In 1603 he was accused, without, apparently, any serious result, of 'uttering in a sermon seditious and railing words against the king, and more especially against his counsellors, the bishops and judges' (Cal.
James Montagu, who in 1608 became his diocesan, found it necessary to mark his resentment of Peacham's plainness of speech, and reprimanded him in his consistory court.
Peacham retaliated by writing a book against that court for private circulation in manuscript, and either there or in conversation he brought grave charges against his bishop's character.
Before the parliament of 1614 was dissolved he came to London, apparently to arrange for the presentation of a petition against one Dr. James and other officials of the ecclesiastical courts in the diocese of Bath and Wells.
While his house was being searched for his writings against Montagu, the officers discovered some carefully prepared notes of a sermon in which the king and the government were denounced with reckless vehemence.
Francis Bacon, who was attorney-general, laid it down as a legal maxim that 'in the highest cases of treason torture is used for discovery and not for evidence' (Spedding, iii.
Accordingly the king issued a warrant on 18 January 1614-15 to two privy councillors (Ralph Winwood and Sir Julius Cæsar), the attorney-general Bacon, Serjeant Henry Montagu, brother of the bishop of Bath and Wells, and the officers of the Tower to 'put Peacham to the manacles as in your discretion you shall see occasion if you find him obstinate and perverse, and not otherwise willing or ready to tell the truth.'
The council, to satisfy the king's wishes, determined to bring the prisoner to trial on a charge of high treason; but doubt was entertained whether the offence was legally entitled to that description.
His anticipations were realised except in the case of Coke, who protested against 'such particular and auricular taking of opinions,' and further asserted that unless a written attack on the king 'disabled his title' no charge of treason could be based upon it.
They were by a namesake, 'a divine, a scholar, and a traveller,' who dwelt 'sometimes at Hounslow as a minister,' who had visited Hinton St. George, and had left some manuscripts in the rectory study.
On 27 March 1616 Chamberlain wrote to Carleton: 'Peacham, the condemned minister, is dead in the jail at Taunton, where, they say, he left behind him a most wicked and desperate writing, worse than that he was convicted for.'
Peacham's character demands no admiration, and his persecution would not have given him posthumous fame had not James I and Bacon by their zealous efforts to obtain his conviction raised legal controversies of high constitutional importance.