PEYTON, Sir Thomas (1613-84), of Knowlton, Kent.

Peyton’s family was among the most prominent in Kent. His father, Sir Edward Peyton†, who represented Sandwich in 1614, was made a baronet in 1611, while his maternal grandfather, Sir Roger Aston†, was master of the king’s wardrobe, and his maternal grandmother, Marjory Stuart, was a cousin of James I.29Vis. Kent 1619, 66-7; HP Commons 1604-1629. Following his father’s death in 1623, Peyton was brought up in the households of his uncle by marriage Thomas Hales of Bekesbourne (father of Sir Robert Hales*) and of his mother’s second husband, Edward Cholmeley; a docquet dated May 1626 granted his wardship to Dr John Boys, dean of Canterbury, who had died in September 1625, and Thomas Hales.30Canterbury Cathedral Lib. PRC32/46, f. 88; CB; Add. 27999, f. 172; Oxinden Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 88; Coventry Docquets, 463. The uncertainty emanating from this extends to Peyton’s education: he may have spent some time at Oxford before his marriage in 1636 to one of the daughters of Sir Peter Osborne, deputy governor of Guernsey, and sister of Dorothy Osborne.31Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 7.

After attaining his majority, Peyton took his place in Kentish public life. He proved a sophisticated commentator on contemporary affairs. His engagement perhaps ensured by his Scottish heritage and his royal connection, Peyton wrote in November 1638 that the demands of the rebels in the northern kingdom were likely to be ‘very intrusive and peremptory’, a prospect which he feared. He considered it

certain ... that they will bring forth a Parliament here in England: for whether the king comply or confront their demands, it is thought they will be such as the king will answer with the voice of the whole kingdom.32Oxinden Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 141-2; Add. 27999, f. 294.

In May 1639 he had hopes that the ‘hearts of the rebels’ would ‘submit to our gracious king’s will, but as yet, I hear, they are more absolutely resolved to entertain an army of thirty or forty thousand men than a cant of five or six bishops’. He fully expected war, not least because the Scots had ‘most ungraciously’ rejected the king’s proclamation.33Add. 28000, f. 38; Oxinden Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 151 That October he described the Scots as being ‘as disobedient and insolent as ever’ before outlining the radical nature and implication of their demands.34Add. 27999, f. 322; Oxinden Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 154-5. In November he wrote that ‘great matters’ were preparing, and of his fears that ‘the king must lose his right’.35Add. 27999, f. 324; Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 155.

It was thus as a supporter of the crown that in the spring of 1640 Peyton sought election to Parliament at Sandwich. Stiff competition, including from three candidates with letters of recommendation from powerful peers, led to Peyton’s temporary withdrawal, but he re-entered the contest shortly before election day, upon a rumour that the clerk of the privy council, Edward Nicholas†, had also withdrawn.36E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 12; Add. 44846, f. 2. He and another local man, Edward Partheriche* attracted support from some local freeman, but because of a misapprehension they were not admitted to the freedom of the borough and thus disqualified from standing in the election. In the ensuing disorder and confusion, their supporters refused to participate in the poll, leaving other voters to choose Sir John Manwood* and Nathaniel Finch*, although the bulk of the freemen put their names to a paper which claimed that Peyton and Partheriche were elected.37E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, ff. 365v-67v. There was talk of a legal challenge to the result by the ‘commons’ of the town, but no petition was presented to Parliament.38Add. 33512, ff. 40-1.

Despite his disappointment, Peyton went to London to observe events at Westminster. He described to his friends the state opening of Parliament, and offered astute commentary on key speeches and debates in both Houses. As early as 20 April he reported rumours of an imminent dissolution, but added that ‘we hope not: however wonderful things are about to be brought forth’.39Add. 28000, f. 2; Oxinden Lttrs. 161-4. His sympathies remained squarely with Charles I. On 6 May he praised

the speech of a gracious and mild king, notwithstanding his provocations, who resolved not upon their disrespects a revenge upon his people presently, but as a true father he had overcome their natures and assimilated them to his own goodness.40Add. 28000, f. 14; Oxinden Lttrs. 172-3.

Proceedings in the Short Parliament had worsened, rather than improved the political situation. Whereas previously complaint to the monarch of ‘what grievances so ever the subjects thought themselves molested with’ could be ‘thought but the act of private men’, once it was expressed in Parliament it became ‘the act of the third estate’. This diminished the king’s honour ‘among neighbouring princes, who may privately rejoice to see distractions breed in so flourishing a kingdom’. For this reason ‘it had been better the Parliament had never been’. However, since it had taken place, and had not voted the requested subsidies, if

we will not give, the king must take, for if it be lawful for any man, to save his life, to take of any other’s bread or meat, then I think the king may use the goods of his subjects, nolentibus volentibus [with or without consent], as he may their particular and private persons, for the conservation of the more universal and general good.

Yet Peyton was apprehensive about the future; zealots had been ‘inspired’; soldiers assembled for campaigns in the north were ‘ready to execute mischief’; the Commons had become ‘wise’ from their corporate experience, ‘having received a diffusive knowledge from the dispersed house’.41Add. 28000, f. 14; Oxinden Lttrs. 172-3. On 14 May he reported on the threat posed to Lambeth Palace by the apprentices, who perceived Archbishop William Laud to be ‘the chief cause of breaking the Parliament’, and noted that Charles was reported to be ‘very pensive’. Amid fears of disorder and a general foreboding that ‘death’s harbinger, the sword, famine and other plagues that hang over us are ready to swallow up the wicked age’, Peyton expressed his personal fear in ‘this fiery declination of the world’.42Add. 28000, f. 16; Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 174.

In the autumn of 1640 Peyton again presented himself to the freemen of Sandwich as a prospective burgess, this time taking steps to avoid ‘a second foil’. This was the excuse he offered to Sir Edward Dering* and Sir John Culpeper* for not having attended the county election, having previously promised to support both men.43Add. 44846, ff. 2v, 4, 4v, 5; Stowe 743, f. 159. Peyton’s efforts were rewarded: he was made a freemen on the day of the election, and was returned alongside Partheriche, allegedly by ‘the meanest sort of people’.44E. Kent RO, Sa/AC7, f. 377; Sa/C1, p. 61.

Peyton made a minimal impression on the formal record of proceedings in the House. He was named to only one committee before the outbreak of civil war, although in November 1640 he may have been a member of a sub-committee of the committee for religion, in relation to the universities.45CJ ii. 686a; Diary of Henry Townshend ed. Willis Bund, i. 16. However, he engaged in parliamentary business in other ways. In January 1641 Edward Nicols, vicar of Northbourne, sought his support when charged in the Commons with the unacceptable views on the altar, images and the use of the cross for which he was eventually sequestered.46Procs. in Kent 1640, ed. Larking, 110-11; Walker Revised, 223. That month Peyton also corresponded with his borough over their desire to secure exemption from the subsidy.47Add. 44846, f. 6v; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 70. Furthermore, his regular attendance is revealed by the diary which he kept of the proceedings between 6 November 1640 and 17 March 1642. Mostly comprised of skilful summaries of the most important speeches, it was probably assembled days after the event from notes; the quality and regularity of entries declines significantly after January 1642. Peyton’s own views rarely surface, but marginal notes added in 1644 betray the opinions of a keen observer of parliamentary affairs.48D’Ewes (N), pp. xii-xiii; Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137. He also recorded his absences from the chamber, or his failure to take notes. On 16 November 1640, for example, ‘much private business of my own withdrew me from the attendance of the House’; illness kept him away between 29 December 1640 and 4 January 1641, while between 4 and 16 March 1641 he returned to Kent.49Procs. LP, i. 159; ii. 107, 784-5.

Peyton appears to have absented himself from Westminster for much of the trial of the lord deputy of Ireland, Thomas Wentworth†, 1st earl of Strafford.50Procs. LP, iii. 252, 469, 542, 608. Nevertheless, he kept a close eye on affairs, writing to friends about this and the London petition, commenting on 29 April that ‘all things are in an ill condition and nothing has yet succeeded according to the hope and expectation of men’.51HMC 10th Rep. VI, 85-6. Returning to the Commons on 6 May after a week in Kent, Peyton was confronted by the Protestation, which he took the following day.52Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, f. 117; CJ ii. 137a. He remained at Westminster into June, not least to help particular friends, and to serve his borough in their unsuccessful campaign to secure exemption from the subsidy bill.53Add. 28000, f. 110; Oxinden Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 199; Add. 44846, f. 5v; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 101-2. In July he and Partheriche sent to the borough parliamentary orders regarding the poll tax.54Add. 44846, f. 7v; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, p. 102. However, Peyton’s interest in parliamentary proceedings appears to have waned after the execution of Strafford, his diary recording numerous days of absence from, or apparent inattention in, the Commons.55Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, ff. 120, 122, 124, 125, 138, 144, 146.

Hot weather and the danger of plague prompted Peyton and his family to return to Kent on 2 August 1641, preempting the adoption the next day of a motion from Sir Edward Dering* to grant him leave of absence.56Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, f. 146; CJ ii. 233a; Harl. 479, f. 117. Warned by Partheriche of the plan to call the House, Peyton went back to Westminster on 17 August, but on finding only half of the members in attendance at the call on the following day, he promptly decamped to Kent.57Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, ff. 146-7. He resolved to resume his attendance at Westminster shortly after the end of the recess, writing on 29 October that he was going to the House ‘to put shoulder to help make some new laws for you, and other pretty alterations’; ‘we shall recreate ourselves a little in taking away bishops and the other pomposities of the clergy I think, and in disabling pluralities’.58Add. 44846, f. 7. However, although he arrived in London on 3 November, his diary reveals that he did not attend the house until the 16th, ‘by reason of many businesses diverting me’.59Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, f. 147.

The momentous debates which ensued appear not to have interested Peyton greatly. He described the debate on the Grand Remonstrance on 22 November as being tedious ‘beyond all example and precedent even till two o’clock next morning’; the proceedings relating to Geoffrey Palmer* on the 24th were also ‘tedious’.60Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, ff. 149-50. Peyton chose to observe the king’s entry into London on the 25th rather than attend the House, and noted the ‘great pomp and solemnity’ with which Charles processed to Guildhall for a dinner with the City fathers and was later carried home to Whitehall, writing that he was ‘drawn away with these curiosities’.61Univ. Minnesota Lib. MS 137, f. 150. Peyton’s prime concern in resuming his place in the House may have been to serve his borough: while advising the town clerk on the progress of matters of direct concern, he noted the House’s preoccupation with public rather than private affairs.62Add. 44846, ff. 8, 11; E. Kent RO, Sa/C1, pp. 129-30; Sa/C4.

In the wake of the attempted arrest of the Five Members, on 6 January 1642 Peyton left Westminster for Kent, but he returned on 14 January, and sat on two occasions in a committee at Grocers’ Hall (18-19 Jan.).63PJ i. 22, 105, 110. His sympathies lay with Charles, however: he found the king’s message which was read on 20 January ‘gracious’, and considered that the king sought ‘a fair composition of the present distractions’.64PJ i. 128. On 14 February he recorded that ‘this day the king sent a gracious message above all that he ever sent’.65PJ i. 381. In February and March Peyton’s diary became very thin, and he registered with increasing frequency that he attended sessions without taking notes; his last entry was on 24 March.66PJ i. 335, 394, 436, 492; PJ ii. 16, 59, 68, 73, 76, 83. On 4 April he obtained leave to go to Kent, where he was immediately active as a subsidy commissioner in seeking to resolve jurisdictional disputes regarding Canterbury Cathedral precincts.67PJ ii. 83; CJ ii. 509a; Add. 44846, f. 11v. He subsequently returned to the House, but was named on 22 July to a committee to go to Kent to prevent the spread of rumours against Parliament.68CJ ii. 686a. But although he was approved as a deputy lieutenant on 17 August, he was to demonstrate no zeal for the parliamentarian cause, while the king named him as a commissioner of array.69CJ ii. 724a. In mid-September, with his wife newly dead, Peyton explained his reluctance to engage in anything without an express order from Parliament, and spoke of ‘a great conflict in me between my passion and reason what to adhere unto’, although he acknowledged that ‘much might be urged from prudential results and considerations’.70Add. 44846, ff. 12, 12v, 14. Parliament regarded him as a royalist, however, and ordered him to be taken into custody on 12 November.71CJ ii. 845b.

On 25 January 1643 Peyton pleaded with the Kent committee for liberty, but remained defiant: he had ‘never yet so given myself over to the power of any adverse fortune, as to despair of having left so much comfort as Job himself had offered him’.72Add. 44846, f. 16. Having secured his freedom, in February he was able not just to go to London, but possibly also to return to Parliament.73Add. 44846, f. 16. He may have been the author of a letter of 9 February, signed ‘Theophilus Philo-Brittanicus’, which reported parliamentary and military news, including debates on the deputation from the City against peace led by the clergymen Thomas Case and Jeremiah Burroughes. Noting that the Commons prioritised hearing this over considering the Lords’ desire for a conference, Peyton observed, ‘you may judge by this what likelihood there is of another end save by the sword’.74HMC Portland, i. 94-5.

In early April 1643 Peyton’s failure to respond to a summons to attend the House more frequently resulted in another move to arrest him. His public explanation, supplied on 17 April, was that he was still struggling with ‘those scruples of conscience which I have made concerning those great affairs which had had among us so violent and public contestation’.75CJ iii. 31b; Add. 44846, f. 13; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 12-13. Anticipating arrest (eventually ordered on 11 May), Peyton turned for support to Robert Rich, 2nd earl of Warwick, and his ability to retain friends in both Westminster and Kent is evident from his addition on 18 May to the commissions for assessment and sequestrations.76CJ iii. 80a, 91a; Add. 44846, f. 17. A little over a month later, however, the Kent county committee explained to Speaker William Lenthall* why Peyton was himself liable to sequestration.77HMC Portland, i. 714. Peyton assured them that he was not guilty of ‘obstinacy and contempt’, that he was incapable ‘of giving attendance on those affairs I may seem to be commanded upon in the ordinance of both Houses’, and that Westminster was satisfied regarding his obedience, and had resolved not to ‘impose impossibilities upon me’.78Add. 44846, f. 18; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 18. But that the Kent committee was unconvinced appears from Peyton’s complaint in July that it had taken money and goods in his absence, something he considered ‘not within the cognizance of your jurisdiction’.79Add. 44846, ff. 18v, 20v; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed. Gardiner, 22. Despite further calls in July for him to attend the committee for absent Members, Peyton’s attendance failed to improve.80CJ iii. 162a. Although he was in London over the summer, he did not attend the House, and at the end of September the Commons ordered him to be sequestered and arrested.81Add. 44846, ff. 18, 20, 21v; CJ iii. 256a; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 23, 27.

From his prison – eventually in St James’s Palace – Peyton exhibited some resignation. The kingdom was ‘divided into two great parties, not fit to be judges in each other’s causes, the difference being heightened with so much animosity and bitterness above all counsel and moderation’, but he would submit to divine judgement ‘and if I have any other ends but the truth and testimony of a good conscience before me let me suffer accordingly’.82Add. 44846, f. 19v; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 29-30. Nevertheless, he warned those who pursued perceived malignants ‘with vigour unrequired … by the Parliament’ what would happen ‘if the face of things should change, as all have great fears they may, and in human probability some think they must’ and questioned the wisdom of replacing disarming by imprisonment, which ‘makes men’s wits and wishes more sharp and desperate than otherwise they would have been’.83Add. 44846, ff. 23-5. To his friends Peyton expressed bitterness – ‘what peace can we look for while such oppressors reign’ – and his letters demonstrate a mocking scepticism regarding parliamentarian news of military victories.84Add. 28000, f. 276; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 31; Add. 44846, f. 23v. Late in 1643 his aim was to secure bail, or licence to travel abroad: he was ‘resolved to give my obedience to you passively, since actively I cannot with a quiet soul’.85Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. 32-3.

After 5 February 1644, when he was disabled from sitting in the Commons, the loss of parliamentary privilege increased Peyton’s vulnerability.86CJ iii. 389b; Add. 44846, ff. 25v, 27r-v. In advance of a petition to Parliament for relief that June he assured the Kent committee that his actions had been ‘directed rather by error of mind, than of malice or evil affections’. While he admitted eagerness to ‘enquire after all things’, he denied allegations that he had circulated pamphlets against the Covenant before it was taken.87Add. 44846, f. 26; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 56. But his private correspondence was more forthright

though some pretend derivative power … many things are done, and much power is exercised over the persons and estates of many persons in [Kent] … which proceed of mere arbitrary command.88Add. 28000, f. 327; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 47-8.

In August 1644 the commissioners for compounding, having valued Peyton’s estate at £1,000 a year, proposed a fine of £2,000.89CCC 864; SP23/228, f. 82; SP23/173, pp. 164, 180. Peyton complained of the ‘evil will’ and unwarranted severity of some of the Kent committee, but although he challenged the valuation of his estate, he conceded that he was in no position to offer a more realistic estimate, and claimed that he would be ‘happy still if in the expiration of my fortune and family there appear anything of just honour and advantage to the public good’.90Add. 44846, ff. 29v, 30; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 70-72. The Commons admitted Peyton to compound on 23 October, although he continued to deny allegations of his disaffection, and to protest at his treatment.91CJ iii. 674a; CCC 864; Add. 44846, ff. 31, 31v. In March 1645 his fine was reduced to £1,000 and an ordinance was prepared for discharging his sequestration, although he sought a further reduction and more time to pay.92CJ iv. 72a, 169a; CCC 864; HMC 6th Rep. 64; LJ vii. 426; SP23/111, p. 875. After his release in late 1645 or early 1646 he spent much time dealing with the committee and endeavouring to rescue his financial position.93Add. 44846, ff. 32, 32v, 33, 34; Oxinden and Peyton Lettrs. ed Gardiner, 89. In May 1647 he complained that he would ‘never repair the breaches made in my fortunes by the evil of persons and times’, and he was forced to sell his share of the Irish adventure (£1,000) to John Dixwell*, brother of his former co-investor.94Add. 44846, ff. 36v, 37; Bottigheimer, English Money and Irish Land, 189.

In correspondence Peyton continued to reflect on the political situation through the lens of his bitter experience of a system exploited by his personal enemies. In July 1646 he noted the hardening of factional divisions at Westminster: ‘names are now changed … for all are now Presbyterian or Independent; and what the first exceed in number, the last make up in activity and design’. Regarding settlement, and the propositions sent by Parliament to Charles I, he reflected that ‘we have great assurance of a sudden peace, for the king is in no condition to deny’.95Add. 44846, f. 34. In July 1647 he complained to Sir Anthony Irby*, a distant kinsman, about the many ‘disobliging acts since these late troubles’ perpetrated to his detriment by the Kentish radical, Sir Michael Livesay*, who procured parliamentary orders by abusing Parliament and its committees.96Add. 44846, ff. 38, 39v. After the turbulent events of the summer of 1647 Peyton commented that

the affairs of our state here are wrapped up in so much mystery that I believe God only knows what will be the issue of them, and we that have lived any ways engaged in them do believe the traverses already made cannot be looked upon without great remark and observation of God’s particular judgement on the errors of some eminent actors.97Add. 44846, ff. 41.

As political tension mounted in the spring of 1648, Peyton emerged for the first time as a royalist activist. Apparently the ‘lieutenant general’ of the ‘engaged’ Kentish men, he delivered their letter to Parliament read in the Lords on 29 May, in which they declared their determination to continue in arms until they had received assurances that those who had exercised ‘arbitrary power’ over them would be removed.98CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 84, 86, 96-7; A Declaration of the Proceedings of Both Houses with Those in Kent (1648), 7-10, 12 (E.446.1); LJ x. 290; Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 263 (30 May-6 June 1648), 963 (E.446.11); Add. 44846, f. 44v. As forces under Sir Thomas Fairfax* were deployed in Kent, Peyton joined that part of the Kentish force which accompanied George Goring*, 1st earl of Norwich, into Essex, but he was apprehended near Bury St Edmunds on 9 June, and was sent prisoner to Windsor.99Sir Thomas Payton Lieutenant Generall for the King (1648), 2 (E.447.1); Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 264 (6-13 June 1648), 776 (E.447.10); HMC Portland, i. 458; CJ v. 592; CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 128. He remained in custody, but after several reversals, his petition for bail in order to compound for his delinquency, defeated in the Commons on 9 October by the Speaker’s casting vote, was granted for 14 days on the 10th.100CJ v. 668a; vi. 23b, 34a, 47a, 49a; HMC 7th Rep. 56; Add. 44846, f. 44v; CCC 864; SP23/111, p. 863. It seems that the composition process resulted in a fine of £900, that Peyton remained at liberty, and that he returned to Knowlton before mid-December.101CCC 459; Add. 44846, f. 46.

In the very early days of the commonwealth Peyton expressed his approval of a motion to review the actions of the county committee, especially with regard to men ‘partially dealt withal by the committee, among whom I am one’. He reprised his allegations against Sir Michael Livesay, whom he accused of ‘gratifying his own prejudices against any not in his favour’.102Add. 44846, f. 48. By late April 1651 Peyton was once again in prison, in Dover Castle, possibly for refusing to provide horses.103Add. 44846, f. 57v. On 1 May he was among those suspected of planning another Kentish insurrection who were ordered into the custody of the Fleet by the council of state, but having been examined by John Bradshawe* about correspondence with exiled royalists (16 May), he was ‘civilly released’, upon taking the Engagement and upon bond of £4,000.104CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 174, 193, 201, 203; Add. 44846, f. 56v; CCAM 1405. Although that October he was assessed at £400 as a delinquent, no further proceedings were taken against him, and he was free to travel between Kent and London.105CCAM 1405.

Evidently spurred on by a letter from the king in exile (July 1654), Peyton began to be mentioned in the papers of Sir Edward Hyde* as a leader of the ‘action’ party against the protectorate, but by March 1655 John Thurloe* had wind of this, and in May he was committed to the Tower.106CCSP ii. 383-4; iii. 19; TSP iii. 349-50, 428; iv. 132; Bodl. Rawl. A.27, p. 383. From there he appealed to Thomas Kelsey*, and to his distant kinswoman, the wife of Lord President Henry Lawrence I*, pleading both innocence and illness. Granted 36 days of liberty to take the waters at Tonbridge Wells (7 Aug.), he asked William Goffe* and John Barkstead* for such liberty to be made permanent, promising ‘as perfect obedience as in the closest restraint’.107Add. 44846, ff. 66r-v, 68. But he had to return to the Tower, from where he appealed again to Kelsey, as well as to Lord (Sir William) Strickland*. Peyton blamed the Kent committee for ‘an ill-name I never deserved’, and protested that in 1648 he had merely ‘endeavoured in the capacity of a private and peaceable person to do all the good offices I was able’.108LPL, MS 3273, f. 5; Add. 28003, ff. 317, 324, 339, 351, 354, 362, 368, 383, 407, 416; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 208, 210-11, 216-17, 219-20, 221; Add. 44846, f. 67v. He told Lord Lawrence he had never been in arms or within the king’s quarters, and claimed he had been made to suffer ‘to satisfy the exorbitant passions of some, whom God hath since removed, some by death, some by dishonor … the effects of whose power tended to have corrupted the temper of a very peaceable man’. His involvement with the 1648 rebels was ‘not at all under any notion of war, having then no command or office, nor so much as appearing in any military equipage’; indeed, he had ‘endeavoured to prevent that unhappy event’.109Add. 44846, f. 67.

Peyton’s request to Lawrence to be moved to Walmer Castle in Kent was approved by Oliver Cromwell* in late November 1655, but this decision was reversed in early 1656, upon mention of Peyton’s name in the king’s letters.110TSP iv. 220, 251; Add. 28003, ff. 332, 337; Add. 44846, f. 69v. Meanwhile Peyton challenged the valuation of his estate for decimation purposes (£532 a year in December 1655) and professing his innocence, refused to pay. Records show that he eventually advanced three instalments of £26.111Add. Ch. 66169; Add. 44846, f. 70v; SP28/159, unfol.

Peyton’s wife later claimed that her husband’s innocence was widely accepted, but that he was kept prisoner ‘to hinder him from what he might do, not to punish him for what he had’.112Add. 28004, f. 1. He was still involved in royalist plots, and in October 1656 was reported to have printed and dispersed a paper aimed at fomenting mutiny within the navy.113CCSP iii. 134, 192, 211. He had certainly advised that the king needed to be sure of considerable support before launching an invasion, since the people, however dissatisfied with the Cromwellian regime, were not willing to incur danger.114CCSP iii. 221-2. By early December Thurloe was apprised that Peyton had capitalised on his limited freedom to advance plots through personal lawsuits, and that certain papers had been discovered in his chamber.115TSP v. 690-2. Placed under heavy guard and examined by Thurloe, Peyton was reported to have been ‘very melancholy’. Royalists were confident that there was insufficient evidence for a capital charge, but lamented that he was no longer useful to the cause: ‘no-one was more able and willing’.116TSP v. 690, 691-2, 694, 710-11; CCSP iii. 221-2; Burton’s Diary, i. 355-6.

Peyton was transferred to Guernsey in February 1658 and to Windsor that December.117CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 523; 1658-9, pp. 302, 581; Add. 28003, ff. 398, 416, 419, 421, 424, 426, 434, 437, 439, 449, 451, 453, 462, 464, 468. Released on 10 March 1659, by mid-May he was reported to have been added to the ‘junto’ of leaders of the ‘great trust’, and to be confident of securing Sandwich.118CCSP iv. 137, 154, 159, 166, 178, 205, 222; HMC 10th Rep. VI, 206; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 3, 16, 18, 21, 24. By early June Peyton considered that Kent was well settled, and he joined several royalist peers in urging the king to arrive in person to head an uprising.119CCSP iv. 233, 235. In early July he attended meetings to set a date for a rising, and although apparently under government observation, he remained at liberty even after the rising of Sir George Booth*.120HMC 10th Rep. VI, 211; CCSP iv. 270, 297, 300; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 26. Peyton persisted in such meetings into early 1660, and in February he wrote to the king explaining, among other things, his daughter’s marriage into the family of the regicide John Dixwell*, the significance of the readmission to Parliament of the Members excluded at Pride’s Purge, his belief that the Presbyterians sought to restore the monarchy, and his conviction that the most potent means of uniting all interests was through insistence on the king’s Protestantism.121CCSP iv. 519, 535, 549, 560, 568-9; Mordaunt Letter-Bk. 59, 142, 162.

Peyton did not sit in the Convention of 1660, but was apparently appointed in May to command Dover Castle until the king’s arrival.122Add. 28004, f. 123; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. ed Gardiner, 232. He was returned unanimously and unopposed to the Cavalier Parliament as a knight of the shire, having also been offered a place at Sandwich.123E. Kent RO, Sa/ZB2/132-3; HMC Finch, i. 120; Mercurius Publicus no. 11 (14-21 Mar. 1661), 176 (E.194.5); HP Commons 1660-1690. Thereafter, he was active in purging old parliamentarians from local corporations, and in seizing arms from the disaffected.124Add. 29623, ff. 182, 183; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 538. He also had a measure of revenge on Sir Michael Livesay, being granted the rectory of Eastchurch, Sheppey, which had once belonged to the regicide.125CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 214; 1661-2, p. 52; 1664-5, p. 495; Al. Cant.

During the 1660s he also provided the government with intelligence, not least regarding suspected republican plots.126HMC Finch, i. 207, 225; CSP Dom. 1665-6, pp. 239-40; Add. 21947, f. 191. His efforts for the royalist cause were rewarded by the grant to himself and Mordaunt of the farm of the duty on coal, which they had petitioned for as early as February 1660.127Eg. 2551, f. 15; CSP Dom. 1664-5, p. 230; CCSP iv. 571. Peyton began disposing of his estate in 1679, but remained active in local affairs until at least 1681.128Add. Ch. 66149; CSP Dom. 1680-1, p. 200. He received newsletters from London until shortly before he died, leaving no male heirs, in February 1684; he was buried in Westminster Abbey.129Add. 40717, fos. 206-12; Oxinden and Peyton Lttrs. 342.