Rev. Hugh Peter, Regicide

Hugh Peter also spelled Peters, baptized 27 June 1598, Fowey, Cornwall, England; died October 16, 1660, London, at Charing Cross. He was an English Independent minister, army preacher, and propagandist during the Civil War and Commonwealth.

Peters rode at the head of the force bringing Charles I to London as prisoner, and justified and supported the trial and sentence in sermons. Peters's counsel was important in the inner circle of Cromwell and influenced the highest levels of policy making.

After the Restoration of Charles ll, he was sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered, the execution took place at Charing Cross on 16 October. Many contemporaries reported him as being in despair. Peters was forced to watch John Cook suffering emasculation and disembowelment, before enduring the same fate himself.

Family

Peter was the son of Thomas Dyckwoode, alias Peters, 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.

In about 1625, while Peter was preaching in Essex, he married Elizabeth, widow of Edmund Read of Wickford, and daughter of Thomas Cooke of Pebmarsh in the same county.

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

By his second marriage Peter had one daughter, Elizabeth, to whom his "Last Legacy" is addressed. She is said to have married and left descendants in America, but the accuracy of the pedigree is disputed.

Biographical notes

From a radically Protestant family of Cornwall, England, though of part Dutch origin, Peters emigrated to a Puritan colony in America, where he first rose to prominence. After spending time in Holland, he returned to England and became a close associate and propagandist for Oliver Cromwell. Peters may have been the first to propose the trial and execution of Charles I and was believed to have assisted at the beheading.

Peter made a further move to New England. He was connected with John Winthrop through his wife, and had already formed several friendships with the American colonists. He arrived at Boston in October 1635 and was given charge of the church at Salem. He 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.[3][4] He took a leading part in the affairs of the colony, and interested himself in the founding of the new colony in Connecticut.[1][3] He was also active in the establishment of Harvard College.

notes

' Hugh, son of Thomas Dirkwood, was baptized the 27th June, 1598,' and in the margin some later hand has written ' Otherwise Hugh Peters, chaplain and adviser to Oliver Cromwell, beheaded by Charles II on Tower Hill,'"

https://archive.org/stream/notesonparishofm00oliv/notesonparishofm0...

According to John Keast, The Story of Fowey ( Dyllansow Truran , 1987) on page 58.

Hugh Peters was the son of Thomas Dykewood the younger and Martha ,daughter of John Treffry of Place, Fowey.
They married in 1594.

Keast quotes the Fowey Marriage registers.

Best wishes. Dr. Helen Doe. FHHS. Yours sincerely. Mr. Magnus Torstein Jogvanson Johansen.LFO -0910 Vagur the Faroe Islands.

Links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Peter
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Hugh-Peter

Sources include

• Page 468 of Bibliotheca Cornubiensis: P-Z George Clement BoaseLongmans, Green, Reader and Dyer, 1878 - Cornwall (England : County)
• Link to Hugh Peter: Preacher, Patriot, Philanthropist, Fourth Pastor of the First Church in Salem, Massachusetts... A Mosaic Put Together Eleanor Bradley Peters Priv. print., 1902 - 101 pages
• link to The pioneers of Massachusetts, a descriptive list, drawn from records of the colonies, towns and churches and other contemporaneous documents Author Pope, Charles Henry, 1841-1918. Page 356
• John Winthrop [brother-in-law to Martha] Early New England Families Study Project: Accounts of New England Families from 1641 to 1700 < AmericanAncestors > Martha Reade, who married Samuel Symonds, whose sister Elizabeth was a wife to Gov. John Winthrop, Jr. of CT. Stepfather Hugh Peters came in the Abigail in 1635 with his stepdaughters Elizabeth Winthrop and Margaret Lake.