Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/330

 cognised in London by a nephew of Harflet, and was placed in the charge of Tillotson, then dean of St. Paul's. In eight weeks Tillotson convinced him, as he alleged, of his political and religious errors. He thereupon disclosed all he knew to the Earl of Shrewsbury, and was formally thanked by William III, in whose presence Fuller cut open the buttons of his coat, and disclosed the letters he was carrying to various Jacobites. He continued to carry Jacobite letters, which he betrayed to the government, till exposed by his betrayal of another messenger, Matthew Crone. Crone's trial and conviction were delayed three weeks in consequence of an alleged attempt to poison Fuller, the principal witness, which kept him too ill to appear in court. Fuller followed William III to Ireland and to the Hague, living sumptuously on borrowed money and by the wages of his treachery. On returning to London he was arrested by angry creditors, and thrown into sponging-houses. Titus Oates assigned him lodgings in his house in Ax Yard, Westminster. Fuller neglected to pay the stipulated rent, or to repay loans from Oates, who at length put the law in motion. He was prevented from following the king to Holland in May 1691 by the marshal of the King's Bench, but shortly afterwards he escaped and crossed to Rotterdam. He stayed some weeks abroad, assumed various titles, and spent money lent by his dupes, or raised by forged bills, in luxurious living. When he returned to London he was at once arrested for debt, and wrote from prison to Tillotson and Lord Portland professing that he was able to disclose a plot against the throne. No notice being taken, Fuller addressed the House of Commons to the same effect, alleging that he could prove a Jacobite conspiracy against Halifax and other prominent noblemen. He stated at the bar of the house that he relied on the evidence of two witnesses named Delaval and Hayes. He received passports from the house and a blank safe-conduct from the king to bring these men from abroad; but on the day when he was to produce them he sent a message that he was too ill to attend. A committee was appointed to visit his bedside, when Fuller gave the London addresses of his witnesses. They could not be found, and on 24 Feb. 1692 the house resolved that Fuller was an impostor, cheat, and false accuser, and recommended that he should be put on his trial. His story had been so far believed that in December 1691 he had been granted an allowance of 30s. a day from the crown, and in January 20l. by the House of Commons. His trial took place on 21 Nov. 1692; he was convicted and sentenced to stand in the pillory at Westminster and the Exchange, and to be imprisoned till he should pay two hundred marks to the king. Fuller remained in prison till June 1695, when he was released by the influence of Charles Herbert, who made him an allowance. Fuller formed a new intimacy with Oates, and published ‘A Brief Discovery of the True Mother of the Prince of Wales,’ 1696. Fuller repeated the old story, and declared that as a page in St. James's Palace he had witnessed on 10 June 1688 the transference of a warming pan from the chamber of a pregnant lady, Mary Grey, to that of the queen, and that this warming-pan contained the child of Mary Grey. The revived story met some belief, and Fuller quickly followed up his success with ‘A Further Confirmation that Mary Grey was the true Mother,’ &c., 1696, and ‘Mr. William Fuller's Third Narrative containing new matters of Fact, proving the pretended Prince of Wales to be a grand Cheat upon the Nation, with an Answer to some Reflections cast upon him,’ 1696. Fuller sent copies of his book to the king and leading statesmen. His petition to the House of Commons to be allowed to prove that the Prince of Wales was an impostor was received with contempt. After a fresh imprisonment for debt, he made an expedition into Hampshire, pretending to be on the track of fugitive Jacobites. In Southampton he again tried to raise loans by fraud, and remained there a year in prison. He made an unsuccessful journey to Flanders, and published ‘A Trip to Hampshire and Flanders, discovering the vile Intrigues of the Priests and Jesuits, and the Practice of Englad's [sic] Bosom Enemies’ (1701). Fuller had been disappointed at being cut off in Charles Herbert's will ‘with mourning and a shilling’ in favour of his own half-sister, who received the bulk of his fortune. This sister, who had been Fuller's partner in at least one of his earlier frauds, allowed him 3l. a week, which Luttrell says (Diary, iv. 261) he supplemented by marrying a widow with 1,500l. In 1701 he published ‘The Life of William Fuller, gent., being a full and true Account of his Birth, Education, Employs and Intrigues, both of Publick and Private Concerns; his Reconciliation to the Church of England, and the occasion of his coming into service with the present Government.’ In the same year he once more revived his story of Prince James's illegitimacy in ‘Twenty-six Depositions of Persons of Quality and Worth, with letters of the late Queen … and others by Mrs. Mary Grey, proving the whole management of the supposititious Birth of the Prince of Wales, and that Mrs. Grey was barba-