Peters had uniformly, since he had been in the Low Countries, postured as an Independent hot and strong. Hitherto the Presbyterians had the prevailing party in Parliament, and among the discontents in the country, but now the Independents began to assert themselves and assume predominance. Their numbers were greatly increased by the return of the more fiery spirits who had, like Peters, abandoned England during the supremacy of Laud. Many of these, coming back from New England, had carried the doctrines of Puritanism to the very verge of extravagance, and not the least fiery and extravagant of these was Hugh Peters. These men rejected all ecclesiastical establishments, would admit of no spiritual authority in one man above another, and allowed of no interposition of the magistrate in religious matters. Each congregation, voluntarily united, was an integral and independent church, to exercise its own jurisdiction. The political system of the Independents was one of pure republicanism. They aspired to a total abolition of monarchy, even of the aristocracy, and projected a commonwealth in which all men should be equal. Sir Harry Vane, Oliver Cromwell, Nathaniel Fiennes, and Oliver St. John, the Solicitor-General, were regarded as their leaders, and Hugh Peters as their prophet. Peters brought the news to Parliament of the capture of Winchester Castle, for which service he was paid £50. When Dartmouth was taken, he hastened thence to London, laden with crucifixes, vestments, papers, and sundry church ornaments, of which he had despoiled the beautiful church of S. Saviour's; and received in recompense from the Parliament an estate of which the House had deprived Lord Craven. When the city of Worcester was besieged in the year 1646 by the Parliamentary forces, the governor consented to surrender on condition that passes were given to the soldiers and to the principal inhabitants. Peters negotiated the surrender. A Mr. Habingdon, who wrote an account of the siege at the time, and who died in the ensuing year, relates that on the 23rd July, 1646, many gentlemen went to six o'clock prayers at the cathedral to take the last sad farewell of the church services, the organs having been removed three days before, and that at ten o'clock in the morning the several regiments marched forth, and all the gentlemen with the baggage; and that at one o'clock Peters brought them their passes, and importuned every one individually to pass his word not again to bear arms against the Parliament. Hugh Peters was now such a favourite with the Parliament that they made an order for £100 a year to himself and his heirs for ever; later an additional £200 per annum was voted to him, and all this in addition to his pay as preacher, and to sundry grants as bearer of news from the army. He was also accorded Archbishop Laud's library. Nevertheless, as he lamented in his _Legacy of a Dying Father_, he found it impossible to keep out of debt.