Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/187

 to the bishop of Worcester, Trelawny wrote: ‘I never put my hand to any letter, knew of or joined in any message … to invite him [i.e. William] … and … we had no other view by our petition than to shew our king … we could not distribute … his … declaration … which … was founded on such a dispensing power as … would quickly set aside all laws … and leave our church on no other establishment than the will and pleasure of a prince who … to extirpate it … seemed in haste’ (Trelawny to the bishop of Worcester, 25 Jan. 1716, Trelawne MSS., transcribed by the present baronet). Trelawny throughout the crisis was a passive well-wisher of the Revolution. Along with Compton of London, he failed to obey James II's summons despatched on 24 Sept. to the archbishops and eight bishops to attend him on the 28th. But James's power was nearly exhausted, and Trelawny threw his influence into the scale of the Prince of Orange. William landed on 5 Nov. Ten days later James sought to conciliate Trelawny by announcing his translation to the see of Exeter, which had previously been refused him (, Brief Relation, i. 476). It was too late; Trelawny welcomed to Bristol the prince's troops under Shrewsbury, and wrote thence to William, on 5 Dec., to express his satisfaction at having borne some part in the work for the preservation of the protestant religion, the laws and liberties of this kingdom (, Memoirs, ii. 252).

After James II's abdication Trelawny and Compton were the only two bishops in the House of Lords (29 Jan. 1689) in the majority of 51 against 49 by whom Sancroft's plan of a regency was rejected (, Own Time, iii. 399). Trelawny was one of the eleven bishops who drew up a form of prayers for the day of thanksgiving, 31 Jan., and he and Lloyd of St. Asaph alone of the seven bishops took the oaths to William and Mary. Immediately after William and Mary's coronation, Trelawny's nomination to Exeter was confirmed, 13 April 1689 ({sc|Godwin}}, De Præsulibus;, vi. 182; , Athenæ).

Trelawny sat in October on the ecclesiastical commission appointed to prepare a scheme of comprehension for the convocation of November–December. The following summer (1690) he set out for his new diocese, halting at Oxford. Forcing his way into the hall of Exeter College, he deprived, as visitor, the rector, Dr. Bury, for contumacy in nailing up the gates and denying his power, for corruption in selling the office of butler and others of the buttery, and for heresy as author of the ‘Naked Gospel.’ Ten of the fellows he suspended for three months (26 July). An appeal by the rector to the king's bench went against the visitor. Upon the privy council taking up the matter, Trelawny told them plainly that they were no court of judicature, and that he would be determined only by Westminster Hall (Trelawny Papers, ed. Cooper). The judgment of the king's bench was reversed in the lords on 7 Dec. 1694 (, iii. 409, 411). Thereby was ‘fixed,’ wrote Atterbury, ‘the power of visitors (not till then acknowledged final) upon the secure foundation of a judgment in parliament.’ By another parliamentary decision, obtained while still bishop of Exeter, in the case against Sampson Hele, Trelawny established a bishop's sole right to judge the qualifications of persons applying for institution to a benefice (Notes and Queries, 1st ser. iv. 481, x. 202).

In the late summer of 1691 he made his first visitation of his diocese; he was at Plymouth in September (, Hist. of Plymouth, p. 269). He had already provided for the defence of Exeter against a landing from the French fleet which swept the Channel in that year. Subsequently Trelawny declared himself in sympathy with Anne and the Churchills in their open breach with the king in 1691 and 1692, and for the next ten years he held aloof from court. Visiting his diocese with vigour, he retired often to his seat at Trelawne, where he rebuilt and reconsecrated the family chapel on 23 Nov. 1701.

He emerged from his retirement in the same year to give active support to the movement led by Atterbury, whose friend and patron he was, for the revival of convocation and the execution of the Præmunientes clause. When the convocation met (10 Feb. 1701–2) and its proceedings resolved themselves into a struggle of the lower house against the right of the primate to prorogue them, Trelawny, ‘the avowed patron and defender of the synodical rights of the clergy’, entered his protest, along with Compton and Sprat, against the resolutions of the bishops (, Continuation of Rapin, iii. 529). From this point until his death Trelawny possessed in Atterbury an unwearied correspondent. Trelawny gave him in January 1701 the archdeaconry of Totnes, and much other preferment. On 6 July 1704 he thanked his patron, to whom all the happiness of his life was due, for having obtained for him from the queen the deanery of Carlisle.

After the accession of Anne, Trelawny, at the queen's desire, preached before her in St. Paul's the thanksgiving sermon for the suc-