say their worships, threaten so much danger to your sacred 'person, the Church, and Commonwealth of England, that in our weak judgments we hold them fit for no eye but your " own. For the person, he is a recusant convict, and the greatest of that faction in the West. He is a close reserved person, and weighs his words before they fall, so as we con'jecture that there is more in his heart than on his tongue. He is of a bold and active spirit, and the witness, being the lord bishop's chaplain, seems to be of worth. Upon these grounds we are emboldened to commend these passages to 'your royal eye; holding it the better part of our duty in being over-fearful in this kind, than in any way remiss.' The Bishop of Exeter, Hall, backs the representation of the justices in very solemn language of his own: Certain dangerous speeches,' he says, 'have been uttered by no mean recusant in the presence of very able witnesses, importing no less than the utter ruin of this whole State and Church!' • The gentleman,' his lordship adds, 'is known to be such as that, if 'there were not some great confidence in him of the issue, he 'neither would nor durst let fall such speeches.' Then follow the depositions. Ann, wife of John Prideaux of Trevorder, heard Mr. Trevelyan say, 'being talking of matters of religion,' that after the reading of a chapter they of the Church of England did sing a Geneva gygg, meaning one of the Psalms; and that Mr. Trevelyan said unto her that Queen Tibb (interpreting himself and meaning Queen Elizabeth) was as arrant a whore as ever breathed, and that she was kept by Essex and Leicester and others, or words to that effect; and she further saith she heard the said Trevelyan say there was knavery in our Bible; and she further saith,' (here the good lady wanders off, after the manner imputed to her sex, into very extraneous matter) she heard by one Marsh of Padstow, that one Mr. Burlace (Borlace) of Newlyn, took the Bible out of the vicar of Merryan's hand, one Smalrudge, and spurned it with his foote; and she further saith that Mr. Trevelyan told her that if it were not for images we should be all atheists. And Mr. Trevelyan told her that if she were a Papist she would be a good woman, and he did hope she would turn before she died, and if she would not be a Papist she would die before she was willing, and have but a month's

6

'raised a regiment to join the Parliament forces.' If so, he was probably the only Papist in the three kingdoms who distinguished himself in so eccentric a manner. But the whole note, in which this passage occurs, is a little confused.

' warning, or words to that effect.' Martin Vansog, chaplain to the Bishop of Exeter, has nothing to say-though termed a very able witness-except to repeat the stories told him by Mrs. Prideaux; which so stirred his Cornish blood, that he declared, chaplain as he was, that if he had heard more words 'he would have cut Mr. Trevelyan's throat.' And, finally, Ann Prideaux adds to her former deposition the dreadful statement that 'some Papists-but who they were this examinant ' remembereth not-said we should expect worse days than 'they suffered in Queen Mary's reign, and that faggots should 'be dear!' This is the whole of the evidence as far as appears. And as nothing is added respecting the result, it may be presumed that King Charles was not sufficiently troubled in mind by these revelations to direct any further proceedings against the 'recusant convict' in question. But it remains on record that the justices of a county and the bishop of a diocese were moved to vehement condemnation and angry menace by the loose disjointed talk of one gossiping woman.

John Trevelyan of Basil, as we see, by some happy accident, came off easily. He was, we are told, a character,' and a favourite with the public, as such men generally are. In England, at least, we are apt to accord to a character' something of the same indulgent protection which in the East shelters lunatics. He was apparently the same old Mr. Trevelyan of 'Basil,' who, according to Tonkin's notes on Carew's Survey, possessed a breed of very good horses,' always a popular qualification; others of his faith were less fortunate. They were not, indeed, numerous at any time in Cornwall. There are,'

say the deputy lieutenants to Lord Pembroke, in our county, 'we conceive, near two hundred persons whose names we shall 'be ready to certify to your honour on the least notice from 'you.' But the sufferings of one family among them, that of Tregian, in the reign of Elizabeth, are well remembered to the present day in Romanist legends. Generally speaking, however, and without reference to the case of Roman Catholics in particular, the small and provoking tyranny which was exercised by the ecclesiastical authorities, the Star Chamber, and the bishops of Elizabeth, James, and Charles, is really one of the most prominent features of the minor history of that age, and accounts for the general insurrection against royal government more closely than illegal taxation, which touched only the few, or stretches of prerogative, which were scarcely appreciated save by lawyers. The sacerdotal party seem throughout to have been determined on bringing royalty into unseemly collision with every high-minded feeling, as well

as with every religious sentiment, except their own. In our last number we gave the account, hitherto overlooked by historians, of the latest abortive effort to extirpate Dissent by fire, in the person of one Trendall, a stonemason, in 1639, under Charles I., initiated by the Privy Council, approved of by Bishop Neal, to whom the case had been referred; the same prelate who had himself managed the burning of Weightman, the Unitarian; the same who was notorious as the patron of Laud, and as having himself, in Dean Stanley's language, 'ascended the longest ladder of preferment known in our ' annals.' This intended execution was prevented only by downright fear of popular disapproval, on the eve of rebellion. But such horrible events or designs were rare: the domestic inquisition, with its apparatus of spies and informers, and prying into cabinets and extorting suspicious meanings from letters and diaries, was in permanence. We may remember how Bishop Williams, for concealing' a letter reflecting on Laud from one Osbaldiston, a schoolmaster, was fined 8,0007. and imprisoned; Osbaldiston also fined, and to stand on the pillory before his school in Dean's Yard, with his ears nailed to it,' as appears by the Star Chamber documents, just printed by the Historical Record Commission. It is scarcely possible, with modern notions, to conceive existence in England under such terms. No wonder the rough shores of Massachusetts were looked on as a refuge. Vexations, temporal and spiritual,' says Carlyle, beyond what we can well fancy now, afflicted the souls of men. We have often wondered,' say the editors of Lord Clarendon's History,' doubtless revolving in their minds the perversity with which this kind of discipline was sought to be enforced on the realm in the two generations before the Civil War, that any Prince should care to govern a people against their natures, their laws, and their inclinations.'

As it is said that the discharges of artillery in a great battle disperse the clouds overhead, so history shows that the first collision of men in earnest in civil strife is apt to silence and to dissipate the long-drawn controversies, the small persecutions, the mutual misunderstandings and irritations which have contributed their utmost to bring the disaster about. The clash of swords at Edghill cleared the air of the lurid vapours of politico-religious oppression. Civil war brought with it its own attendant evils; nor was sectarian zeal less active or less virulent after than before the explosion; but it wrought its work in a different spirit. We hear no more of the petty inquisitorial vexations which had almost driven the country to

madness before the outbreak. Controversy might be as fierce as ever, but at all events it waxed manlier-south of the Tweed at all events. Men may hate, and oppress, those whom they have met at the sword's point; but they can hardly maintain towards them the relation of pedantic schoolmasters towards petulant children.

The Trevelyans took different sides in the great quarrel of the seventeenth century. Richard, of Midelney, Roundhead, was a member of the Somerset Committee, and signed certain reports in consequence of which his kinsmen of the opposite faction were brought into trouble. John, of Kingsbury, had the imprudence, at the beginning of the troubles, to announce that we will hang the Roundheads at twopence a dozen.' 'Nevertheless, his proud spirit was tamed by twenty years' ' imprisonment, which was brought to a close by his taking the 'National League and Covenant and the Negation Oath.'

It must, we fear, be confessed that the head of the house, George Trevelyan, of Nettlecombe, Royalist colonel, did not show the courage of his convictions when the affairs of his cause began to decline in the West of England. He surrendered himself to his neighbour Antony Buller, governor of Scilly and son of the member for Cornwall, very peacefully, in November 1644, having been for the space of six months before 'the time of such his render constantly abiding within the Parliament quarters.' His wife Margaret (by birth a Strode), in her petition on his behalf, says, that he was made a colonel 'for the raising of horse and foot by his Majesty since his departure from the Parliament of England, and did by colour 'thereof raise some forces of horse; but within short time thereafter, being informed of his error and duly considering the 'same, did, without any actual service by him done, with much sorrow and grief for such his error, lay down his arms, desert his power, and submit himself to the power and mercy of the 'Parliament; and though his estate be but small, his children 'many, and debts great, hath advanced 2007. in money to the 'Parliament, besides horses and arms; and rendered himself according to the ordinance of the 4th of October last, and 'taken the National League and Covenant and Oath of Nonadherence.' This letter is accompanied with a true par'ticular' of all George Trevelyan's estate, real and personal, (for the purpose of composition), by which we are enabled to judge with what means a gentleman and colonel of those days thought himself justified in claiming to be of small estate.' His realty was estimated at 6287. per annum; the demesne lands' in his two manors of Nettlecombe and Whalesborough

amounting to 550l. rack rent, the remainder being compounded of rents of assize.' Personalty, 6007.; debts, per contra, 510l. The personalty comprised a great variety of stock and articles of furniture, including a pair of virginals and two books.' He was ultimately assessed at 1,000l. on 'the twentieth part of his estates.' It may be presumed, with proper allowance made for the diminished value of money, that the ex-royalist colonel was about the equivalent of a squire of 3,000l. or 4,000l. a year of the present day.

Margaret Trevelyan, née Strode, seems to have been the heroine of the family in these days, and her memory lives in family tradition accordingly. She is believed to have

'concealed the family plate under the floor of the old nursery, where it was found in our great-grandfather's time. The great point was to obtain a pardon for George Trevelyan's delinquency, and the discharge of the sequestration on his estate; and for this work of practical skill and conciliation, Margaret Trevelyan seems to have been considered better qualified than her husband. She, therefore, exerted herself a second time to raise funds, not, as on the former occasion, in aid of the Royal cause, but to save her husband and children from the disastrous consequences of his devotion to it. Our present experience gives no idea of the difficulty there then was in raising what we should now consider a moderate sum of money. Even considerable country families lived chiefly upon the produce of their home farms; money rents were small and uncertain; capital was scarce and dear; many facilities we now possess for obtaining loans had not been thought of; and, in this case, the exhausting effects of previous war expenditure weighed heavily upon the estate. To such straits was Mrs. Trevelyan reduced, that the stock of corn in the barton ("the great barley mow " of the family tradition) had to be threshed out and sold; and, as the carriage horses had been carried off, the farm oxen were yoked to the family coach to convey her to London.'

One is sorry to hear that having accomplished her object and effected the release of her husband, she died of the smallpox ' at Hounslow, on the first stage of her journey home.' The Royalist sacrifices of George Trevelyan, such as they were, obtained for the family, after the Restoration, their still existing baronetcy.

A more remarkable personage, at this period, than any of the name of Trevelyan, seems to have been their cousin John Willoughby, of Gittisham and Payhembury in Devonshire, whom the editors call the central figure of the long corre'spondence which fills their third volume.' The letters addressed to and by him extend over a period of fifty-six years. He seems to have been the very type of the venerable, wealthy squire, the adviser and head man of a large kindred,