither the preacher nor the congregation; the people sat, and the worship of God went on. When the sermon was done, in the afternoon, the report was still more audible, "which made us all long," says Baxter, "to hear of the success !"* Was it the eloquence of the great puritan preacher that entranced his hearers, and suspended their alarm, within hearing of a battle in which five-and-twenty thousand of their countrymen were arrayed against each other? If so, the recorded eloquence of ancient or of modern times certainly relates no triumph to be compared with Baxter's. In a moment of intense excitement he stilled the most ungovernable feelings to which man is liable; anxious suspense, and fear, and passionate expectation. The scene in Alcester church is not less sublime, though Baxter's merit may be less, if we suppose that in this calmness and selfcontrol there was nothing unusual, that it was noBaxter's Life, i. p. 43. |