he took duke Hamilton a prisoner
himself in his own chamber, seized on his goods, and took his
George and blue ribbon off his shoulder, and the George he
shewed me.

_William Gunter_ was a drawer at the Star in Coleman Street. Oliver
Cromwell and several of his party used to meet there in consultation;
there were several meetings; he remembered one in particular when Peters
was there; he came about four in the afternoon and stayed till ten or
eleven at night; they were talking about the King after he was a
prisoner, for they called him by the name of Charles Stuart; they were
writing something, but the witness could not say what. He could not say
whether Peters was there oftener than once, 'but once I am certain of
it; this is the gentleman; for then he wore a great sword.'

PETERS--I never wore a great sword in my life.

_Starkey_ deposed that in the December before the King's death, and up
to the 12th of the following January, the headquarters of the army were
at Windsor, and General Ireton was quartered at his father's house. The
Council of War was held there, and Cromwell, Ireton, Peters, Col. Rich,
and another gentleman, whose name he forgot, would meet and consult
there, and sit up till two or three in the morning very privately
together. The witness was often in Ireton's company, and Peters would
often come in to meals in the evening.

Mr. Ireton being civil in carriage, would usually entertain
discourses with Mr. Peters, likewise would favor me sometimes
with discourse; and in that discourse I did many times take
occasion to assert the laws in point of the king; and
discoursing about the king as being a capital instrument in the
late inconveniences, as they called it, in the times of the war,
Mr. Ireton would discourse this ordinarily; I was bold to tell
them that the person of the king was _solutus legibus_; this
gentleman the prisoner at the bar, told me it was an unequal
law. I did observe Mr. Peters did bend his discourse, not by way
of argument only, but in point of resolution of judgment, fully
against the person and government of the king. I remember some
of his expressions were these, That he was a tyrant, that he was
a fool, that he was not fit to be a king, or bear that office; I
have heard him say, that for the office itself (in those very
words which shortly after came into print) that it was a
dangerous, charge