Major General Charles Trelawny, also spelt 'Trelawney', (1653 – 24 September 1731) was an English soldier from Cornwall who played a prominent part in the 1688 Glorious Revolution, and was a Member of Parliament for various seats between 1685 and 1713.
Trelawny began his military career in 1673, and held a number of senior commands under Charles II. Like many Tories, he initially backed the succession of James II in 1685, despite his Catholicism; his defection in 1688 illustrated the extent to which James had alienated his primary support base.
His elder brother, Sir Jonathan Trelawny, was one of the Seven Bishops whose prosecution and subsequent acquittal destroyed James' political authority. Along with John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough, Trelawny organised support within the army for the November 1688 Glorious Revolution, when James was replaced by his Protestant daughter Mary, and Dutch son-in-law William of Orange.
Trelawny served in the 1689 to 1691 Williamite War in Ireland, before resigning his commission in 1692. He remained an MP, and acted as political manager in Cornwall and Devon for his fellow Cornishman, Sidney Godolphin, Lord High Treasurer from 1702 to 1710. A Hanoverian Tory who supported the succession of George I, he left Parliament in 1713, and lived quietly at home, where he died in 1731.
Personal details
Charles Trelawny was born in 1653, fourth of five surviving sons of Sir Jonathan Trelawny (1623-1681) and Mary Seymour (1619-1680), daughter of Sir Edward Seymour (1610-1688), a junior branch of the Dukes of Somerset. His siblings included John (1646-1680), Jonathan (1650-1721), Henry (1658-1702) and Chichester (died 1694).
On 1 May 1690, Trelawny married his cousin Anne Morice (1672-1690), widow of William Morice (1660-1688), MP for Newport in Cornwall. When she died in childbirth in 1690, Trelawny inherited her estates near Hengar, Cornwall; in June 1699, he married again, this time to Elizabeth Mitchell, whose father Thomas was Rector of Notgrove, Gloucestershire. They had one surviving daughter, of whom little is known; she seems to have predeceased her father, since Trelawny left his lands and property to his nephew Edward.
Career
Europe and Africa; 1673-1684
The 1638-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms created strong resistance in Scotland and England to a professional army and those who wanted a military career usually did so in foreign service. In the 1670 Treaty of Dover, Charles II of England agreed to support a French attack on the Dutch Republic and supply a British Brigade of 6,000 troops for the French army. Louis XIV paid him £230,000 per year for this, a secret provision not revealed until 1775.
When the Franco-Dutch War began in 1672, Trelawny joined the Royal English Regiment, recruited as part of the Brigade. The alliance with Catholic France was deeply unpopular; many doubted its reliability against the Protestant Dutch and so it served mainly in the Rhineland. However, some officers took part in the 1673 siege of Maastricht as volunteers, including Trelawny and John Churchill, later Duke of Marlborough.
The Third Anglo-Dutch War ended with the February 1674 Treaty of Westminster, the wider Franco-Dutch War continuing until 1678. While many Brigade members transferred to the Dutch military, Charles encouraged others to remain in order to continue being paid by Louis. In March 1674, Trelawny became a captain in the second battalion of the Royal English, led by Bevil Skelton. From 1674 to 1675, his unit served under Turenne at the battles of Enzheim and Altenheim; declining numbers and domestic opposition meant the Brigade was dissolved in 1676.
In July 1680, Trelawny was appointed major in the 2nd Tangier Regiment, raised for service in the Tangier Garrison. An English possession since 1662, its garrison suffered heavy losses from disease and combat; his eldest brother, John was killed there in May 1680. The regiment was commanded by an illegitimate son of Charles II, the Earl of Plymouth, who died soon after arrival. He was replaced by Percy Kirke, who commanded until 1682 when Trelawny took over and remained in Tangier until it was abandoned in 1684.