[Acta Sanctorum, 4 June; Cambro-British Saints; Rees's Welsh Saints; Stanton's Menology of England and Wales, 1887; Boase in Dict. of Christian Biography.]
PEEBLES or PEBLIS, DAVID (d. 1579), musician, was one of the canons of St. Andrews before the Reformation. In 1530 he set ‘Si quis diliget me’ as a motet for five voices, and presented it to James V. Thomas Wood, who in 1566 (and again in 1592) copied out the famous St. Andrews harmonised psalter, recorded that the tunes were ‘Set in iiii partes be a Notable cunning man, David Peables i. s., Noted and Wretin.’ The words ‘Noted and Wretin’ suggest that Peebles had also versified the psalter. Some of the other pieces which Wood included in his collection are also by Peebles. David Laing, who wrote an admirable account of Wood's part-books, could not give a complete example, as the contratenor volume was then missing from both of Wood's copies; all the treble and bass volumes, and one of the tenors, are at Edinburgh, and a supplementary volume is at Dublin. One of the missing contratenors, bound with a second copy of the supplement, has since been acquired by the British Museum (Addit. MS. 33933); it is, unfortunately, defective, but most of the psalter can now be completed by its help, and the result proves Peebles to have possessed great skill in pure diatonic harmony. He died in December 1579. During the short-lived episcopalian establishment set up by Charles I, Edward Miller, canon of Holyrood, published in 1635 a harmonised psalter, declaring that the settings were by ‘the primest musicians that ever this kingdome had, as John Deane Angus, Blackhall, Smith, Peebles, Sharp, Black, Buchan, and others, famous for their skill in this kind.’
[David Laing's Account of the St. Andrews Psalter of 1566, Edinburgh, 1871; Addit. MS. 33933; Grove's Dict. of Music and Musicians, iii. 441.]
PEECKE, RICHARD, of Tavistock (fl. 1626), traveller. [See Pike.]
PEEL, JOHN (1776–1854), Cumberland huntsman, came of an old yeoman or ‘statesman’ family of Caldbeck in Cumberland, where he was born on 13 Nov. 1776. As a youth he eloped with Miss White of Uldale to Gretna. It was a happy union. Of their thirteen children, only one died young. Peel's love of hunting was remarkable, even among a race keenly attached to field sports. For fifty-five years he maintained, at his sole expense, a pack, usually of twelve couples, of hounds, and generally kept two horses. He had a faultless knowledge of the country and of hunting, and was long aided by his eldest son, ‘Young John.’ The worldwide reputation he has won is attributable to the song celebrating his prowess as a hunter by his friend John Woodcock Graves. This was written under the following circumstances. Peel and Graves were planning a hunting expedition one evening in the parlour of the inn at Caldbeck when a casual question from Graves's daughter as to the words sung to an old Cumberland rant (tune), ‘Bonnie Annie,’ caused Graves to write impromptu ‘D'ye ken John Peel,’ the five verses of which he sang to the ancient air. Graves jokingly prophesied that Peel would ‘be sung when we've both run to earth.’ Few songs of modern date have so firmly established themselves in popular estimation. Late in life Peel's neighbours and friends, including Sir Wilfrid Lawson and George Moore the philanthropist, presented him with a sum of money in acknowledgment of his long services. Besides his patrimonial estate at Caldbeck, Peel acquired, through his wife, a property at Ruthwaite, on which his last years were spent. Here he died on 13 Nov. 1854. He was buried, and a headstone erected over his grave, ornamented with emblems of the chase, in the churchyard at Caldbeck. There is a good portrait of him in the possession of his descendants. Graves, who was born in a house next to the Market Hall in the High Street of Wigton in Cumberland, on 9 Feb. 1795, emigrated to Tasmania in 1833, settling in Hobart Town, where he died on 17 Aug. 1886, leaving a large family. He published ‘Songs and Ballads of Cumberland,’ and a ‘Monody on John Peel.’
[West Cumberland Times, 9 Oct. 1886, and 2 Oct. 1886; Ferguson's Cumberland Fox Hounds; Smiles's George Moore, 1879, p. 26; Dixon's Saddle and Sirloin, p. 109.]
PEEL, JONATHAN (1799–1879), politician and patron of the turf, fifth son of Sir Robert Peel [q. v.], cotton manufacturer, and brother of Sir Robert Peel [q. v.], the statesman, was born at Chamber Hall, near Bury, Lancashire, on 12 Oct. 1799. He was sent to Rugby in 1811, and on 15 June 1815, three days before the battle of Waterloo, received a commission as second lieutenant in the rifle brigade. The peace that followed prevented him from seeing service, and his subsequent steps were obtained by purchase. From 18 Feb. 1819 to 13 Dec. 1821 he served as a lieutenant in the 71st highlanders, and from 7 Nov. 1822 to 19 May 1825 as a lieutenant in the grenadier guards. He was a major of the 69th foot from 3 Oct. 1826 to 7 June 1827, and lieutenant-colonel of the
