Francis Tregian the Younger (1574–1618) was an English recusant. Once thought to have been the copyist of a handful of important music manuscripts, his musical activities are the subject of dispute.
Biography
Francis Tregian was the son of Francis Tregian the Elder and Mary Stourton. He is thought to have been born in 1574. (The birth year is derived from a household list drawn up in 1594 at the death of his teacher William Allen which referred to Tregian as being 20 years old: "molto nobile, di 20 anni, se colare di ingennio delicessimo dotto in filosofia, in musica et nella lingua latina." Not only is this the only document suggesting his age but it is also the only document associating him with music.) In 1577 his father was arrested for being a Roman Catholic and sheltering priests. He was imprisoned and dispossessed, and the Tregian family had to leave their manor house in Probus, Cornwall.
Tregian's mother and her children travelled 200 miles to London. She hoped that her brother John Stourton, 9th Baron Stourton, could intercede for her husband. She lodged in Clerkenwell with her mother, who had remarried after her father's death (her father had been executed). She eventually moved to her husband's prison.
The younger Tregian was sent to France sometime between 1582 and 1586. Despite a statute enacted in 1585 by Queen Elizabeth I which levied a penalty on religious dissidents who sent their children to school overseas, on 29 September 1586, he entered the English College in Douai, a stronghold of Roman Catholicism. As fees had to be paid in advance, Persons surmises that the elder Tregian arranged payment of fees in advance with the college's agent based in London. At the English College he probably undertook the typical course of study required of all beginning students which included Latin and Greek literature and grammar. Persons notes there was no evidence of Tregian's possible musical training at the English College. The younger Tregian apparently did well; he was chosen to give the congratulatory address to the Bishop of Piacenza on the latter's visit in 1591.
He obtained a position as chamberlain to Cardinal William Allen, and left for Rome on 11 July 1592 (It was once thought that Tregian encountered the composer Peter Philips who was serving William Allen in Rome. But Philips's stay in Rome was from 1582 to 1585, well before Tregian graduated the English College at Douai.) On Allen's death in 1594 Tregian appears to have gone to Brussels. A document from 1603 acknowledges Tregian as "being with the Archduke" there (the archduke being Archduke Albert). In an attempt to find a musical association, Persons notes that composer Peter Philips was the court organist to Archduke Albert from 1597 until after 1610 and that during the time Tregian was also associated with the Archduke, the two might have come into contact.
The situation of the Tregian family improved somewhat when James I came to the throne. The elder Tregian was released from prison and went into exile. It is known the younger Tregian was still in Brussels in 1606 when his father visited. Also in 1606 the younger Tregian returned to England to reclaim his father's estates. Existing documents show that he purchased an interest in his family estate, the manor house "Golden" together with surrounding lands, from Elizabeth Spencer for £6500 in 1607. The earliest record of his being convicted of recusancy is dated 7 July 1607 where the proceeds of his conviction are given to George Bland. The elder Tregian died in 1608. By September the Crown had seized two-thirds of the Tregian property as a fine for recusancy.
By 1608–1609 he was imprisoned in Fleet Prison in London. Documents as to the actual cause of his incarceration are lacking, but Persons, citing Boyan, appears to believe it was because he was unable to repay the large sums of money borrowed to repurchase the family estate. That, combined with his recusancy, were sufficient reasons for incarceration. In 1614, the people from whom he had borrowed money petitioned the House of Lords to sell the Tregian lands to repay their loans.