John Fenwick

Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Baronet (* around 1645 ; † January 28, 1697 in London ) was an English Jacobite conspirator.

He came from a landowning family in Northumberland and inherited in 1676 on the death of his father Sir William Fenwick, 2nd Baronet, whose title of nobility a Baronet , of Fenwick in the County of Northumberland. He chose the military career and rose to major general in 1688 . In 1676 he commanded the siege of Maastricht under Wilhelm III. from Orange an English regiment . From 1677 to 1687 he was a member of the House of Commons for the Northumberland constituency . He was a partisan of Jacob II , but stayed in the country after William of Orange ascended the throne in 1688. He was involved in conspiracy plans against the new king and therefore briefly in prison in 1689. His house in London ( Wallington ) was a meeting place for the Jacobites, who planned a landing and invasion of England from Newcastle-upon-Tyne in the north-east of the country, which French and Scottish invasion forces would then join. After plans to assassinate his co-conspirators were discovered in 1695/96, he initially went into hiding, but was then arrested in June 1696 when his friends improperly tried to intimidate a witness. His friends were then able to eliminate one of the two witnesses against him, but a new law still allowed him to be charged with high treason, and on January 28, 1697, he was beheaded.

He and his wife Mary († 1708), the daughter of Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Carlisle , had three sons and a daughter, all of whom died young. They are buried with him in St. Martin-in-the-Fields . His title of nobility was stripped from him as part of his conviction, his property was confiscated by the crown and auctioned off. One of his horses remained in the possession of the king, and ironically William of Orange died as a result of falling from this horse (“White Sorrell”), allegedly when it stumbled over a molehill. A secret toast of the Jacobites was therefore “The little gentleman in black velvet” (The little gentleman in black velvet).

literature

• An Act to attaint Sir John Fenwick Bt of High Treason. [Ch IV. Rot. Parl. 8 & 9 Gul.III.p. 1.nu.4.] 'In: John Raithby (Ed.): Statutes of the Realm. Volume 7: 1695-1701 (1820), p. 165. ( Online ) on british-history.ac.uk (English)

Web links

• Northumbrian Jacobites (English)
• Leigh Rayment, The Baronetage of England etc.
• Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Bt. On thepeerage.com