FENWICK, Sir John, 1st bt. (c.1580-c.1658), of Fenwick, Stamfordham, and Wallington, Hartburn, Northumb.

Fenwick belonged to the main branch of an ancient and extensive Northumberland family, the Fenwicks of Fenwick Tower. The family had settled in the county by the early thirteenth century, and by the mid-sixteenth century had established their principal residence at Wallington, about ten miles west of Morpeth.56Hist. Northumb. xii. 351, 352-3. Little is known about Fenwick’s upbringing, although what he lacked by way of a gentleman’s education he apparently made up for in guile and business acumen. As one of Northumberland’s greatest landowners, he was regularly appointed to commissions for governing the Borders.57CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 440; 1611-18, p. 55; 1635, p. 510; Watts, Northumb. 194. However, according to the Scots he was more concerned with his own affairs than maintaining order in the region. William Morton, the archdeacon (and future bishop) of Durham, was blunter still, accusing Fenwick and several of fellow English commissioners of supporting the ‘great thieves’ in Northumberland and of shielding each other from justice.58CSP Dom. 1611-18, p. 465; Watts, Northumb. 182; HP Commons 1604-1629. Fenwick denied these accusations, but it is revealing that he was granted a royal pardon in 1626 for his contravention of several (unnamed) statutes.59SP14/71, ff. 39r-v; Northumb. RO, ZWN B2/10. He was at least considered a sound Protestant, for the godly minister Peter Smart and his friends alleged about 1630 that the Arminian cleric John Cosin and his clerical confederates had ‘wrongfully’ taken from

that worshipful, religious and virtuous knight Sir John Fenwick the lease of Biwell-Peter [the Northumberland parish of Bywell St Peter], which came to him lawfully by his kinsman the right honourable earl of Bedford [Francis Russell†, 4th earl of Bedford]... and will not suffer him to have it again unless he will pay the unreasonable fine of £2,000.60Cosin Corresp. ed. G. Ornsby (Surt. Soc. lii), 167.

How Fenwick was related to Bedford is not clear. Fenwick’s connections among the early-Stuart godly extended to his kinsman George Fenwick* and to the future parliamentarian grandees Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, and Sir William Constable*.61Yorks. Stuart Fines ed. W. Brigg (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. lviii), 77; Coventry Docquets, 536, 606, 611.

Fenwick was returned as a knight of the shire for Northumberland to the 1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628 Parliaments, but made very little impact on proceedings in the House.62HP Commons 1604-1629. Having fallen from royal favour in the early years of Charles I’s reign, he had evidently regained the crown’s confidence by May 1628, when he was created a baronet free of charge.63CSP Dom. 1628-9, p. 137; HP Commons 1604-1629. By the early 1630s, he was on friendly terms with Thomas Viscount Wentworth (Sir Thomas Wentworth†, the future earl of Strafford), the lord president of the council of the north. Fenwick was a correspondent of Wentworth’s and was among the circle of northern gentlemen who dined with the lord president at York at meetings of the commissioners for recusants and distraint of knighthood.64Sheffield Archives, WWM/Str P12/137; Strafforde Letters, ii. 143. It was possibly Fenwick who introduced the Northumberland lawyer (Sir) Thomas Widdrington* to Wentworth’s circle. He was certainly instrumental in securing Widdrington’s appointment as recorder of Berwick-upon-Tweed in 1632.65Infra, ‘Sir Thomas Widdrington’. He was also on close terms with another of Widdrington’s patrons, Algernon Percy†, 4th earl of Northumberland, who was to become one of Wentworth’s allies at court. Fenwick’s passion was horse-breeding, for which he was famed across the north, and he regularly presented the earl with gifts of horses.66Alnwick, U.I.5, Accts. of Mr Payler, 1634, 1636, 1638; Accts. of Hugh Potter, 1635; U.I.6, Accts. of Charles Kirk, 1647; HMC 10th Rep. iv. 108-9, 110-11; C.H. Firth, ‘Two accts. of the battle of Marston Moor’, EHR v. 352. In the mid-1640s, the earl would refer to Fenwick as ‘my old and true friend’.67Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 19 May 1646. Their relationship had a formal side too, with Fenwick acting as receiver of the earl’s Northumberland rents, farmer of some of his demesne lands in the barony of Alnwick, and constable and lieutenant respectively of the earl’s castles at Alnwick and Tynemouth.68Alnwick, X.II.6, box 23B, bdle. v: Melton to Potter, 8 Feb. 1639; Estate Accts. of the Earls of Northumb. ed. M.E. James (Surt. Soc. clxiii), 199, 237.

Fenwick evidently shared the anti-Scottish sentiments of Wentworth and his circle and played a leading role in mobilising the Northumberland trained bands and the earl of Northumberland’s tenantry during the first bishops’ war.69Alnwick, X.II.6, box 23B, bdle. v: Melton to Potter, 8 Feb. 1639; CSP Dom. 1638-9, pp. 310, 353, 437. In March 1640, during preparations for the second bishops’ war, the earl of Northumberland appointed Fenwick muster-master of the king’s army.70CSP Dom. 1639-40, pp. 312, 529. His reputation and influence thus augmented, Fenwick was returned again as knight of the shire for Northumberland in the elections to the Short Parliament in the spring of 1640.71Supra, ‘Northumberland’. Although he took his seat in the Commons – presenting excuses to the House for the absence of the earl of Northumberland’s northern steward Hugh Potter* – he received no committee appointments in this Parliament and made no recorded contribution to debate.72Alnwick, Y.III.2(4)8: Fenwick to Potter, 14 Apr. 1640.

In the elections to the Long Parliament that autumn, Fenwick’s place as knight of the shire was taken by the earl of Northumberland’s younger brother Henry Percy. It is possible that the king’s defeat in the second bishops’ war, and Fenwick’s withdrawal to York after the Scots had occupied Northumberland in August 1640, had combined to undermine his electoral interest.73CSP Dom. 1640-1, pp. 27-8. But perhaps a more likely explanation is simply that he had stood aside in favour of Percy. To compensate Fenwick for the loss of his seat, the earl of Northumberland recommended him to the voters of the newly re-enfranchised Cumberland borough of Cockermouth, where the earl was the principal electoral patron. The election took place at some point during the first half of 1641 and saw the return of Sir John Hippisley, who had served as a gentleman of the horse to the earl’s father, and Fenwick.74Supra, ‘Cockermouth’; CJ ii. 245a. Fenwick’s first parliamentary appointment was on 30 August 1641, when he was named as a commissioner for disarming recusants in Northumberland.75LJ iv. 385b. However, there is no indication that he attended the House before 1642.

Fenwick regained his place as a knight of the shire in the Northumberland by-election on 6 January 1642 to replace Henry Percy, who had been disabled from sitting for complicity in the king’s army plots.76Supra, ‘Northumberland’. Fenwick first entered the House on 2 February and three days later (5 Feb.) declared his intention to sit for the county seat rather than for Cockermouth.77PJ i. 259; CJ ii. 414b. His political career during 1642-3 has an ambiguous aspect that is consistent with the lukewarm commitment to the parliamentary cause of the earl of Northumberland and several of his associates and clients at Westminster. Fenwick was appointed to four committees in the spring of 1642, including those for securing papists and to consider the grievances of Northumberland, to which he was named second after Widdrington.78CJ ii. 497a, 512b, 523b, 591b. In mid-June, he pledged to bring in two horses upon the propositions for maintaining the earl of Essex’s parliamentarian army.79PJ iii. 273. Yet his loyalty to Parliament was considered sufficiently doubtful by the king’s advisers at York to prompt his appointment to the Northumberland commission of array on 18 June 1642.80Northants. RO, FH133. The Commons evidently did not share these suspicions, however, for ten days later (28 June) he and his son, the MP for Morpeth John Fenwick, were granted leave of absence upon the service of the House.81CJ ii. 643b. Moreover, in September and again in November, the House recommended Fenwick to Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex as a fit recipient of commissions for raising forces in Northumberland.82CJ ii. 757a, 853b. But Fenwick was so far from serving Parliament’s interests in the region that by April 1643 he and Hugh Potter were collaborating with the royalists to protect the earl of Northumberland’s northern estates.83Alnwick, P.I.O(o): Potter to Northumberland, 29 Apr. 1643. The following month, Parliament named Fenwick to the commission for conserving the peace between England and Scotland, although there is not the slightest indication that he approved of closer links between the two kingdoms – indeed, quite the reverse.84LJ vi. 55b.

Any doubts that Fenwick may have had about siding with the king’s party would probably have been dispelled by Parliament’s military alliance with the Scottish Covenanters, whose army reportedly expropriated £15,000 worth of horse from his stables after invading Northumberland early in 1644.85HMC 10th Rep. iv. 111. His son John evidently shared his hostility towards the Scots and was to fight and die in the royalists’ vain attempt to preserve the north from another Scottish occupation.86Supra, ‘John Fenwick’. It was opposition to Parliament’s Scottish alliance that very nearly caused the earl of Northumberland to defect to the king in the summer of 1643.

Fenwick was disabled by the Commons on 22 January 1644 for ‘deserting the service of the House and being in the king’s quarters and adhering to that party’.87CJ iii. 474a. What seems to have alerted the House to his disloyalty was the Oxford Parliament’s letter to the earl of Essex in January in which Fenwick was listed among those MPs whose duties in the king’s service elsewhere had prevented them from attending its proceedings.88Rushworth, Hist. Collns. v. 575. The report, a few weeks later, that Fenwick had come into the Scots’ quarters in Northumberland and taken the Covenant was probably false.89The Kingdomes Weekly Intelligencer no. 43 (7-14 Feb. 1644), 333 (E.33.6). Nevertheless, the Commons was willing to oblige the earl of Northumberland’s request in the autumn of 1644 that Fenwick be appointed one of his deputy lieutenants.90CJ iii. 657b. Fenwick was still in the king’s quarters when he received this honour and perhaps would have remained so for many months to come had he not been captured by parliamentarian cavalry on the road between Northampton and Banbury in December.91Whitelocke, Mems. i. 357. It is not clear what his business was in Oxfordshire – although it is worth noting that he had opted to abandon the north after Marston Moor rather than surrender to the victorious parliamentarians and petition to compound. Nor is it clear whether the group he was travelling with was a party of royalist horse. In the case of a less well-connected MP, such dubious proceedings and the fact that he had been disabled from sitting would probably have obliged the offender to compound for his estate. But Fenwick had the earl of Northumberland in his corner and escaped without censure. Indeed, at some point over the winter of 1644-5 he was appointed sheriff of Northumberland – very probably upon the earl’s recommendation. The colonelcy that Prince Rupert issued to him in March 1645 was probably part of his strategy to rebuild the royalist party in the north and thus persuade Charles to march his army into Yorkshire rather than engage the New Model in the south.92HMC Carlisle, 5. But to the extent that it was an attempt to win back Fenwick to the king’s cause, it failed. In June 1645, it was reported that ‘the papists and others in Northumberland plotted to surprise Sir John Fenwick, the high sheriff, and the militia there, but were discovered and suppressed’.93Mercurius Civicus no. 106 (29 May-5 June 1645), 947 (E.286.28); Whitelocke, Mems. i. 441.

By January 1646, Fenwick’s friends at Westminster, and particularly the earl of Northumberland and Widdrington, were anxious to secure his re-admission to the House.94Alnwick, P.I.3(q): Potter to Northumberland, 17 Jan. 1646. The earl conceived that Fenwick had been voted out of the House in January 1644 ‘merely upon misinformation at a time when all his friends were absent’, and that when the Commons ‘shall truly understand his carriage they may think it justice to recall that sentence’.95Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 13 Jan. 1646. When Fenwick’s case was debated in the House on 17 January, it was resolved that the business be referred to the committee for absent Members, with the addition of Widdrington and other MPs.96CJ iv. 409b. It was now only a matter of time the earl informed Hugh Potter ‘that the order concerning Sir John Fenwick will be taken off’.97Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 20 Jan. 1646. Potter, too, had earned the Commons’ censure for his conduct during the war and was convinced that both he and Fenwick had suffered merely because the House had misconstrued their service to the earl during the royalist occupation of the north.98Alnwick, P.I.3(q): Potter to Northumberland, 29 Dec. 1645. For his part, the earl attributed Fenwick’s ‘troubles’ to the machinations of the ‘principal men’ on the Northumberland county committee – although in March 1646, many of these same men (including Robert Fenwicke*) testified that, to the best of their knowledge, Fenwick had always adhered to Parliament.99Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, 12 May 1646; Bodl. Nalson XIV, f. 208; HMC Portland, i. 352. Fenwick’s case was reported from the committee for absent Members by Denzil Holles on 26 June 1646, and, after ‘a very long debate’, the House divided on whether the order for disabling Fenwick on 22 January 1644 should be rescinded. The vote seems to have split the House not along party lines, but on the extent to which individual MPs could forgive temporising with the enemy. The majority tellers for the yeas were the Presbyterian grandees Holles and Sir Philip Stapilton; the losing tellers were the godly MPs William Ellys – an Independent – and Robert Reynolds, who generally aligned with the Presbyterians.100CJ iv. 588a; Add. 31116, p. 550. Fenwick’s re-admission was greeted with delight by Northumberland, ‘for I know it will be of great satisfaction to him’.101Alnwick, O.I.2(f): Northumberland to Potter, June 1646.

Fenwick’s ‘great satisfaction’ at regaining his seat in the Commons did not translate into a flurry of parliamentary activity. He took the Covenant on 9 December 1646 and was then named to just one committee – for suppressing seditious pamphlets (3 Feb. 1647) – before being granted leave of absence on 20 March.102CJ v. 7b, 72b, 118b. This second brief appearance in the Long Parliament was apparently his last. He was declared absent and excused at the call of the House on 9 October 1647 and again on 24 April and 26 September 1648.103CJ v. 330a, 543b; vi. 34a. In his absence, he was appointed a commissioner for Northumberland in November 1647 to collect the county’s assessment quota.104CJ v. 400b. He was reportedly plundered to the tune of £2,000 by the Northumberland royalists during the second civil war.105Perfect Diurnall no. 268 (11-18 Sept. 1648), 2157 (E.526.6).

Although not among those Members excluded at Pride’s Purge, Fenwick abstained from taking his seat in the Rump. Like the earl of Northumberland and most of his circle, it is likely that he disapproved of both purge and regicide. Nevertheless, he retained his place on the county bench and was named to every assessment commission under the Rump. He also seems to have put in at least one appearance on the ‘standing committee for the county of Northumberland’ during the early 1650s and was part of the syndicate headed by Sir Arthur Hesilrige* – governor of the four northern counties under the Rump – that purchased the castle and adjoining property in Newcastle from the trustees for the sale of crown lands in 1651.106C54/3571/14; Northumb. RO, ZSW 7/74.

Fenwick died at some point between June 1658 – when he received his last appointment as an oyer and terminer commissioner for the Northern circuit – and 18 January 1659, when a probate inventory was made of his personal estate.107C181/6, p. 309; Durham UL, DPR/I/1/1671/F5/3-4. His date and place of burial are not known. He may have been heavily in debt when he died, having borrowed £1,500 by statute staple in 1647 and owing perhaps as much as £5,000 to his creditors and the state by the mid-1650s.108LC4/202, f. 357v; CCAM 1164-5; CSP Dom. 1654, p. 147. In his will, he asked to be buried at ‘Stannerton’, by which he may have meant Stanton chapel in the parish of Longhorsley, Northumberland – a place long associated with the Fenwick family. Unfortunately, the parish registers for Longhorsley have not survived for the 1650s. He charged his estate with annuities of £400 and made reference to coal and lead mines on his properties in Hexham and Fenwick. If his will is an accurate guide, he was survived by four daughters and his son William*, who sat for Northumberland as a ‘recruiter’ MP and in every Parliament between 1654 and the Cavalier Parliament.109Durham UL, DPRI/1/1671/F5/1; Hodgson, Northumb. pt. 2, ii. 111.