He next obtained a captain's commission in one of the companies raised by Sir George Hamilton in Ireland for Louis XIV; but on being discharged from his command soon after landing in France, he went to Paris.
[1] Returning to England in October 1672, he received, in the following February, the lieutenancy of Captain Sydenham's company in the Duke of Albemarle's regiment, which he was forced to resign on the passing of the Test Act in 1673.
Some at the time thought that the court feared that Fitzharris might be driven by the impeachment to awkward disclosures: he had had, in fact, more than one interview with the king through the intercession of the Duchess of Portsmouth.
Francis Hawkins, chaplain of the Tower, then took him in hand in the interests of the court, and, by insinuating that his life might yet be spared, persuaded him to draw up a pretended confession implicating whig leaders, in which William Howard, 3rd Baron Howard of Escrick, who had befriended Fitzharris, was made the author of the libel, while Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby, before whom his preliminary examination had been conducted, together with the sheriffs, Slingsby Bethel and Henry Cornish, were charged with subornation.
Fitzharris was executed on 1 July 1681 (ironically at the same time as Oliver Plunkett, the last victim of the Plot), the concocted confession appeared the very next day, and Hawkins was rewarded with the deanery of Chichester.
[1] In 1689, Sir John Hawles, Solicitor General for England and Wales to William III, published some Remarks on Fitzharris's trial, which he condemned as illegal.