Career
He first attracted attention in 1655, In that year, while William Stone, the proprietary governor of Maryland, was resisting the commissioners of Parliament for the government of that province, Fendall, one of Stone's officers, took a leading part in seizing some arms and ammunition for the governor's force. His services were rewarded by a grant of two thousand acres of land and by appointment, July 10, 1656, as governor.
He visited England in 1657 and the following year brought back an agreement under which the government was definitely restored to the proprietor, as well as a new commission curtailing his power as governor.
Chafing under criticism of the proprietor for negligence at courts and for contradicting court orders, in March 1659-60, with a number of associates, he suddenly attempted to overthrow the proprietary government and set up in its place a commonwealth in which the supreme power should be vested in a House of Burgesses.
Over this body the governor was to preside; but the House, retaining its speaker, was to have the power to adjourn and dissolve. The attempted revolution was easily frustrated. The proprietor asked that Fendall forfeit his life, but the provincial court only issued an order to confiscate his estate and banish him from the province.
Subsequently, in response to a petition for mercy, his punishment was reduced to disfranchisement and disqualification for office. He retired to his estate in Charles County where he had a wife, a daughter, a brother, and several servants.
In 1678 the freemen of that county were disposed to elect him a delegate to the Assembly, but they were informed by the governor and council that if he were elected his seat would be declared vacant.
In April 1679 he was charged with seditious utterances and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he was not found. About this time he became influential in northern Virginia among the sympathizers of Nathaniel Bacon and associated with John Coode, who a few years later was the principal leader in the overthrow of the proprietary government.
Both Fendall and Coode were arrested in 1681 and Fendall, tried in November, was found guilty of atttempting to raise a mutiny in Charles County, fined 40, 000 pounds of tobacco, and banished from the province.
In 1682 he was resident in Virginia.
Two years later (June 1684), it was reported that he was on a London ship in the Potomac River and a warrant was issued for his arrest, but he was not found. Here the record of his career closes. The name of Mary Fendall, his widow and administratrix, appears in court records in 1688.
