in which the rents of the Chicksands estate were assigned away from their rightful owner to one Mr. John Blackstone, M.P.  Sir Peter was in his stronghold on a rock in the sea; he was for the King.  The inhabitants of the island, more comfortably situated, were a united party for the Parliament.  Thus they remained for three years; the King writing to Sir Peter to reduce the inhabitants to a state of reason; the Parliament sending instructions to the jurats of Guernsey to seize the person of Sir Peter; and the Earl of Warwick, prompted, we should suppose, by Sir John Danvers, offering terms to Sir Peter which he indignantly rejected.  Meanwhile Lady Osborne—­Dorothy with her, in all probability—­was doing her best to victual the castle from the mainland, she living at St. Malo during the siege.  At length, her money all spent, her health broken down, she returned to England, and was lost to sight.  Sir Peter himself heard nothing of her, and her sons in England, who were doing all they could for their father among the King’s friends, did not know of her whereabouts.

In 1646 he resigned his command.  He was weary and heavy laden with unjust burdens heaped on him by those for whom and with whom he was fighting; he was worn out by the siege; by the characteristic treachery of the King, who, being unable to assist him, could not refrain from sending lying promises instead; and by the malice of his neighbour, George Carteret, Governor of Jersey, who himself made free with the Guernsey supplies, while writing home to the King that Sir Peter has betrayed his trust.  Betrayed his trust, indeed, when he and his garrison are reduced to “one biscuit a day and a little porrage for supper,” together with limpets and herbs in the best mess they can make; nay, more, when they have pulled up their floors for firewood, and are dying of hunger and want in the stone shell of Castle Cornet for the love of their King.  However, circumstances and Sir George Carteret were too much for him, and, at the request of Prince Charles, he resigned his command to Sir Baldwin Wake in May 1646, remaining three years after this date at St. Malo, where he did what he was able to supply the wants of the castle.  Sir Baldwin surrendered the castle to Blake in 1650.  It was the last fortress to surrender.

In 1649 Sir Peter, finding the promises of reward made by the Prince to be as sincere as those of his father, returned to England, and probably through the intervention of his father-in-law, who was a strict Parliament man, his house and a portion of his estates at Chicksands were restored to him.  To these he retired, disappointed in spirit, feeble in health, soon to be bereft of the company of his wife, who died towards the end of 1650, and, but for the constant ministering of his daughter Dorothy, living lonely and forgotten, to see the cause for which he had fought discredited and dead.  He died in March 1654, after a long, weary illness.  The parish register of Campton describes him as “a friend to the poor, a lover of learning, a maintainer of divine exercises.”  There is still an inscription to his memory on a marble monument on the north side of the chancel in Campton church.