41 Facts About Hugh Peter

Hugh Peter was an English preacher, political advisor and soldier who supported the Parliamentary cause during the English Civil War and later the trial and execution of Charles I Following the Restoration, he was executed as a regicide.

Hugh Peter employed a flamboyant preaching style that was considered highly effective in furthering the interests of the Puritan cause.

From a radically Protestant family of Cornwall, England, though of part Dutch origin, Peter emigrated to a Puritan colony in America, where he first rose to prominence.

Hugh Peter unsuccessfully proposed revolutionary changes that would have disestablished the Church of England's role in landholding and struck at the heart of the legal title to property.

Hugh Peter was born to a father from Antwerp and was of an affluent background.

Hugh Peter entertained Puritan opinions and eventually left England for Holland.

Hugh Peter visited Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden in Germany in about 1632 and, afterwards, became the minister of the English church at Rotterdam.

Hugh Peter was connected with John Winthrop through his wife, and had already formed several friendships with the American colonists.

Hugh Peter played a significant role during the 1637 trial of Anne Hutchinson during the Antinomian Controversy, being one of the ministers wanting her banished from the colony.

Hugh Peter took a leading part in the affairs of the colony, and interested himself in the founding of the new colony in Connecticut.

Hugh Peter was active in the establishment of Harvard College.

In 1641, Hugh Peter returned to England as agent of the colony, but soon became involved in the political troubles which now began.

Hugh Peter became chaplain to the forces of the adventurers in Ireland, and served in 1642 in Lord Forbes's expedition, of which he wrote an account.

Hugh Peter was more valuable to the Parliamentary cause as a preacher than as a diplomat, and his sermons were very effective in winning recruits to the parliamentary army.

Hugh Peter became famous as an exhorter at the executions of state criminals, attended Richard Challoner on the scaffold, and improved the opportunity when Sir John Hotham was beheaded.

However, it was as an army chaplain that Hugh Peter exerted the widest influence.

Oliver Cromwell followed the example of Fairfax, and on his behalf Hugh Peter delivered to the House of Commons narratives of the capture of Winchester and the sack of Basing House.

Hugh Peter performed useful services in the Second Civil War, procured guns for the besiegers at the siege of Pembroke, raised troops in the Midlands, and arranged the surrender of the Duke of Hamilton at Uttoxeter.

Hugh Peter rode at the head of the force bringing Charles I to London as prisoner, and justified and supported the trial and sentence in sermons.

Hugh Peter's counsel was important in the inner circle of Cromwell and influenced the highest levels of policy making.

Hugh Peter is believed to have been the headman's assistant.

Hugh Peter was one of the committee of twenty-one appointed to suggest legal reforms, and he published his ideas on this subject, which included a register of wills and land titles and the destruction afterwards of the ancient records, in his tract, "Good Work for a Good Magistrate", answered by R Vaughan and Prynne.

Hugh Peter strongly disapproved of the First Anglo-Dutch War, and his influence suffered.

Hugh Peter preached the funeral sermon on Oliver Cromwell, and opposed the removal of Richard Cromwell.

In 1647 Hugh Peter had called for the readmission of the Jews to England, believing this would benefit the economy and hasten the Second Coming.

At the conference Hugh Peter changed sides, expressing the opinion that not only could the Jews could not be converted, but they might do harm through missionary work.

Hugh Peter's preaching and addresses to Parliament on Cromwell's behalf had made him too well known as a Puritan opponent of the royal house of Stuart for any disavowals to save him; thus, a recantation of his opinions and a display of repentance would probably have been his best hope.

However, he appeared to have panicked, sending a defence of himself to the House of Lords in which he denied any share in the death of Charles I In addition to justifying Charles being condemned to death, Peter was alleged to be one of the two heavily disguised executioners, even the one who welded the axe, though this was a task requiring some skill.

Hugh Peter produced an alibi, claiming that he had been ill and confined to bed at home on that day, which was confirmed by a house servant of his, but the court found that testimony unconvincing.

Hugh Peter wrote "A Dying Father's Last Legacy" to his only child, Elizabeth, in which he gave a narrative of his career.

Hugh Peter was forced to watch John Cook suffering emasculation and disembowelment before enduring the same fate himself.

Hugh Peter is said to have been a man of a rough, coarse nature, without tact or refinement, of strong animal spirits, undeterred by difficulties which beset men of higher mental capacity, whose energies often outran his discretion, intent upon the realities of life and the practical side of religion.

Hugh Peter had earned it by what he said rather than by what he did.

Hugh Peter's public-spirited exertions for the general good and his kindnesses to individual royalists were forgotten, and only his denunciations of the king and his attacks on the clergy were remembered.

Hugh Peter's reputation was further assailed in songs and satires charging him with embezzlement, drunkenness, adultery, and other crimes; but these accusations were among the ordinary controversial weapons of the period, and deserve no credit.

Hugh Peter is described as having been tall and thin, according to the tradition recorded by one of his successors at Salem, but his portraits represent a full-faced, and apparently rather corpulent man.

Hugh Peter was the son of Thomas Dyckwoode, alias Hugh Peter, descended from a family which had left the Netherlands to escape religious persecution, and of Martha, daughter of John Treffry and Emlyn Tresithny of Place, Fowey, Cornwall.

Hugh Peter married secondly Deliverance Sheffield; she was still alive in 1677 in New England, and was supported by charity.

Hugh Peter is said to have married and left descendants in America, but the accuracy of the pedigree is disputed.

Hugh Peter was the subject of a 1981 television play A Last Visitor for Mr Hugh Peter.

Hugh Peter was played by Peter Vaughan, Charles Kay played Charles I, Michael Pennington played John Lilburne, and Julia Chambers played his daughter Elizabeth.