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The Earl of

taking bribes from abroad for the supply of his vices; an infidel in his hours of wantonness, and a Romanist in the pensive hours which followed some extraordinary debauch; -such was the prince with whom sober, religious Protes tant England was to renew her experiment of monarchy. The first period of the reign of King Charles the Second is occupied by the ministry of the Earl of Clarendon, which extended through seven years. Edward Hyde, Clarendon. a man of good family and bred to the bar, had been a member of the Long Parliament, in which at first he took the popular side. But, three months before the late King began the war, Hyde, who had then been a year or more in private correspondence with him, withdrew from the Parliament, and joined him at York. His services were welcomed as of the utmost value; and, in the management of the King's business and the preparation of papers addressed to Parliament and to the people, Hyde and Lord Falkland were the persons chiefly employed. After the negotiation at Uxbridge, Hyde was sent to the West of England with Prince Charles, whom in the following year he accompanied to the Isle of Jersey. There he employed himself two years upon his "History of the Late Troubles." After the King's execution, he joined the prince at Paris, and was sent by him on an embassy to Spain. Returning thence, he received the appointments, first of Secretary and then of Lord Chancellor, and became the director of the affairs of the exiled family.

Hyde was a man of ability and resolution; faithful and vigilant in all that related to his master's interest; bigoted in his attachment to the royal prerogative, and to the Episcopal Church of England. Free from the vices of the libertine court of which he was the guardian, his strictness would have deprived him of the prince's friendship, if his wisdom and activity could have been dispensed with. His bearing to equals and inferiors was uncom

'Life of Edward, Earl of Clarendon, written by Himself, I. 91-139.

promising, arrogant, and harsh; and Puritanism and Puritans he hated with a vindictive animosity. In the train of the restored King he came back to England as Lord Chancellor, after an absence of fifteen years, in which time England had changed in many things, and he in scarcely anything except age and the temper induced by the irritating experiences of exile. His capacity and past services marked him out for the head of the government. He was created Earl of Clarendon; and his confidential friend, Sir Edward Nicholas, was made one of the Secretaries of State, William Morrice, a retainer of General Monk, being the other.

Early pro

after the

tion.

The course of early proceedings tended on the whole to quiet the apprehensions of those who had reluctantly acceded to the recall of the King. The Earl of Manchester, formerly General for the Parliament, ceedings was made Lord Chamberlain; Edward Montague, Restora the Parliament's Admiral, now created Earl of Sandwich, was placed in command of the fleet; the privy seal was given to the venerable Lord Say and Sele; Hollis, so prominent in the early opposition of the Long Parliament to the court, was raised to the peerage. In the circumstances, nobody complained of the elevation of George Monk to be Duke of Albemarle. The judicial proceedings of the time when the royal authority was in abeyance were ratified by Parliament. An Act of Indemnity was passed, after a vigorous struggle, especially in the House of Lords, to make its terms less indulgent. It excepted from mercy those who had been directly concerned in the death of Charles the First, to whom were added Vane and Lambert by name. After granting the avails of the tonnage, poundage, and excise duties to the King for his life, and making provision for reducing the army and for discharging the arrears of its pay, the Parliament was adjourned.

Sept. 17.

1 Statutes at Large, II. 649.

The trial of the regicides was not to be delayed till the angry loyalty of the time might have opportunity to grow cool and merciful. No sooner was Parliament dispersed, than a special commission, constituted of thirtyfour persons, great officers of state and others,

Trial of the regicides.

Oct. 9.

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was assembled to judge and to doom. The trials lasted ten days. Twenty-nine persons were arraigned, all of whom were convicted and sentenced. The punishment of nineteen was, by a royal grace, commuted for imprisonment. The rest suffered death with all the horrible accompaniments prescribed by the English law of treason as it then stood. Among them were Colonel Axtel and Colonel Hacker, who respectively were in command of the guard at the King's trial and at his execution; Coke, who had acted as public prosecutor; and Major-General Harrison.1 The remains of Cromwell, Bradshaw, and Ireton were disinterred, and hung on gibbets in conspicuous places of London.

Hugh Peter.

The fate of one of the sufferers at this time appealed especially to the compassion of the people of New England. Hugh Peter had been one of the Company of Massachusetts Bay before the emigration. Following the pioneers almost immediately, he became the admired minister of one of their churches, a counsellor largely trusted through a period when the new social fabric was in imminent danger of overthrow, and a contriver and guide in methods of industry which proved to be copious sources of public wealth. He had established what seemed a permanent position in New England, and had given his step-daughter in marriage to Governor

1 "Exact and most Impartial Accompt of the Indictment, Arraignment, Trial, and Judgment (according to Law) of twenty-nine Regicides, the Murtherers of his late Sacred Majesty of most Glorious Memory, together with a Summary of the Dark and Horrid Decrees of those Caballists, prepara

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tory to that Hellish Fact, exposed to View for the Reader's Satisfaction, and Information of Posterity." A book of more horrible fascination than this is scarcely to be found. The several methods of defence are extraordinary illustrations of the characters and ways of thinking of the several prisoners.

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Winthrop's eldest son. But, after seven years' residence, he returned to England, early in the civil war, with the purpose — if one of the witnesses on his trial reported truly his unguarded talk of "stirring up of this war and driving of it on."1 He became a prominent "agitator" among the soldiers. He put himself forward at the trial of Laud, and at the execution of that prelate stood armed upon the scaffold. At the siege of Bridgewater, the siege of Winchester, and the storming of Bristol, he did active service. In Cromwell's conquest of Ireland, he is said to have "led a brigade against the rebels," and to have "come off with honor and victory."3 "Drogheda is taken," he wrote from that place to the Speaker, "three thousand five hundred and fifty-two of the enemy slain, and sixtyfour of ours; Ashton, the Governor, killed, none spared. I come now from giving thanks in the great church." When the arms of the Commonwealth had completely triumphed, he withdrew from the military service; and he was one of the household chaplains who stood by the Protector's death-bed.*

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He had not been a member of the court which condemned the King. What the public prosecutor undertook to prove against him was, "that he was a chief conspirator with Cromwell at several times and in several places, and that it [the King's death] was designed by them; .... he was the principal person to procure the soldiery to cry out 'Justice! justice!' or assist or desire those for the taking away the life of the King; ..... he preached many sermons to the soldiery in direct terms for taking away the King, comparing the King to Barabbas; he was instrumental when the procla

1 Ibid., 155; comp. Vol. I. 582. 2 See Peter, "A Word for the Armie and Two Words to the Kingdome," &c. * Whitelocke, Memorials, 426. * Peter was one of Cromwell's Triers (see above, p. 292). Roger Williams,

when he visited Peter in London, was told by him that the room in which they were sitting had formerly belonged to "Canterbury" (Laud), and that Parliament had also given him the Archbishop's library. (Knowles, 262.)

mation for the High Court of Justice (as they called it) was proclaimed, directing where it should be proclaimed and in what place; when the King was brought upon the stage, that mock-work, he was the person that stirred up the soldiery below to cry for justice." 1

His execution.

Oct. 16.

The third day after their trial, Peter and the Solicitor, John Coke, who had been one of the prosecutors of the late King, were dragged on hurdles from Newgate gaol to the place of their execution, at Charing Cross. Their sentences were the same. Coke suffered first. He was hanged by the neck, and then cut down alive. His body, after other mutilation, was opened, and the bowels were taken out and burned. Then came the merciful blow which severed the head from the body; and lastly the body was cut into four parts for permanent exhibition in as many places. The executioner—his arms red to the shoulders with this slaughter-approached the other victim, and asked, "Mr. Peter, how like you the work?" "You have butchered one of the servants of God before my eyes," replied the sturdy man, "and have forced me to see it, in order to terrify and discourage me; but God has permitted it for my support and encouragement." Truly had Sir Ferdinando Gorges said of him thirty years before, that "his courage was not inferior to any." The head of Coke and that of General Harrison were set on poles at the northeast end of Westminster Hall, looking towards London; and the head of Mr. Peter on London Bridge.

The offences of Peter against royalty had been substantially the same as those of numbers who escaped unquestioned. As his death may be interpreted as a sacrifice on the tomb of Laud, so the doom of another eminent actor in New England affairs was a propitiatory offering to the manes of Strafford. The conviction of that nobleman had been brought about through a disclosure, by Sir Henry

1 Trial of Twenty-nine Regicides, pp. 153, 154.

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