CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 191 ridiculous to say that the papers seized in his desk were not intended to be shown to any human being, for they had been written for publication and had in truth been shown to several persons. Peacham was not arrested immediately on the seizure of his papers: he was already in custody for offences less dubious than a political crime. Mr. Attorney was not alone responsible for his prosecution. He was not at all responsible. The prosecution was ordered by the Privy Council, of which he was not a member. It was conducted by Winwood, the Puritan Secretary of State. 7. Not much has been left to us by the writers about Edmond Peacham; yet evidence remains in the books at Wells and in the records of Her Majesty's State Paper Office, to prove that he was one of the most despicable wretches who ever brought shame and trouble on the Church. It is there seen that he was a libeller. It is there seen that he was a liar. It is there seen that he was a marvel of turbulence and ingratitude; not alone a seditious subject, but a scandalous minister and a perfidious friend. It is in evidence that he outraged his bishop by a scandalous personal libel; and that he did his worst to get the patron to whom he owed his living hung. 8. Hallam tells us how hard it is for him to see any way in which this poor parson, in a wild part of the west country, far from a large town, could have fallen into the clutches of 7. Sentence of Deprivation against Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. O. ; Presentation Books at Wells. I am indebted for many particulars respecting Peacham to the friendly inquiries made for me by Lord Auckland, Bishop of Bath and Wells. A brief inspection of the papers preserved in the old gate-tower at Wells convinces me of their very great value for ecclesiastical and family history. 8. Wells MSS.; Collins' Peerage, art. Pawlett; Council Reg., Dec. 9, 16, 1614. IX. 6. 1614. Dec. IX. 8. the law. 1614. Dec. Dec. 19. The reader of Hallam will be glad to find that Peacham fell into grief, not on account of his politics, but for an unbearable ecclesiastical offence. For several years Peacham had been rector of Hinton St. George, a parish in the wildest part of Somersetshire, and in the diocese of Bath and Wells. James Montagu, Dean of the Chapel, was bishop. The lord of the manor and patron of the living of Hinton St. George was John Paulett, grandson of Bacon's old friend and guardian, Sir Amias Paulett, and founder of the noble line of that name and place. Margery, a sister of this John, married Sir John Sydenham of Combe, one of his political friends. Paulett represented the county in Parliament, in which he distinguished himself by a firm yet far from disloyal opposition to the court. The papers at Wells still prove that Peacham had been very troublesome to the Church. There had been irregularities in his institution. There had been libels and accusations in the Bishop's Court. At length there came from Hinton St. George a foul and malignant libel against the bishop himself; when Montagu appealed to his primatè, and Archbishop Abbott cited the offender to appear before him at Lambeth and purge his fame. His character and his cause appeared so bad that on his arrival in town Abbott lodged him in the Gatehouse, among the herd of recusants, monks, and priests. 9. Many a Puritan preacher, silenced for a word on copes and stoles, on the closed book or the unlit candle, must have envied this libeller such a hearing as the Church condescends to grant him. Ten commissioners, one of 9. Sentence of Deprivation against Edmond Peacham, Dec. 19, 1614, S. P. O. CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 193 1614. Dec. 19. them an archbishop, four of them bishops, meet to try his IX. 9. case. If Abbott and King lean to Puritan views, Andrews and Neile incline towards Rome. In such a tribunal there is sure to be sympathy for any excess of zeal. Yet these four men, as well as the other six, condemn him. Ecclesiastics who differ from each other on every point of doctrine and discipline, agree to find Peacham guilty of composing, writing, or causing to be written, a defamatory libel against his ordinary, contrary to his canonical obedience and reverence and to the virtue of his oath, and of writing, or causing to be written, a scandalous libel against the laws, statutes, and customs of the Church and the ecclesiastical jurisdiction, defaming the clerical order and the national rite. By a solemn act they cast him from the Church. 10. Among the papers seized in his house at Hinton St. George, and brought up with him to London, is a mass of political writings scrawled on loose sheets, sewn together so as to make a book. Glancing through these sheets, the commissioners find them stuffed with defamatory attacks, on the Court, the Government, the Prince of Wales, and the King, so sharp and savage that they must have been either meant for the signal of a rising or have been composed by a man drunk or mad. The King is charged with falsehood, his ministers with fraud. Peacham treats the King with no more reverence than his bishop. He has felt himself moved to say that James might be smitten of a sudden, in a week, like Ananias and Nabal; that the Prince will want to take back the Crown-lands sold by his father, when men will rise up against him, saying— 10. The true State of the Question whether Peacham's Case be Treason, State Trials, ii. 878. 1615. Jan. 1615. IX. 10. This is the heir, let us kill him. He has declared the King's officers so vile that they should be set upon and put to the sword; the King himself a creature not alone unfit to reign, but unworthy to bear the name of Christian or of man-a thing too abject to crawl on earth or be redeemed in heaven. Jan. These passages are not only meant for the public eye, but are ready for the press. 11. Winwood, who, if not a Puritan, is a protector of the Puritans, by whose help he holds his place at court, sees no cause in this depraved and convicted man's religion to stay his hand. If Peacham is a Puritan, the lay chief of the body does not seem to know it. Winwood puts him under question; when the vicious old sinner falls into deeper and more odious sin. From either demoniacal spite at his recent loss, or from utter callousness of heart, he accuses John Paulett, the patron to whom he owes his living in the Church, of a treasonable knowledge of the contents of his book. And not only John Paulett, but his sister's husband, Sir John Sydenham, whom he charges, not alone with criminal silence, but with a positive share in the composition. Nor do the wretch's lies end here. Among the most intimate friends of Paulett is Sir Maurice Berkeley, a politician and a reformer, who plays a conspicuous part in London life, and who divides with him the representation of the shire; him also Peacham charges as a confederate. Winwood gets alarmed. A sedition of which Paulett, Berkeley, and Sydenham are the accomplices may be fraught with peril. He sends Peacham to the Tower, brings Paulett and Berkeley 11. Council Reg., Nov. 2, Dec. 9, 1614, Feb. 25, 26, 1615. CASE OF EDMOND PEACHAM. 195 before the Privy Council, and calls up Sydenham from IX. 11. Combe. 12. All three gentlemen scout with indignation this abominable lie. Paulett and Berkeley say they have never heard one word of the scandalous and seditious book; Sydenham says he never wrote a line of it. And they tell the truth. If they speak against the Crown on questions of prerogative and grievances, they say what they have to say in the House of Commons. If they are hostile to the court, these men are neither libellors nor traitors. Where lies the truth? Here are the seditious libels against the Crown, of which Peacham asserts that he shares the authorship with Sydenham and the privity with Paulett and Berkeley. How is Winwood to probe the mystery? The law has but one course. Peacham must be interrogated as Fawkes was interrogated. 1615. Jan. The Crown sends down a commission to the Tower, con- Jan. 18. sisting of Winwood, Secretary of State; Cesar, Master of the Rolls; Bacon, Attorney-General; Yelverton, SolicitorGeneral; Montagu, Recorder of London; Serjeant Crew; and Helwys, Lieutenant of the Tower, to put him to the question. An extract from the Council Register will show the order under which they act: THE COUNCIL TO WINWOOD, MASTER OF THE ROLLS, "After our hearty commendations. Whereas Edmond Peacham, now prisoner in the Tower, stands charged with the writing of a book or pamphlet containing matters 12. Council Reg., Jan. 18, 1615. |