356 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. to raise a regiment : but having misspent his time, and raised only three companies, Cromwell's wife' drew up articles against him. Mr. Peters, hearing of this, contrived, with Colonel Philip Jones and one Mr. Sampson Lort, " to` settle a congregational church of their own invention ;" hoping by this means to make it appear, that, instead of being idle, he had been all the time very well employed. Afterwards he went to London ; and, says our author, being asked his advice, " How to drive on the great design of propagating the gospel in Wales," he briefly delivered it to this effect : That they must sequester all ministers without exception, and bring the revenues of the church into the public treasury ; opt of which must be allowed one hundred pounds a year to six itinerant ministers to preach in every county.".. During the wars he had several interviews and conferences with the king ; when, says Mr. Peters, " Heused me civilly; and I offered my poor thoughts three times for his safety."+ Mr. Peters assisted Mr. Challoner in his last moments,being executed for his concern inWaller's plot.t He also assisted Sir John Hotham, whom he attended upon the scaffold, and from whom he received public thanks.§ ,When Archbishop Laud was under confinement, it was moved in the house of commons to send him to New England ; but the motion was rejected. " The plot," says Laud, " was laid_by Peters, and others of that crew, that they might insult over me."ll The archbishop, at the emu: mencement of his trial, delivered a speech in his - own defence, in the conclusion of which, he challenged any Clergyman to come forth, and give a better account of his zeal for the church, and his conversion of papists to the protestant ,religion ; when Mr. Peters, standing near his lordship, askedhim whether he was not ashamed of making sobold a challenge in so honourable an assembly ? adding, that he himself, the unworthiest of many hundred ministers in England; was ready to answer his challenge ; and to Walker's Attempt, part i. p. 147. + Whitlocke's Memorials, p. 251, 364.-Peters's Dying Legacy, p.103. Thiswas a plot of considerable magnitude,with Mr. Waller, a member of the house of commons, at the head. It was the design of the king, and those concerned in this conspiracy, to compel the parliament to a peace: but the confederacy was soon discovered, and several leading persons were apprehended. Challoner and three others were executed but Waller saved his life by paying a fine of, ten thousand pounds, and was banished from the kingdom.-Rapin's Hist: of Eng. vol. ii. p. 487, 488. § Whitlocke's Memorials, p. 117. Wharton's Troubles of Laud, vol. i. p. 208.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=