A Gentleman called Peter Mews, facing right in black cloak and white shirt, wearing a black skull cap; sky background

Peter Mews (1619-1706) was educated at St. John's College, Oxford. He fought for the King in the Civil War and during the Interregnum acted as a Royalist agent. At the restoration he became a Royal chaplain and in 1667 President of St. John's. Appointed Bishop of Winchester in 1684, the following year he was one of the first to offer energetic resistance to Monmouth's rebellion: afterwards he tried to intercede for suspended rebels who were the victims of Jeffreys on the Bloody Assize. His fervent royalism did not prevent him resisting King James II's new appointments on Oxford and it was only his illness that stopped him protesting with the Seven Bishops against the reading of the Declaration of Indulgence.