360 LIVES OF;- THE PURITANS. royal father's library ; when Mr. Peters underwent an examination, and declared upon his oath, " That, in the year 1648, he preserved the library in St. James's against the violence and rapine of the soldiers ; that the same con- tinued three or four,months in his custody ; that he did not take any thing away, but left it unyiolated as he found it ; and that he delivered up the key and, custody of all to Major General Ireton.". Mr. Peters was thought to havebeendeeply concerned in the king's death, on which account his name has been treated with much severity. It was supposed that the war- rant for the king's execution was directed to him and Colo- nel Hacker, and that they were the two persons who were in mask upon the scaffold when his majesty was beheaded. There was some demur in the house of commons whether he should be excepted from the act of oblivion.t But, in the conclusion, it was declared against him, and he was apprehended, committed to the Tower, and tried with the rest of the regicides, in, all twenty-nine. Bishop Kennet in one place says,- that for a' while he had been sculking up and down in secret, but was at length apprehended in South- wark; and in another,, that he was discovered by one of those confidents whom he brought from NeW England, and seized upon' in bed with another man's wife.t This vile calumny is cast upon him on the slender evidence of a bigoted and abusive piece, entitled, " Regicides no Saints, nor Martyrs." Mr. Peters-was brought to the bar, October 13, 1660; When he was indicted for high treason, to which he pleaded i not guilty. " After the ndictment was read," says Bishop Kennet, 44 he saw a whole congregation of witnesses against him; who upon their oaths testified him guilty of the most horridcrimes that anyman could be guilty of." These crimes are next enumerated as follows :-44 That he not only took arms, but was himself actually a.colonel, and gave out corn- missions.-That he met in private consultation, near the time of the king's trial, at the Star in Coleman-street, with Cromwell, Pride, and others of the bloody plot.-That in December, 1648, the head-quarterswere at Windsor, where Cromwell, Ireton, Rich and Peters, usually sat in consulta- tion, till two or three o'clock in the morning, with strict guard about them ; soon after which the king was brought to trial.-That during this consultatioff at Windsor, Peters Biog. Brit.. vol. i. p. 230. Edit. 1747. Ludlow's Men3. p. 394. Edit. 1771. t Kennet's Mon. p. 169, 278.
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