14 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2°^ s. X. July 7. '60. 



Trelawny ; and I find on inquiry that he " cele- 

 brated his last man-iage" there "on the 9th April, 

 1804." The late Mr. Davies Gilbert (Hist, of 

 Corn., vol. iii. p. 300, 1.) says "he resigned his 

 living on becoming a Roman Catholic." But 

 another county historian, C. S. Gilbert, more cor- 

 rectly, and probably receiving his information 

 from Sir H. T. himself, has given the true reason 

 for the resignation — that Sir H. T. would not 

 undertake to comply with the Act (then passed) 

 " obliging the clergy to residence." " The resig- 

 nation," he adds, " was matter of deep regret to 

 Sir H. T." Though he resigned in 1804, he was 

 still a clergyman of our church in 1824, and he 

 could not therefore have been a candidate for the 

 Papal chair previous to Mr. Fellowes' journey in 

 1817, or indeed for many years after it, for the 

 very good reason that the next vacancy did not 

 occur until 1823, on the death of Pius VII., who 

 had been elected in 1800. A glance at Mr. Fel- 

 lowes' book, in which hut one chapter is devoted to 

 La Trappe, will suffice to show that the only per- 

 son he there conversed with, " appeared a young 

 man about five-and-twenty." Unluckily for the 

 note- writer Sir H. T. was then above sixty years 

 of age. 



I have not been able to ascertain in what year 

 he became a Roman Catholic, but there is ample 

 evidence that this last of many changes in his 

 creed occurred very late in his life. In 1816 he 

 had not "left the church of his Fathers," for 

 Polwhele (Hist, of Com., vol. v. new ed. 1816), 

 after noticing that Sir H. T. had " progressed 

 through every stage of theological opinion," be- 

 cominginturn "Methodist," "Calvinistical Dissen- 

 ter," "Socinian," and "clergyman," adds: "about 

 two months previous to this his last gradation he 

 published a letter on the sin of subscription!" 

 Eight years later he had not " left the church of his 

 Fathers." Drew, in the 2nd vol. of his and Hitchins' 

 Hist, of Cornwall (1824), referring to some ob- 

 servations in the 1st vol. (for which Hitchins, 

 whose unfinished work he completed, was probably 

 responsible) respecting the " versatility of the 

 baronet's theological opinions," regrets they 

 should not have been qualified by remarking " that 

 stability of sentiment which has accompanied a 

 maturity of judgment resulting from inquiry, and 

 rendered permanent by conscientious investiga- 

 tion. More ihsmfo7'ty-six (43 ?) years have elapsed 

 since this pious and worthy country gentle- 

 man has enjoyed the honour of being a clergyman 

 of the Church of England," &c. Drew also calls 

 him the resident proprietor of Trelawn (which 

 Drew considered the proper name of the place). 

 In 1 824, then, Sir H. T. had changed neither his 

 faith nor his residence. Drew, a native of St. 

 Austell, within twenty miles of Trelawny, could 

 not have been ignorant of Sir H. T.'s where- 

 abouts, and being a zealous Methodist would not 



have been indifferent to a change to Romanism. 

 Some yeai-s later Drew must have lamented his 

 mistaken notion of the baronet's " stability of sen- 

 timent." 



Lady Trelawny died in Nov. 1822. By the 

 way, how absurd is the note-writer's fancy that 

 a married man could have been a candidate for 

 the " Papal diadem ! " As Pius VII. died in Aug. 

 1823, when Drew's book was probably going to 

 press. Sir H. T.'s change of religion, if it imme- 

 diately followed his wife's death, must have been 

 known to Drew, or at any rate would have been 

 too recent to have allowed him to become a can- 

 didate. Before his own death, in Feb. 1834, there 

 were, however, two vacancies in the Papal chair : 

 one in 1829, the other in 1831, and it is certainly 

 possible that so eccentric a person as the baronet 

 may have aspired to the Popedom ; but if he did, 

 his friends never heard of it. 



Was there then no story respecting hiui which 

 the heated imagination of the note-writer may 

 have magnified ? I can give you one which owed 

 its origin to a very trifling circumstance. After 

 the baronet had fixed his residence in Italy, and 

 but a very few years before his death, he applied 

 to the (then) vicar of Pelynt/or a certificate of the 

 death and burial of his lady. Presently, I am in- 

 formed, there arose in the neighbourhood a 

 " general impression that he was endeavouring to 

 obtain the dignity of a cardinal." Mr. Davies 

 Gilbert, however, who was a diligent collec- 

 tor of Cornish gossip, could never have heard 

 of this, or he would certainly have printed it, as 

 he has another rumour respecting Sir H. T., who, 

 " it is said, received the nominal honour from the 

 Holy See of being appointed a bishop in partibus 

 infidelium." That Mr. D. G. would not have 

 missed recording whatever he picked up may be 

 judged from his description of the funeral cere- 

 monies at Trelawny the year after the baronet's 

 death. ^ 



I cannot discover the way in which the story 

 that he buried himself in La Trappe could have 

 originated. I am positively informed that the 

 baronet's surviving acquaintances are " perfectly 

 convinced he never was a Trappist." If the obitu- 

 ary notice in the Gent's Mag. for June, 1834, cor- 

 rectly states that a " daughter was with him to the 

 last," it is certain he could never have been, even 

 for a short period, the inmate of a Trappist mo- 

 nastery. 



It may be thought I have occupied too much of 

 your space in the refutation of an idle story, al- 

 though I have, in doing so, been led to give some 

 notice of an eccentric, but in some respects esti- 

 mable and highly-gifted individual. You may, 

 however, consider it not undesirable to mark with 

 reprobation the prevailing tendency to render 

 secondhand books more attractive by connecting 

 them with stories as absurd and unfounded as that 



