FIENNES, NATHANIEL (c. 1608-1669) English politician, second son of William, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, by Elizabeth, daughter of John Temple, of Stow in Buckinghamshire, was born in 1607 or 1608, and educated at Winchester and at New College, Oxford, where as founder’s kin he was admitted a perpetual fellow in 1624. After about five years’ residence he left without taking a degree, travelled abroad, and in Switzerland imbibed or strengthened those religious principles and that hostility to the Laudian church which were to be the chief motive in his future political career. He returned to Scotland in 1639, and established communications with the Covenanters and the Opposition in England, and as member for Banbury in both the Short and Long Parliaments he took a prominent part in the attacks upon the church. He spoke against the illegal canons on the 14th of December 1640, and again on the 9th of February 1641 on the occasion of the reception of the London petition, when he argued against episcopacy as constituting a political as well as a religious danger and made a great impression on the House, his name being added immediately to the committee appointed to deal with church affairs. He took a leading part in the examination into the army plot; was one of the commissioners appointed to attend the king to Scotland in August 1641; and was nominated one of the committee of safety in July 1642. On the outbreak of hostilities he took arms immediately, commanded a troop of horse in the army of Lord Essex, was present at the relief of Coventry in August, and at the fight at Worcester in September, where he distinguished himself, and subsequently at Edgehill. Of the last two engagements he wrote accounts, viz. True and Exact Relation of both the Battles fought by ... Earl of Essex ... against the Bloudy Cavaliers (1642). (See also A Narrative of the Late Battle before Worcester taken by a Gentleman of the Inns of Court from the mouth of Master Fiennes, 1642). In February 1643 Fiennes was sent down to Bristol, arrested Colonel Essex the governor, executed the two leaders of a plot to deliver up the city, and received a commission himself as governor on the 1st of May 1643. On the arrival, however, of Prince Rupert on the 22nd of July the place was in no condition to resist an attack, and Fiennes capitulated. He addressed to Essex a letter in his defence (Thomason Tracts E. 65, 26), drew up for the parliament a Relation concerning the Surrender ... (1643), answered by Prynne and Clement Walker accusing him of treachery and cowardice, to which he opposed Col. Fiennes his Reply.... He was tried at St Albans by the council of war in December, was pronounced guilty of having surrendered the place improperly, and sentenced to death. He was, however, pardoned, and the facility with which Bristol subsequently capitulated to the parliamentary army induced Cromwell and the generals to exonerate him completely. His military career nevertheless now came to an end. He went abroad, and it was some time before he reappeared on the political scene. In September 1647 he was included in the army committee, and on the 3rd of January 1648 he became a member of the committee of safety. He was, however, in favour of accepting the king’s terms at Newport in December, and in consequence was excluded from the House by Pride’s Purge. An opponent of church government in any form, he was no friend to the rigid and tyrannical Presbyterianism of the day, and inclined to Independency and Cromwell’s party. He was a member of the council of state in 1654, and in June 1655 he received the strange appointment of commissioner for the custody of the great seal, for which he was certainly in no way fitted. In the parliament of 1654 he was returned for Oxford county and in that of 1656 for the university, while in January 1658 he was included in Cromwell’s House of Lords. He was in favour of the Protector’s assumption of the royal title and urged his acceptance of it on several occasions. His public career closes with addresses delivered in his capacity as chief commissioner of the great seal at the beginning of the sessions of January 20, 1658, and January 2, 1659, in which the religious basis of Cromwell’s government is especially insisted upon, the feature to which Fiennes throughout his career had attached most value. On the reassembling of the Long Parliament he was superseded; he took no part in the Restoration, and died at Newton Tony in Wiltshire on the 16th of December 1669. Fiennes married (1), Elizabeth, daughter of the famous parliamentarian Sir John Eliot, by whom he had one son, afterwards 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele; and (2), Frances, daughter of Richard Whitehead of Tuderley, Hants, by whom he had three daughters.
Besides the pamphlets already cited, a number of his speeches and other political tracts were published (see Gen. Catalogue, British Museum). Wood also attributed to him Monarchy Asserted (1666) (reprinted in Somers Tracts, vi. 346 [ed. Scott]), but there seems no reason to ascribe to him with Clement Walker the authorship of Sprigge’s Anglia Rediviva.
FIERI FACIAS, usually abbreviated fi. fa. (Lat. “that you cause to be made”), in English law, a writ of execution after judgment obtained in action of debt or damages. It is addressed to the sheriff, and commands him to make good the amount out of the goods of the person against whom judgment has been obtained. (See [Execution].)
FIESCHI, GIUSEPPE MARCO (1790-1836), the chief conspirator in the attempt on the life of Louis Philippe in July 1835, was a native of Murato in Corsica. He served under Murat, then returned to Corsica, where he was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment and perpetual surveillance by the police for theft and forgery. After a period of vagabondage he eluded the police and obtained a small post in Paris by means of forged papers; but losing it on account of his suspicious manner of living, he resolved to revenge himself on society. He took lodgings on the Boulevard du Temple, and there, with two members of the Société des Droits de l’Homme, Morey and Pépin by name, contrived an “infernal machine,” constructed with twenty gun barrels, to be fired simultaneously. On the 28th of July 1835, as Louis Philippe was passing along the boulevard to the Bastille, accompanied by his three sons and a numerous staff, the machine was exploded. A ball grazed the king’s forehead, and his horse, with those of the duke of Nemours and of the prince de Joinville, was shot; Marshal Mortier was killed, with seventeen other persons, and many were wounded; but the king and the princes escaped as if by miracle. Fieschi himself was severely wounded by the discharge of his machine, and vainly attempted to escape. The attentions of the most skilful physicians were lavished upon him, and his life was saved for the stroke of justice. On his trial he named his accomplices, displayed much bravado, and expected or pretended to expect ultimate pardon. He was condemned to death, and was guillotined on the 19th of February 1836. Morey and Pépin were also executed, another accomplice was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment and one was acquitted. No less than seven plots against the life of Louis Philippe had been discovered by the police within the year, and apologists were not wanting in the revolutionary press for the crime of Fieschi.
See Procès de Fieschi, precédé de sa vie privée, sa condamnation par la Cour des Pairs et celles de ses complices (2 vols., 1836); also P. Thureau-Dangin, Hist, de la monarchie de Juillet (vol. iv. ch. xii., 1884).
FIESCO (de’ Fieschi), GIOVANNI LUIGI (c. 1523-1547), count of Lavagna, was descended from one of the greatest families of Liguria, first mentioned in the 10th century. Among his ancestors were two popes (Innocent IV. and Adrian V.), many cardinals, a king of Sicily, three saints, and many generals and admirals of Genoa and other states. Sinibaldo Fiesco, his father, had been a close friend of Andrea Doria (q.v.), and had rendered many important services to the Genoese republic. On his death in 1532 Giovanni found himself at the age of nine the head of the family and possessor of immense estates. He grew up to be a handsome, intelligent youth, of attractive manners and very ambitious. He married Eleonora Cibò, marchioness of Massa, in 1540, a woman of great beauty and family influence. There were many reasons which inspired his hatred of the Doria family; the almost absolute power wielded by the aged admiral and the insolence of his nephew and heir Giannettino Doria, the commander of the galleys, were galling to him as to many other Genoese, and it is said that Giannettino was the lover of Fiesco’s wife. Moreover, the Fiesco belonged to the French or popular party, while the Doria were aristocrats and Imperialists. When Fiesco determined to conspire against Doria he found friends in many quarters. Pope Paul III. was the first to encourage him, while both Pier Luigi Farnese, duke of Parma, and Francis I. of France gave him much assistance and promised him many advantages. Among his associates in Genoa were his brothers Girolamo and Ottobuono, Verrina and R. Sacco. A number of armed men from the Fiesco fiefs were secretly brought to Genoa, and it was agreed that on the 2nd of January 1547, during the interregnum before the election of the new doge, the galleys in the port should be seized and the city gates held. The first part of the programme was easily carried out, and Giannettino Doria, aroused by the tumult, rushed down to the port and was killed, but Andrea escaped from the city in time. The conspirators attempted to gain possession of the government, but unfortunately for them Giovanni Luigi, while crossing a plank from the quay to one of the galleys, fell into the water and was drowned. The news spread consternation among the Fiesco faction, and Girolamo Fiesco found few adherents. They came to terms with the senate and were granted a general amnesty. Doria returned to Genoa on the 4th thirsting for revenge, and in spite of the amnesty he confiscated the Fiesco estates; Girolamo had shut himself up, with Verrina and Sacco and other conspirators, in his castle of Montobbia, which the Genoese at Doria’s instigation besieged and captured. Girolamo Fiesco and Verrina were tried, tortured and executed; all their estates were seized, some of which, including Torriglia, Doria obtained for himself. Ottobuono Fiesco, who had escaped, was captured eight years afterwards and put to death by Doria’s orders.
There are many accounts of the conspiracy, of which perhaps the best is contained in E. Petit’s André Doria (Paris, 1887), chs. xi. and xii., where all the chief authorities are quoted; see also Calligari, La Congiura del Fiesco (Venice 1892), and Gavazzo, Nuovi documenti sulla congiura del conte Fiesco (Genoa, 1886); E. Bernabò-Brea, in his Sulla congiura di Giovanni Luigi Fieschi, publishes many important documents, while L. Capelloni’s Congiura del Fiesco, edited by Olivieri, and A. Mascardi’s Congiura del conte Giovanni Luigi de’ Fieschi (Antwerp, 1629) may be commended among the earlier works. The Fiesco conspiracy has been the subject of many poems and dramas, of which the most famous is that by Schiller. See also under [Doria], [Andrea]; [Farnese].