Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 61.djvu/241

 impeachment of the misgovernment of Charles and James. The Earl of Macclesfield, Lord Mordaunt, and others supported Wildman's view, but more moderate counsellors prevailed (, Reign of James II, ed. Routh, p. 351). With Lord Macclesfield Wildman embarked on the prince's fleet and landed in England. He wrote many anonymous pamphlets on the crisis, sat in the Convention parliament called in January 1689 as member for Wootton Bassett, and was a frequent speaker (cf., Debates, ix. 28, 70, 79, 193, 326).

In the proceedings against Burton and Graham, charged with subornation of evidence in the state trials of the late reign, Wildman was particularly active, bringing in the report of the committee appointed to investigate the case, and representing the commons at a conference with the lords on the subject (, Life of William III, App. ii. 19; Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep, vi. 261). On 12 April 1689 he was made postmaster-general (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1689, p. 59). But ere long loud complaints were made that he was using his position to discredit the tory adherents of William III by fictitious letters which he pretended to have intercepted; and there were also reports that he was intriguing with Jacobite emissaries (, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland, ed. 1790, iii. 77, 94, 131, 184). Accordingly he was summarily dismissed from his post about the end of February 1691 (, Diary, ii. 187, 192). Wildman, however, had been made a freeman of London on 7 Dec. 1689, became an alderman, and was knighted by William III in company with other aldermen at Guildhall on 29 Oct. 1692 (, Knights, p. 439;, i. 615, ii. 603).

Wildman died on 2 June 1693 at the age of seventy-two (, iii. 112), and was buried at Shrivenham, Berkshire. By his will, according to the epitaph on his monument in Shrivenham church, he directed ‘that if his executors should think fit there should be some stone of small price set near to his ashes, to signify, without foolish flattery, to his posterity, that in that age there lived a man who spent the best part of his days in prisons, without crimes, being conscious of no offence towards man, for that he so loved his God that he could serve no man's will, and wished the liberty and happiness of his country and all mankind’ (, Magna Britannia, ‘Berkshire,’ p. 367). Macaulay is less favourable. After describing a fanatical hatred to monarchy as the mainspring of Wildman's career, he adds: ‘With Wildman's fanaticism was joined a tender care for his own safety. He had a wonderful skill in grazing the edge of treason. … Such was his cunning, that though always plotting, though always known to be plotting, and though long malignantly watched by a vindictive government, he eluded every danger, and died in his bed, after having seen two generations of his accomplices die on the gallows’ (Hist. of England, people's edit. i. 256; cf., Sybil, chap. iii.). There is an engraved portrait of Wildman, by Faithorne, with the motto ‘Nil Admirari.’

Wildman married, first, Frances, daughter of Christopher, fourth lord Teynham (, Peerage, vi. 85; cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 14th Rep. vi. 256); his second wife's name was Lucy; she petitioned in 1661 to be allowed to share her husband's imprisonment (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1661–2, p. 253). He had a son, John, who married Eleanor, daughter of Edward Chute of Bethersden, Kent, in 1676 (, London Marriage Licenses, p. 1467;, Knights, p. 439), and died without issue in 1710, leaving his estate at Becket, Berkshire, to John Shute (afterwards first Viscount Barrington) [see ].

Wildman was the author of numerous pamphlets, nearly all of them either anonymous or published under pseudonyms: 1. ‘Putney Projects; or the Old Serpent in a New Form. By John Lawmind,’ 1647. 2. ‘The Case of the Army stated,’ 1647 (Clarke Papers, i. 347, 356). 3. ‘A Call to all the Soldiers of the Army by the Free People of England, justifying the Proceedings of the Five Regiments,’ 1647 (anon.) 4. ‘Truth's Triumph,’ 1648 (answered by George Masterson in ‘The Triumph Stained,’ 1648). 5. ‘The Law's Subversion; or Sir John Maynard's Case truly stated. By J. Howldin;’ 1648 (cf., The Picture of the Council of State, 1649, pp. 8, 19). 6. ‘London's Liberties; or a Learned Argument between Mr. Maynard and Major Wildman,’ 1651. In the ‘Twelve Collections of Papers relating to the Present Juncture of Affairs in England’ (1688–9, 4to), there are several pamphlets probably written by Wildman, viz.: v. 8, ‘Ten Seasonable Queries proposed by an English Gentleman at Amsterdam to his Friends in England;’ vi. 3, ‘A Letter to a Friend advising in this Extraordinary Juncture how to free the Nation from Slavery for ever;’ and, viii. 5, ‘Good Advice before it be too late, being a Breviate for the Convention.’ Three tracts are attributed to Wildman, jointly with others, in ‘A Collection of State Tracts, published on occasion of the late Revolution and during the Reign