Trelawny

DESCRIPTION: King James II has imprisoned Bishop Trelawny in the Tower of London. "Trelawny he may die But twenty thousand Cornish bold Will know the reason why."
AUTHOR: Rev. Robert Stephen Hawker (1803-1875), according to Turner
EARLIEST DATE: 1846 (Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland); Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory says it is from 1825; Wikipedia says 1826
KEYWORDS: royalty clergy political rebellion
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1688 - Bishop Jonathan Trelawney (1650-1721) is imprisoned for seditious libel after protesting James II's Declaration of Indulgence granting religious tolerance to Catholics. He was tried and acquitted. (sources: Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland; "Sir Jonathan Trelawney, 3rd Baronet" at Wikipedia. Site accessed Sep 11, 2012).
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Dixon-AncientPoemsBalladsSongsOfThePeasantryOfEngland, Song #36, pp. 232-233, "Trelawny" (1 text)
Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall, pp. 54-55, "Trelawny" (1 text plus Cornish translation, 1 tune)
Sidgwick-BalladsPoemsIllustratingEnglishHistory, p. 140, "The Song of the Western Men" (1 text)
ADDITIONAL: Michael R. Turner, _Victorian Parlour Poetry: An Annotated Anthology_, 1967, 1969 (page references are to the 1992 Dover edition), pp. 58-59, "The Song of the Western Men" (1 text)
Roud #3315
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Come All Ye Jolly Tinner Boys" (lyrics)
cf. "Wheal Rodney" (tune, according to Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall)
SAME TUNE:
Wheal Rodney (file: DeSh070)
And Shall Moyer, Haywood, and Pettibone Die? (J. Anthony Lukas, _Big Trouble_, 1997, p. 474, about the accused in the Harry Orchard case; see "Harry Orchard")
NOTES [4134 words]: The song is so famous that it has its own Wikipedia entry, which declares it the unofficial Cornish national anthem. But it's not clear that it has ever been in tradition.
According to Turner, p. 59, R. S. Hawker claimed to have based his poem on "three traditional lines in the second stanza, but nobody else has found evidence of their antiquity." But something very like Hawker's words are in Dixon. And the whole thing looks like "Come All Ye Jolly Tinner Boys." Smith-Trelawny, pp. 174-175, declares "The Song of the Western Men probably has nothing to do with Bishop Trelawny or any of his ancestors." There has been controversy about this that I can't settle. I'm not the only one; Gundry-CanowKernow-SongsDancesFromCornwall writes, "Everything about the origin of Trelawny, words and tune alike, is baffling." Nonetheless, it is clear that it came to be regarded as being about Jonathan Trelawny.
It is ironic to note that Hawker, who wrote a song about the Protestant Trelawny, reportedly turned Catholic at the end of his life.
Although Jonathan Trelawny served most of his episcopal career in areas outside Cornwall, it is fitting that the Cornish remembered him; according to Smith-Trelawny, p. 3, "Throughout his life Jonathan Trelawny was moved by three great loves; Cornwall, the honour of his ancient family and the Protestant Religion, by which he meant the Church of England." He appreciated the monarchy and his college, but to a lesser degree. Going to Cornwall, according to Smith, was always a source of joy to Trelawny, who always regarded it as home. Indeed, he wrote an item for an encyclopedia about Devon and Cornwall (Smith-Trelawny, p. 155).
Jonathan Trelawny was the second son of Sir Johathan Trelawny, the second baronet Trelawny; he was one of six brothers (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 8-9). The other male members of his family were mostly soldiers (except for the youngest, Chichester Trelawney, who eventually tried to murder his brother and had to be confined as insane; Smith-Trelawny, p. 46). Jonathan apparently wasn't interested in the military life, but when his older brother died in 1680, then his father in 1681, Jonathan became head of the family and inherited their properties and responsibilities (Smith-Trelawny, p. 9).
As a teenager, he was sent to the well-known Westminster School, then sent to Christ Church College, Oxford; he earned his B.A. in 1672, became a deacon in 1673, was made M.A. (at that time, less an academic than a social honor) in 1675, and ordained priest in 1676; he became a royal chaplain in 1677 (Smith-Trelawny, p. 15).
Despite all that training, he wasn't exactly a model cleric. Smith-Trelawny, p. 17, says "He enjoyed good wine, good tobacco and boisterous company. He was a frequent and dedicated user of bad language and later used to explain to anyone who ventured to express disapproval of his profane swearing that he swore not as a bishop, but as Sir Jonathan Trelawny"! In his early years he had two clerical livings (both badly run-down) but did not reside in either; he was more member of the gentry than of the clergy -- and one who was heavily financially constrained by the status of his property (Smith-Trelawny, p. 16), though eventually he took his clerical duties more seriously (and came to be regarded by some as haughty and perhaps heavy-handed, as well as having a violent temper; Smith-Trelawny, p. 158).
In addition to drinking heavily while young, he grew so heavy in his later years that he took to wearing corsets, and eventually suffered from kidney stones (Smith-Trelawny, p. 154).
Smith-Trelawny, p. 18, regards him as "intelligent but lazy," widely read but not expert in anything; similarly p. 154 calls him "intellectually lazy." He hardly sounds like the man who would make a stand on principle. Indeed, in 1685, he would be one of James II's chief supporters in Cornwall! (Smith-Trelawny, p. 19), playing a significant role in defeating Monmouth's Rebellion (Smith-Trelawny, p, 20; for which see "The Monmouth Rebel"). One of the colonels who commanded one of James's regiments at the Battle of Sedgemoor was Jonathan's brother Charles Trelawney (Chandler, p. 108; Smith-Trelawny, p. 32).
In the aftermath of Sedgemoor, James decided to make Trelawny Bishop of Bristol -- only to have Trelawny beg for a different bishopric because he needed more money to solve his debt problems (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 20-21; according to p. 29, the Bristol diocese was worth only £350 a year, and it was disorderly, so it was genuinely a financial burden). Still, Trelawny took the post -- and, according to Smith-Trelawny, pp. 21-22, had an almost Becket-like transformation from secular servant of the king to firm supporter of the church.
The song comes from the Restoration period, after the British monarchy had been overthrown and Charles I executed in 1649, then the monarchy brought back in 1660. After the restored Charles II dies without a legitimate heir in 1685, his brother James succeeded, and "He had no tact, no political sense. He tried to use his suspending and dispensing powers to direct a frontal assault upon the Restoration settlement" (Smith-Constitutional, p. 363).
The context is this: James II, being Catholic, wanted toleration for Catholics. At this time, England had what were called the "Penal" and "Test" acts -- the former to punish non-Anglicans, the latter (from 1673 and 1678) to force them to reveal their faith and barring them from office if they didn't meet the criteria. At this time, we can loosely divide the English population into three camps, Anglicans, Catholics, and Dissenters. All Anglicans could meet the requirements of the Test Acts, and some Dissenters could sort of swallow hard and get by, but Catholics flatly could not pass.
"The political temperature of English opinion in the summer of 1688 would certainly have sufficed to restrain either Charles I [I doubt that - RBW] or Charles II. But James, obstinate in his belief that his father had fallen because he made concessions, and himself surrounded by flatterers who deceived him in order to cling to their offices, not only held his course but flung into the loaded mine the lighted match of the Trial of the Seven Bishops" (Trevelyan, p. 46). He also went so far, in Scotland, as to give Catholics the right to worship freely while ordering Presbyterians and Quakers to only worship at home (Miller-James, p. 214).
James had something called the "Dispensing Power," which allowed him to appoint Catholics to office by giving them an individual dispensation, one at a time. He used it a lot, too -- e.g. in November 1685 alone, he used the power to appoint 26 Catholic tax collectors in Scotland (Miller-James, p. 214). He didn't want to be limited to that; he wanted the Penal and Test Acts repealed. And he tried to force through the Declaration of Indulgence: "In 1687, James II, blind to the probable consequences of his policy, issued a Declaration of Indulgence, modeled on that issued by Charles II in 1672 but swiftly withdrawn. This document granted freedom of worship to all Protestant Dissenters and Roman Catholics and abolished all religious tests for office. In April, 1688, James issued a second Declaration of Indulgence and soon ordered all bishops to have copies of the declaration distributed through their dioceses where it was to be read publicly on two successive Sundays. It was read in only four churches in London" (Smith-Constitutional, pp. 364-365; Trevelyan, p. 47, says that there were a hundred churches in London at the time. Clark, p. 121, and Kishlansky, p. 264, say that it was read in seven churches. The minor difference in the totals hardly matters; the vast majority of churches ignored James's order).
(It was a strange situation; James had been trying to get the Anglicans to accept more Catholics, and they wouldn't, so he decided to try to get the Dissenters to support him. The only outcome of that was to make the Anglicans change from relatively passive to more active resistance; Kishlansky, pp. 263-264.)
The second declaration, according to Prall, p. 183, was "in substance a repeat of the first, but to it was added an explanatory note in which he expressed his determination that no one should assume any wavering on his part." Prall adds that "Perhaps this order should not be labeled as the cause of the Glorious Revolution, but it certainly inaugurated a sequence of events that led inexorably to that revolution."
Rural bishoprics of course were also expected to assent to the Declaration of Indulgence. James's government probably never worried about Trelawny's adherence -- he was junior, he ruled an unruly flock, he was beholden to James (Smith-Trelawny, p. 44). Trelawny hesitated, then final called on his subordinates. Trelawny made it clear he would not sign the form to indicate his assent; with him on their side, only two of the clerics he called in signed. Trelawny sent the address and its two signatures back to the government with a complicated cover letter that I would paraphrase as "No way am I signing this thing but it's not my fault" (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 44-45). But he knew he was in trouble, and apparently expected to be deprived of his bishopric. Smith-Trelawny, p. 45, thinks his efforts at this time were mostly devoted to maintaining the family estate.
James, in addition to making his announcement, tried to put together a packed parliament to approve his plan. He vetted his candidates by asking if they would support his plan. So few agreed that the parliamentary election was never held (Clark, p. 120).
The Anglican church had a loyalty to both itself and the monarch, who was head of the church. Where these conflicted -- as the Declaration of Indulgence appeared to do -- it had to decide where its loyalty lay (Prall, p. 185). Some Anglican bishops went along with the demand to read the document, some did not -- indeed, they began to reach out to the Dissenters (Prall, p. 186), the first step toward true tolerance. Archbishop of Canterbury William Sancroft called together all England's bishops, many other London priests, and several members of the nobility (Prall, p. 187). There were later meetings; in mid-May, according to Prall, p. 190, Sancroft met with the bishops of Winchester, Norwich, St. Asaph, Bath and Wells, Chichester, and Bristol (i.e. Trelawny).
This was the more noteworthy "because Sancroft was by nature a shy and retiring man, and belonged to the strictest school of High Churchmen, who had hitherto taught that the King's will was the guide for all true subjects and Christians" (Trevelyan, p. 47). He had been chosen by Charles II after some indecision: "In the end, on the evening of 29 December [1677], he sent for a man who was not even a bishop yet, the solemn, gentle, and learned William Sancroft, Dean of St Pauls. It has been suggested that the king chose him because he would be a more pliant primate than the intimidating [deceased Archbishop Gilbert] Sheldon. It seems more likely that he got the job simply because he was acceptable to all the proponents of the other candidates; after seven weeks of irritation [at doctrinal arguments and church politics] the king was not so much saving himself trouble in the future as getting rid of it in the present" (Hutton, p. 341).
Similarly, Clark, p. 112, calls Sancroft "a peacable old man."
"Up till now [in James's reign], Sancroft had been hesitating and backward in resistance to James, much as he regretted his policy; but at his supreme crisis he did not hesitate" (Trevelyan, p. 47, who footnotes that Sancroft really needed to lead, because there was at this time no Archbishop of York).
"The great majority of the London clergy decided not to read [James's declaration] and, on 17th May [others say 18th May], Sancroft and six of his colleagues drew up a petition, pointing out politely that the dispensing power on which the declaration rested had been declared illegal in Parliament, notably in 1663 and 1673. [Sancroft decided not to be one of the bishops who presented it, but the other six, including Trelawny, took it to the King; Prall, pp. 190-191. They did not explicitly refuse to read the Declaration in churches; they wanted a delay until a parliament could take up the matter; Kishlansky, p. 264.]. James received the petition with a mixture of astonishment and fury: 'This is a standard of rebellion"" (Miller-James, p. 185).
The seven, after a Privy Council hearing in which the bishops refused to plead, were sent to the Tower. "That the populace should cheer the bishops [usually the least popular members of the Church] proves to what extent the king had destroyed himself. Only the most irresponsible and foolish of monarchs could have reached such a nadir. James was certainly out of his time, but not, therefore, necessarily ahead of it" (Prall, p. 193).
"At last, on 1st June, faced with conflicting advice, James unerringly chose the course of action which combined moderation and severity in the worst possible way: he would proceed against the bishops according to law, reserving the option of showing them mercy after they had been convicted. Accordingly, when the bishops refused to give sureties for good behavior they were sent to the Tower, exulting in their martyrdom and blessing the crowds which watched them pass on their way to prison. James had now committed himself too far to back down without loss of face; he could only hope that the court would produce the right verdict" (Miller-James, p. 186).
"The Trial of the Seven Bishops, the greatest historical drama that ever took place before an authorized English law court, aroused popular feeling to its height. The sight of seven prelates of blameless character and known loyalty to James (five of them were afterwards Jacobites!) entering the Tower as prisoners and standing in the dock as culprits, showed as nothing else would have done that the most revered and most loyal subjects in the land would be broken if they refused to become active parties in the King's illegal designs" (Trevelyan, p. 48; according to Miller-Glorious, p. 45, the statement that five of the bishops were Jacobites is a little oversimplified. They felt they could not take an oath to William and Mary because that would mean breaking their oath to James -- as I read it, there is no reason to think they would have supported the Old Pretender after James II died. Still, it was enough that the five were deprived of their benefices. Trelawny's situation was even more complicated; we'll get to that...).
James still thought he would win the case. The trial, which began on June 29, 1688, showed that his confidence was not justified. James purged the judges, and the jury was carefully chosen -- but even his hand-picked judges would not toe the line (Kishlansky, pp. 264-265). When it came time to deliberate, the jurors were "locked up for the night without heat or light" (Prall, p. 195) -- but even so, the jury cleared the bishops (Miller-James, p. 187; Prall, p. 201; Smith-Constitutional, p. 365). "For James, the bishops' acquittal was a humiliation. What had been intended as a show trial, punishing the bishops' temerity and reaffirming the legality of the dispensing power, had ended with the bishops' action vindicated and the dispensing power seriously undermined" (Miller-James, p. 188).
James II's son James, the future "Old Pretender," had recently been born. The one guaranteed limitation on James's power to enforce Catholicism on the people -- the fact that his daughter and heir Mary, and her husband William of Orange, were Protestant -- had suddenly ceased to apply. There was no other limitation on James's power: "No king since Richard II, in the fourteenth century, had run such a personal government. No power of decision was delegated to anyone, and no advice was sought or received from any holders of office under the crown on any topics of real consequence. The ministers did his bidding or were sacked. The Privy Council and the Cabinet council barely functioned" (Prall, pp. 199-200). James had shown himself a despot, and many were afraid of him.
A petition was prepared asking William of Orange to help them against James II (Smith-Constitutional, p. 365). William, being deeply frightened of the idea of James II allying with Louis XIV of France, listened -- and sent his army into England.
"James summoned the bishops and pressured them to issue a 'abhorrence' of the immanent invasion. With delicious irony, Archbishop Sancroft informed the king that they had recently been imprisoned for meddling in 'matters of civil government' and had learned their lesson" (Kishlansky, p. 280). Not long after, William and Mary were King and Queen and James was a fugitive.
Curiously, during the period immediately after William's landing, James -- who had just months earlier been stripping Trelawny of his civil offices and honors -- translated him to be Bishop of Exeter! (Smith-Trelawny, p. 50). The move took him closer to his home in Cornwall as well as to the site of William's invasion -- William actually occupied Exeter in November shortly after landing at Brixham. Did James think Trelawny would support him against William? Or just hope that Trelawny would be ineffective while getting used to his new diocese? Trelawny's brother Charles had already left his royal regiment and gone over to William (Smith-Trelawny, p. 52); did James hope to lure Charles back? We have no way of knowing. As it turned out, the transfer ceremonies could not be completed before William took over; in the parliament that followed James's flight, Trelawny attended as Bishop of Bristol, not Exeter (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 52-53).
Trelawny was conflicted about what to do then: "He did not wish to see James return. Later in life he declared that he had a real fear of James's vindictiveness. [But] He did not want to abandon the doctrine of hereditary right" (Smith-Trelawny, p. 57). When the Lords debated how to govern England after James's flight, he "modestly withdrew" rather than vote on a motion to set up a regency in James's name, and initially opposed moves to make William King (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 57-58). When it came time to vote on whether James had "abdicated," Trelawny voted against it. Yet when the decision was made to proclaim William and Mary, Trelawny was one of those who carried the formal request to the new monarchs, and swore loyalty to them (Smith-Trelawny, p. 58). His reward was that he was again translated to Exeter, and kept the post this time (Smith-Trelawny, p. 59). Once established, he ran the diocese strictly, like the military man he probably wished he were, imposing strong discipline even when it somewhat opposed what his superiors wanted (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 65-68). His main activity in the next few decades seems to have been engaging in litigation with heretical or obstinate clergy in his diocese. Reading the relevant pages of Smith-Trelawny (roughly pp. 70-98) was extremely dull.... The only thing that interested me in this period is that he had a long controversy with the scholar William Whiston (Smith-Trelawny, p. 108), a mathematics professor who was also noteworthy for having revived the long-dead heresy of Arianism. Whiston's Arianism was Trelawny's target, and Whiston had little success in converting the Church, but Whiston in another sense outlasted Trelawny: His translation of Josephus, although inaccurate and flawed in a great many ways, is still much too easy to find, because it's out of copyright and cheap to reprint. If Trelawny had commissioned a better translation, that might have been worth doing....
In 1707 he was moved to the Bishopric of Winchester (Smith-Trelawny, p. 139), which probably gave him a little more influence -- it was a richer bishopric -- but not much. And it didn't help his finances; by 1706, everyone knew he was insolvent, and over the next several years he seems to have oppressed his tenants to raise the money to pay his bills; not even the translation to Winchester was enough to get him out of debt (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 168-169).
His main occupation after his translations seems to have been persecuting Catholics -- expected behavior for an Anglican bishop, but Trelawny was exceptionally aggressive about it (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 142-144). He was also a vigorous anti-Jacobite (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 146-147), even after the death of James II made it certain that a Jacobite restoration would not threaten him personally. Interestingly, after George I was safely on the throne, he became more of an opposition figure, supporting the anti-Court faction that gathered around the future George II rather than the court faction of George I (Smith-Trelawny, p.149). He continues to combat the persistent outbreak of Arianism which of which Whiston had been a part (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 150-151) -- which was genuinely good service, even if one is not a Christian; Arianism has logical flaws which can cause problems if it gets its hooks into a powerful religion (as happened with the Goths during the late Roman Empire).
It was a busy life, which perhaps didn't leave much time for personal affairs; he did not marry his wife was Rebecca Hele, from a Devon family, until 1684 (Smith-Trelawny, p. 155). He was twenty years older than his bride -- 34 to her 14. Interestingly she continued to manage her own estates after their marriage. Despite the late start, they ended up with 13 children in all, of whom 11 reached adulthood (Smith-Trelawny, p. 155).
Their oldest child, a daughter Charlotte, was not born until March 1688 (Smith-Trelawny, p. 117; the poor girl was a hunchback whom Trelawny does not seem to have given much support; Smith-Trelawny, p. 156). John, the first son and heir, was born in 1691 (Smith-Trelawny, p. 156).
He committed extreme nepotism on behalf of his son Charles, who was given multiple clerical livings (Smith-Trelawny, p. 156).
Other than that, he does not seem to have been particularly kind to his family; Smith-Trelawny, p. 135, reports on him literally forcing his daughter Rebecca, at age 20, to marry older, disfigured John Francis Buller, and intimidated her so much that she never even gave consent during the ceremony. Why did Trelawny do it? Political advantage.
And after all that scrambling for cash and making a financial hash of things, he died suddenly and without a will (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 170-171), meaning his affairs went to smash. He really doesn't seem to have been a good manager -- although it's hard to know, because he apparently asked that his papers be destroyed, and while that request was not fulfilled, all have now vanished (Smith-Trelawny, p. 174).
On the whole, I don't think Trelawny was someone I would have liked to meet; he was too closed-minded. He wanted the Official State Church Ruled By Bishops And Which Knew Everything of his youth (Smith-Trelawny, pp. 175-177), and the Glorious Revolution simply made that impossible. ("Like the dodo his theology was uncomplicated, unadaptable, and very vulnerable"; Smith-Trelawny, p. 176) The Affair of the Seven Bishops was clearly the high point of his career; the rest of the time, other than in the fight against Arianism, I think he may have done more harm than good. But he had one brief, bright, shining moment, and this song captures it.
The only book about Trelawny personally seems to be Smith-Trelawny. Books about the Seven Bishops and their trial include:
William Gibson, James II and the Trial of the Seven Bishops, Palgrave MacMillan, 2009
J. C. Ryle, James II and the Seven Bishops, Focus, 1987 (more a pamphlet than a full-size book, from what I can tell; I suspect it is the same as the same author's Reign of James II of England and James VII of Scotland and the Trial of the Seven Bishops: England's Second Deliverance from Romanism, for which I have no publication information)
Agnes Strickland, The Lives of the Seven Bishops Committed to the Tower in 1688. Enriched and Illustrated With Personal Letters, Now First Published, From the Bodleian Library, 1866 (available on Google Books, as well as from many cheap print-on-demand services)
(No author listed), The Proceedings and Tryal in the Case of the Most Reverend Father in God William Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Right Reverend Fathers in God, William Lord Bishop of St. Asaph, Francis Lord Bishop of Ely, John Lord Bishop of Chichester, Thomas Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells, Thomas Lord Bishop of Peterborough, and Jonathan Lord Bishop of Bristol: In the Court of the Kings Bench at Westminster, in Trinity-term in the Fourth Year of the Reign of King James the Second, Annoque Dom. 1688, Thomas Basset, and Thomas Fox, 1689 (available on Google Books)
There are also several biographies of Archbishop Sancroft. - RBW
BibliographyLast updated in version 6.6
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