A man upbraided Peters with the King's death. "Friend," said Peters, "you do not well to trample upon a dying man: you are greatly mistaken; I had nothing to do in the death of the King."
As he was going to the gallows, he looked about him and espied a man with whom he was acquainted, and to him he gave a piece of money, having first bent it; and he desired the man to carry that piece of gold to his daughter as a token, and to assure her that his heart was full of comfort, and that before that piece would reach her hand he would be with God in glory. Then the old preacher, who had lived in storms and whirlwinds, died with a quiet smile on his countenance.
That a considerable portion of the community regarded the execution of the regicides as a crime, and those who suffered as martyrs, would appear from the pains taken to vilify their memory when dead, and attempts made to justify their execution.
The authorities for the life of Hugh Peters are mainly: Memoirs of Edmund Ludlow, 1771; B. Whitelocke's Memorials of English Affairs, 1732; Rushworth's Collections, 1692; Bishop Burnet's History of His Own Time, 1724; John Thurloe's Collection of State Papers, 1742; J. B. Felt's Ecclesiastical History of New England, 1855; Benjamin Brooke's Puritans, 1813, Vol. III; The Trial of Charles I and of Some of the Regicides, in Murray's Family Library, 1832; the Rev. Samuel Peters' A History of the Rev. Hugh Peters, New York, 1807; An Historical and Critical Account of Hugh Peters (with portrait), London, 1751, reprinted 1818; Felt (Joseph B.), Memoir, a Defence of Hugh Peters, Boston, 1857; Colomb (Colonel), The Prince of Army Chaplains, London, 1899; also Gardiner's (S. R.) History of the Commonwealth, and the Dictionary of National Biography, passim.
JAMES POLKINGHORNE, THE WRESTLER
James Polkinghorne, the noted champion wrestler of Cornwall, was the son of James Polkinghorne, who died at Creed, 18th March, 1836. The wrestler James was born at S. Keverne in 1788, but there is no entry of his baptism in the parish register.
Cornish wrestling was very different from that in Devon—it was less brutal, as no kicking was allowed. The Devon wrestlers wore boots soaked in bullock's blood and indurated at the fire, and with these hacked the shins of their opponents, who wore as a protection skillibegs, or bands of hay twisted and wrapped round their legs below the knee.
I have so fully described the wrestling in my Devonshire Characters and Strange Events, that it is unnecessary here to go over the same ground more than cannot be helped.