The

Catholic Miscellany;

AND MONTHLY

REPOSITORY OF INFORMATION,

FOR MAY, 1823.

BIOGRAPHY.

FRANCIS TREGIAN,

WHOSE extraordinary and long sufferings for the cause of religion, have been noticed by cardinal Allen, and minutely detailed by Dodd, was of noble extraction, both by the side of his father and of his mother; for his father was descended from a family ancient and respectable in Cornwall, even before the conquest. His great grandmother was the daughter of Thomas Gray, marquis of Dorchester, half-brother to Elizabeth, daughter of king Edward the fourth, and wife of king Henry the seventh; and his mother was the eldest sister of sir John Arundel, of Lanhern. At an early age he married the eldest sister of lord Stourton, and being possessed of considerable property, was remarkable for his hospitality; he was also strictly religious, and he zealously maintained the faith of his ancestors. But like many great and good men he had his enemies; and some of these informing against him as a recusant, a warrant for his apprehension was, in 1577, issued out. He was at that time twenty-eight years old, and on the 8th of June his house was entered by the sheriff of the county, with eight or nine justices of the peace, and upwards of a hundred armed men, who took him away by force, together with the reverend Cuthbert Mayne his chaplain, and several of his domestics." They were hurried away to Truro, where the bishop of Exeter had a seat; and Mr. Tregian was obliged by the justices

of the peace, to give a bond of two thousand pounds for his personal appearance at the next assizes, but before these came on, an order arrived to have him brought before the queen's privy council; he was therefore taken to London, and remained in confinement, until it pleased the council to examine him : when brought before them he was charged with recusancy, with entertaining persons of a suspicious character in his family, and of countenancing superstitious practices. He frankly owned the charge of recusancy, but at the same time assured the council, that he did not absent himself from the Protestant church, out of any civil affection to the queen or government, but entirely from a principal of conscience. At the breaking up of the sitting, sir Francis Walsingham told him, that he was not to be discharged as yet, for that other informations from the country were expected against him. He was nevertheless treated with civility, and the earl of Essex invited him to dinner, advising him at the same time to appear once at church, with the assurance, that if he followed this advice, all further prosecution should cease, and that he might expect to be admitted among the favourites of the queen. Mr. Tregian, however, remained firm to his principles, and the council at length obtaining the following allegation against him, "That he had been present at mass; that he had received an agnus dei and jubilee from the bishop of Rome; that he had abetted and entertained those who had asserted the pope's supremacy." He was committed a close prisoner to the Marshalsea, where he was confined ten months, and was not permitted, during the whole of that time, to hold any correspondence with his family; his temporal concerns consequently fell into a very deranged state, and his property suffered considerable waste; one person, named Brandore, a goldsmith of London, to whom he was indebted seventy pounds, learning his perilous situation, and fearing the loss of his debt, went down to Golden, and made a seizure of his goods, to the value of five hundred pounds, and before the goods could be replevied, Mrs. Tregian was obliged to pay to this creditor two hundred pounds, upon account of the debt, and of the incidental expences incurred. An application was made by Mr. Tregian's council, that he should be tried in the court of King's Bench, but this was refused, and he

was sent into the country to take his trial at Lancaster Assizes. The queen's council endeavoured to charge him with the several indictments upon which his chaplain, Mr. Mayne, had already been convicted and executed. Their chief evidence was one Twig, a strolling fiddler, who had been admitted into Mr. Tregian's family during the Christmas holydays, to amuse his tenants and neighbours. This man deposed that he had sometimes seen Mr. Tregian go into Mr. Mayne's chamber, and remain there about an hour, which he conjectured to be the time while Mr. Mayne was saying mass; that during the Christmas of 1575, he was Mr. Mayne's bed-fellow, who owned himself to him to be a priest, and that he had brought a number of Agnus Dei's from Rome. Mr. Tregian proved in his defence, that Twig, from several questions which he put to him, was unacquainted with Mr. Mayne's chamber; this however was considered by the queen's counsel as immaterial; he then put it to the bench if it were probable that Mr. Mayne, a prudent and cautious man, should be so indiscreet as to own himself a priest, to a stranger and a vagabond; or that a common fiddler should be made a bedfellow to one of Mr. Mayne's character. Again, he alledged that Twig had perjured himself as to circumstances both of time and place; he had sworn to Christmas, 1575, whereas Mr. Mayne was then at Doway, and did not arrive in England until the Easter following, and that he had never, in the whole course of his life, been at Rome. These particulars he could prove by forty witnesses; but as they were not then in court, the judges said that it was a frivolous thing to mention them, and that the trial could not be put off. While the jury were out consulting upon their verdict, Mr. Tregian was again strenuously pressed to conform so far as to appear in church, and the same promise was held out that all further proceedings should be stopped. He however persisted in his former refusal, and the jury returning into court, found him guilty of being present at mass; of recusancy; of entertaining one who had maintained the pope's supremacy; 'of receiving and dispensing Agnus Dei's, &c. Judgment was not then given, and on the following assizes many reasons were urged by his counsel why judgment should not pass; among other things it was insisted upon, that the proofs offered were

a dozen Catholic peers cannot safely be restored to the ancient hereditary privilege of a share in framing those laws to which their persons, their property, and their lives, are amenable.”

Sir,-Allow me to ask, through the medium of your useful Miscellany, What is the meaning of the term, " Festum in pop," as marked in the Ordo Recitandi, for March 25th, 1823. I am, Sir, your's respectfully, D.

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