CHARACTER AND DEATH OF HUGH PETERS. 33 XI. his judgment. Nor was he entirely free from that CHAP. bigotry which refuses to extend the rights of humanity beyond its own altars;1 he could thank God for the 2 massacres of Cromwell in Ireland. And yet benevolence was deeply fixed in his heart; he ever advocated he rights of the feeble, and pleaded for the sufferings of the poor. Of his whole career it was said, that "many godly in New England dared not condemn what Hugh Peters had done."3 His arraignment, his trial, and his execution, were scenes of wanton injustice. He was allowed no counsel; and, indeed, his death had been resolved upon beforehand, though even false witnesses did not substantiate the specific charges urged against him. His last thoughts reverted to Massachusetts. "Go home to New England, and trust God there;" it was his final counsel to his daughter. At the gallows, he was compelled to wait 1660 while the body of his friend Cooke, who had just been 14. hanged, was cut down and quartered before his eyes. "How like you this?" cried the executioner, rubbing his bloody hands. "I thank God,” replied the martyr, "I am not terrified at it; you may do your worst." To his friends he said, "Weep not for me; my heart is full of comfort;" and he smiled as he made himself ready to leave the world. Even death could not save him from his enemies; the bias of party corrupts the judgment, and cruelty justified itself by defaming its victim. So perished a freeman of Massachusetts; 4 1 Trial of Anne Hutchinson. 2 Whitelocke, 428. "Drogheda is taken, 3552 of the enemy slain. Ashton killed; none spared. I came now from giving thanks in the great church." 3 Crown, in Chalmers, 264. a foolish calumny, reflecting dis- 4 The story that he died drunk, is which were caricatures. Oct. XI. CHAP the first who lost his life for opposition to monarchy The blood of Massachusetts was destined to flow freely on the field of battle for the same cause; the streams were first opened beneath the gallows.1 1660 Oct. The regicides, who had at nearly the same time been condemned to death, did not abate their confidence in their cause. Alone against a nation, pride of character blended with religious fervor and political enthusiasm Death under the horrid forms which a barbarous age had devised, and a barbarous jurisprudence still tolerated, they could meet with serenity, or with exultation. The voice within their breasts still approved what they had done; a better world seemed opening to receive them; and, as they ascended the scaffold, their undaunted composure and lofty resignation seemed to call on earth and heaven to witness how unjustly they suffered. But it was not enough to punish the living; vengeance invaded the tombs. The corpses of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton, were, by the order of both houses of parliament, and with the approbation of the king, disinterred, dragged on hurdles to Tyburn, and regularly hanged at the three corners of the gallows. In the evening, the same bodies were cut down and beheaded, amidst the exulting merriment of the Cavaliers. Such is revenge! Of the judges of King Charles I., three escaped to America. Edward Whalley, who had first won laurels in the field of Naseby, had ever enjoyed the confidence of Cromwell, and remained to the last an enemy to the 1 See a favorable view of Peters in Upham's Second Century Lecture at Salem, 13-27, and Postscript. So, too, Felt's Annals of Salem, 132-151. Bentley, in Mass. Hist. Coll. vi. 250-254. London Monthly Repository, xiv. 525 and 602. Opposite opinions in nearly all the royalist writers REGICIDES IN NEW ENGLAND. 35 XI. 27. Stuarts, and a friend to the interests of the Independ- CHAP ents, and William Goffe, a firm friend to the family of Cromwell,1 a good soldier, and an ardent partisan, 1660 but ignorant of the true principles of freedom,-arrived July in Boston, where Endicot, the governor, received them with courtesy. For nearly a year, they resided unmolested within the limits of Massachusetts, holding meetings in every house, where they preached and prayed, and gained universal applause. When warrants arrived from England for their apprehension, they 1661 fled across the country to New Haven, where it was esteemed a crime against God to bewray the wanderer or give up the outcast. Yet such diligent search was made for them, that they never were in security. For a time they removed in secrecy from house to house; sometimes concealed themselves in a mill, sometimes in clefts of the rocks by the seaside; and for weeks to- June gether, and even for months, they dwelt in a cave in the forest. Great rewards were offered for their apprehension; Indians as well as English were urged to scour the woods in quest of their hiding-place, as men hunt for the holes of foxes. When the zeal of the search was nearly over, they retired to a little village on the Sound; till at last they escaped by night to an appointed place of refuge in Hadley, and the solitudes of the most beautiful valley of New England gave shelter to their wearisome and repining age.2 John Dixwell was more fortunate. He was able to live undiscovered, and, changing his name, was ab 1 Burton's Diary, i. 361. 2 Stiles, in c. iii. of his History of Three of the Judges of Charles I., has collected the materials on this subject. Papers relating to it may be found in the Dutch records. 24 to Aug 19. XI. CHAP. sorbed among the inhabitants of New Haven. He married, and lived peacefully and happily. The History of the World, which Raleigh had written in imprisonment, with the sentence of death hanging over his head, was the favorite study of the man whom the laws of England had condemned to the gallows; and he ever retained a firm belief that the spirit of English liberty would demand a new revolution, which was achieved in England a few months before his end, and of which the earliest rumors may have reached his death-bed.1 2 Three of the regicides, who had escaped to Holland, "found themselves, in the territory of a free and independent state, less securely sheltered than their colleagues in the secret places of a dependent colony. 1662 They were apprehended in Holland, surrendered by April 19. the states, and executed in England. Retributive justice, thought many, required the execution of regicides. One victim was selected for his genius and integrity; such was the terror inspired by their influence. Now that all England was carried away with eagerness for monarchy, Sir Henry Vane, the former governor of Massachusetts, the benefactor of Rhode Island, the ever-faithful friend of New England, adhered with undaunted firmness to "the glorious cause" of popular liberty; and, shunned by every man who courted the returning monarch, he became noted for the most "catholic" unpopularity. He fell from the affections of the English people, when the English people fell from the jealous care of their liberties. He 1 Dixwell died March 18, 1689, aged 81. 2 The story in Pepys, ii. 149, 150, 4to. ed., is very unfavorable to De Witt. 3 Maidston to Winthrop. 1 CHARACTER OF SIR HENRY VANE. 4 37 XI. had ever been incorrupt and disinterested, merciful CHAP. and liberal. When Unitarianism was persecuted, not → as a sect, but as a blasphemy, Vane interceded for its advocate; he pleaded for the liberty of Quakers imprisoned for their opinions; 2 as a legislator, he demanded justice in behalf of the Roman Catholics; he resisted the sale of Penruddoc's men into slavery, as an aggression on the rights of man. The immense emoluments of his office as treasurer of the navy he voluntarily resigned.3 When the Presbyterians, though his adversaries, were forcibly excluded from the house of commons, he also absented himself. When the monarchy was overthrown, and a commonwealth attempted, Vane reluctantly filled a seat in the council and, resuming his place as a legislator, amidst the floating wrecks of the English constitution, he clung to the existing parliament as to the only fragment on which it was possible to rescue English liberty. His energy gave to the English navy its efficient organization; if England could cope with Holland on the sea, the glory of preparation is Vane's. His labors in that remnant of a parliament were immediately turned to the purification of liberty in its sources; and he is believed to have anticipated every great principle of the modern reform bill. He steadily resisted the usurpation of Cromwell; as he had a right to esteem the sorrows of his country his private sorrows, he declared it "no small grief, that the evil and wretched principles of absolute monarchy should be revived by men professing godliness;" and Cromwell, unable to intimidate him, confined him to Carisbrook Castle. ▲ Godwin, iii. 511. ? Sewell, 191. 3 Macauley, v. 99. 4 See Vane's Speeches, in Burton |