rnal estate. He became a
member of Parliament, and was drawn into the vortex of party without
talents to adorn or judgment to guide his conduct. Although a
Protestant, Mr. Forster soon made his house the place of rendezvous for
all the non-jurors and disaffected people of the county in which he
lived; and he became involved in the dangers of their schemes, almost
before he was aware of the perils which he was about to encounter. The
party of the Jacobites was composed of very dissimilar materials. Whilst
some adopted its projects to retrieve character, or to attain, as they
vainly hoped, fortune, whilst others were actuated by genuine motives,
there were many who mingled in the mazes of the intricate politics of
that day from vanity, and the love of being at the head of faction: such
was Forster; and his career was unsatisfactory and inglorious as his
character was weak.

A warrant for Mr. Forster's apprehension having been sent forth, he was,
like Lord Derwentwater, obliged to fly from place to place, until he
arrived at the house of Mr. Fenwick, at Bywell. Lord Derwentwater,
meantime, had been secreted under the roof of a man named Lambert, in a
cottage, where he had remained in safety. His horses had been seized by
one of the neighbouring magistrates, and had been detained in custody
for several weeks, pursuant to an order in council; yet, when he had
need of them they were returned. "I afterwards asked that lord," Mr.
Patten relates, "how he came so quietly by his horses from the justice's
possession, whom the believing neighbourhood esteemed a most rigid Whig.
I was answered thus, by that lord's repeating a saying of Oliver
Cromwell's, 'that he could gain his ends with an ass-load of gold,' and
left me to make the application."[188]

Mr. Fenwick, of Bywell, was a secret, though not an avowed Jacobite; and
it was soon agreed that at his house should be collected all those who
were favourable to the cause. A meeting of the party was accordingly
held: it was decided that finding there was now no longer any safety in
shifting from place to place, and that since, in a few days they might
all be hurried up to London, and secured in prisons, where they might be
separately examined, and induced to betray each other;--it was now time
to appear boldly in arms, and to show the loyalty of the confederates to
King James.

In pursuance of this resolution, the place and hour of meeting were
appointed the very next morning; the