Sir William Parkyns

Sir William Parkyns or Perkins (1649?–1696) was an English lawyer and Jacobite conspirator, executed for high treason.

The son of William Parkyns, a London merchant, he was born in London about 1649. He was admitted to the Inner Temple in 1671, and was called to the bar in 1675. He was knighted at Whitehall Palace on 10 June 1681.

Parkyns acquired a good practice, and, inheriting wealth from his father, became prominent in the London as an adherent of the court party, an "abhorrer" at the time of the Exclusion Bill, and, after the Glorious Revolution, as an inveterate Jacobite. In fact, in order to retain his office as one of the six clerks in the Court of Chancery, he had taken the oath of allegiance to William III.

After the death of Queen Mary in 1695 Parkyns associated with Sir George Barclay, Robert Charnock, Captain George Porter, "Scum" Goodman, and others, in their plan to kidnap or to assassinate William. Their scheme was communicated to James II early in 1695, but no sanction to proceed in the matter was forthcoming from him. The plot was suspended on William's departure for Flanders in May. It was resumed on Barclay's landing in England in January 1696 with a commission from James. Barclay persuaded Parkyns that it was meant to cover an attack on the king's person.

Parkyns was too gouty to take a very active share, but he provided horses, saddles, and weapons for accomplices to the number of forty, and was promised a high post in the Jacobite army. On the discovery of the plot by Thomas Prendergast, active search was made for Parkyns. Nothing was found in his house in Covent Garden, but at his country seat in Warwickshire were revealed arms and accouterments sufficient to equip a troop of cavalry. On 10 March he himself was arrested in the Temple and committed to Newgate Prison.

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