Francis Tregian the Elder

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Francis Tregian the Elder (1548-1608) was the son of Thomas Tregian of Wolvenden, Cornwall and Catherine Arundell. A staunch Catholic, he inherited substantial estates on the death of his father, including the manors of Bedock, Landegy, Lanner and Carvolghe, and the family home, 'Golden', in the parish of Probus, near Truro. He was the father of Francis Tregian the Younger.

In 1576 Tregian harboured a Catholic seminary priest, Cuthbert Mayne, who passed as his steward. On 8 June 1577, the Sheriff of Cornwall, Sir Richard Grenville surrounded the house with some hundred men and arrested both Tregian and Mayne, who was executed later that year. Tregian was also condemned to death, but this sentence was remitted to imprisonment. He was incarcerated at Windsor and then in various London prisons for twenty eight years, until he was released by King James I.

Tregian then retired to Madrid, where he enjoyed a pension from King Philip III of Spain. He died at the Jesuit hospice at St Roque, Lisbon, where he was buried upright under the pulpit, symbolic of his stand against Queen Elizabeth.