Fenwick 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 £4,000 and an annuity of £2,000 a year. The annuity was to be paid for his lifetime and that of his wife, Mary. Blackett was happy with the deal as he discovered lead on the land and he became rich. Fenwick began to plot against the new King William, for which he underwent a short imprisonment in 1689 from May to October. After a long and acrimonious discussion the bill passed through both Houses of Parliament (Act
8 & 9 Will. 3. c. 4), finding Fenwick guilty of high treason, punishable by death. His wife, Mary, persevered in her attempts to save his life, but her efforts were fruitless, and Fenwick was beheaded in London on 28 January 1697, with the same formalities as were usually observed at the execution of a
peer.
Macaulay wrote that of all the Jacobites, the most desperate characters not excepted, he (Fenwick) was the only one for whom William felt an intense personal aversion. Fenwick's hatred of the king is said to date from the time when he was serving in Holland, and was reprimanded by William, then Prince of Orange. A horse,
White Sorrel, owned by Fenwick was among items of his estate confiscated by the Crown on his attainder and a fall from that horse was partly responsible for William's death. The horse purportedly stumbled when it stepped on a molehill. In recognition of this, the Jacobites' secret toast was to
"The little Gentleman in Black Velvet." He is also commemorated in the folk tune ''Sir John Fenwick's The Flower Among Them All''. His wife had a memorial created for him in York Minster and she was buried there after she died on 27 October 1708. == Notes ==