1607. In 1613 he was promised the post of governor of Brill in Holland (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611–18, p. 212). In 1618 he was given the command, with Sir Henry Mainwaring, of a fleet enlisted in the service of the Venetian republic. He died ‘beyond seas’ after 1622. His will, dated 11 April 1618, was proved on 20 Feb. 1623–1624. He married at Long Ditton, Surrey, on 22 Sept. 1607, Mary, widow of Andrew (d. 1601), son of Sir Richard Rogers of Brianstone, Dorset; she was fourth daughter of Edward Seymour, first duke of Somerset, the protector, by his second wife. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on 18 Jan. 1619–20.
Another Henry Peyton, born on 4 Aug. 1604, was third son of Sir John Peyton of Doddington, and grandson of Sir John Peyton [q. v.] He was educated at Merchant Taylors' school, was a royalist, and, having forgotten his own password, was killed by his own soldiers at Banbury during the civil wars.
[Brown's Genesis of the United States; Chester's Westminster Abbey Registers.]
PEYTON, Sir JOHN (1544–1630), governor of Jersey, was the second son of John Peyton of Knowlton in Kent (d. 26 Oct. 1558), by Dorothy, daughter of Sir John Tyndale, K.B. Before 1564 he went to Ireland to serve under his father's friend and neighbour, Sir Henry Sidney [q. v.] of Penshurst. In 1568 he was again in Ireland with Sidney, then lord deputy, and became a member of his household and the occasional bearer of his despatches to England. In 1585 he served with the expedition to the Netherlands under the Earl of Leicester. In December, Peyton was garrisoned in the fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom, and did good service during the following year, in spite of great difficulties through want of supplies (Peyton to Leicester, 11 Oct. 1586; Cotton MS. Galba, C. X. f. 59). In 1586 he received the honour of knighthood. In July 1588 he was appointed colonel in the forces levied for the defence of the queen's person in the threatened attack of the Spanish armada.
In 1593 he was granted the receivership of the counties of Norfolk and Huntingdon, and of the city of Norwich. In June 1597 he was appointed lieutenant of the Tower of London. When Raleigh was under his care in 1603, the prisoner's ‘strange and dejected mind’ gave Peyton much trouble; Raleigh used to send for him five or six times a day in his passions of grief (Addit. MS. 6177, ff. 127, 128).
Early in March 1603, when the queen was lying dangerously ill and the question of the succession was engaging general attention, Peyton, as lieutenant of the Tower, received communications from King James of Scotland. But he avoided all political intrigues (Correspondence of James VI, p. liii). On the death of the queen on 23 March, and the proclamation of King James by the council, Peyton at once despatched his son to Edinburgh to assure the king of his loyalty. He was not, however, sworn a member of the privy council, and on 30 July was removed from the lieutenancy of the Tower, and appointed, in accordance apparently with his own wish, to the less conspicuous post of governor of Jersey (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–10, pp. 25–6; Addit. MS. 6177, f. 128). He took the usual oath before the royal court of Jersey on 10 Sept. 1603.
In the following month some old conversation he had had about the succession was raked up at court, and his loyalty was called in question. Cecil informed him of his danger; Peyton at once furnished a defence, dated 10 Oct. 1603, enclosing a full narrative of the conversation, and the matter dropped (cf. Waters, Chesters of Chicheley, i. 294–7). In January 1603–4 he is stated to have ‘been disgraced for entertaining intelligence between Cobham and Raleigh,’ with whom his son was very intimate (Edwards, Life of Raleigh, i. 373).
Peyton's tenure of the governorship of Jersey was far from peaceful. The island at the time of his appointment was strictly presbyterian. But Peyton, as an ardent episcopalian, endeavoured to alter the form of the church government (Heylyn, Aerius Redivivus, p. 396). Complaints were made by both parties to the king in council, and all were summoned to London in June 1623. The presbyterians were divided among themselves, and Peyton triumphed. Canons establishing episcopalian government were approved on 30 June 1623, and David Bandinel [q. v.] was appointed dean.
Disputes in civil matters also occupied the governor's attention. With the leader of the popular party, Sir Philip de Carteret (1584–1643) [q. v.], and with John Herault [q. v.], bailiff of Jersey, he was involved in constant strife. Peyton claimed the right of appointment to civil offices in the islands, and in 1617 the council declared that the charge of the military forces alone rested in the governor. The bailiff was entitled to control the judiciary and civil service. In 1621 Peyton, however, succeeded in getting Herault suspended from office and imprisoned in England. In 1624, when the case against Herault was heard in London, he was cleared of blame, and Peyton was
