Father, a Jesuit, was confessor and counsellor to James II, king of England. This prince dismissed him in 1688, because he was considered as the author of those troubles in which the kingdom was then involved. "He was (says Bishop Burnet) the most violent of the king's advisers, and the person most listened to. Though he had the honour of being nobly descended, he was a man of no extensive erudition, and was eminent only for his bigotry and forwardness." Though Burnet is not always to be believed, yet certain it is, from the testimony of other historians, that Father Peters was by no means a person properly qualified to direct King James in the critical situation in which he then stood.