Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Baronet

Who was Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Baronet?

Sir John Fenwick, 3rd Baronet was an English Jacobite conspirator, who succeeded to the Baronetcy of Fenwick on the death of his father in 1676.

He was the eldest son of Sir William Fenwick, or Fenwicke, a member of an old Northumberland family. He entered the army, becoming major-general in 1688, but before this date he had been returned in succession to his father as one of the Members of Parliament for Northumberland, which county he represented from 1677 to 1687. He was a strong partisan of King James II, and in 1685 was one of the principal supporters of the act of attainder against the Duke of Monmouth; but he remained in England when William III ascended the throne in the Revolution of 1688.

He had financial problems and in 1688 he sold the rump of the family estates and Wallington Hall to Sir William Blackett for £4000 and an annuity of £2000 a year.

He began to plot against the new King William, for which he underwent a short imprisonment in 1689. Renewing his plots on his release, he publicly insulted Queen Mary in 1691, and it is practically certain that he was implicated in the schemes for assassinating William which came to light in 1695 and 1696. After the seizure of his fellow-conspirators, Robert Charnock and others, he remained in hiding until the imprudent conduct of his friends in attempting to induce one of the witnesses against him to leave the country led to his arrest in June in 1696.