TREVOR, Sir Thomas (?1612-76), of Enfield, Mdx. and Leamington Hastings, Warws.

Trevor’s father of the same name, a younger son of Sir John Trevor (d.1589) of Trefalun, Denbighshire, last sat in the Commons in 1624. He was then solicitor to the prince of Wales, on whose accession as Charles I a year later he became a baron of the exchequer. As one of the Ship Money judges he was to be fined £6,000 and temporarily imprisoned in 1643, but having refused the king’s summons to Oxford he presided over the exchequer court in London until 1649, when he rejected a fresh commission following Charles’s execution.17HP Commons 1604-1629; ‘Sir Thomas Trevor’, Oxford DNB.

His heir Thomas, born in the London parish of St Swithun, was likewise bred to the law, gaining privileged entrance to the Inner Temple in 1626.18PROB11/353/178; I. Temple database. While still only 20 he married the 15-year-old daughter of a well-to-do London goldsmith, Robert Jenner*, who provided a £5,000 portion and land in Wiltshire.19Flint RO, Plas Têg MS 940-1. Called to the bar in 1634, three years later Trevor succeeded his father as an auditor of the duchy of Lancaster, thereby gaining access to a potentially lucrative career.20I. Temple database; Duchy of Lancaster Officeholders, 70.

It seems that in spring 1640 Trevor was nominated by his father for a seat in Parliament, but the constituency is unknown, and nothing came of it.21SP16/450, f. 25. Like his father-in-law, who had also sat in 1628 and spring 1640, Trevor was returned to Parliament in the autumn of 1640. He was chosen for Monmouth, probably because of the borough’s association with the duchy of Lancaster and of his father’s association with its former steward, William Herbert, late 3rd earl of Pembroke, whose office had been inherited by Philip Herbert*, the 4th earl. Despite the fact that Monmouth had only one seat, Trevor was returned with William Watkins*. The latter appeared in the House only to be provisionally excluded on 16 November while a committee investigated his activities as a monopolist.22CJ ii. 30a; Procs. LP i. 153, 155, 157-9. In the meantime, one source recorded that on 21 November Trevor was among MPs who offered security for the defence, indicating that he too was at Westminster.23Procs. LP i. 235. On 26 November the election of Watkins was referred to the privileges committee, although it is not clear which reasons were cited or whether Trevor’s standing was also questioned at this point.24Procs. LP i. 321. Both men disappeared from view, although a listing published in 1641 included Trevor as the sole Member for Monmouth.25A Catalogue of the Names of the Knights (1641), n.p. It was not until 22 January 1644 that Trevor’s election was referred to the privileges committee, and not until 29 November that year that, following a report from Herefordshire MP Sir Robert Harley* on the return of both, it was resolved that Trevor was ‘not well elected’ and the whole proceedings declared void.26CJ ii. 374a, 679b, 708b.

In the interim, Watkins had put himself beyond the pale, having participated in the Oxford Parliament. Trevor’s pretensions may have been dampened as early as December 1640, with the start of proceedings in Parliament against his father. In August 1641, as of Enfield, he received a baronetcy from the king, followed by a knighthood in December, both presumably bestowed in hope that he would be a loyal servant of the crown.27CB. His activities around the outbreak of war in 1642 are unknown, but having paid £50 to Parliament on 15 November 1642, he was assessed on 30 June 1643 at £200. A week later, having paid a further £50, he was discharged on payment of £120.28CCAM 181. On 14 August, when the parliamentary cause was at a low ebb, he was among Middlesex gentlemen ordered to be secured and brought before the House of Lords to answer for their failure to supply horses.29LJ vi. 180a. He appears to have escaped serious repercussions, but suspicions of his loyalty around this time may conceivably have influenced the verdict on his Monmouth seat.

Whatever the truth of this, within a few months Trevor was persona grata to Parliament. He was appointed a commissioner of sewers in May 1645 and was re-appointed to the Middlesex commission of the peace in June 1646.30C181/5, f. 252v; C231/6, p. 47. The following year he was returned with John Carew* as a recruiter MP for Tregony in Cornwall. His first cousin Sir John Trevor*, a man of note in the House if hardly at this juncture an assiduous attender, was Member for nearby Grampound and had a Cornish mother. Sir Thomas Trevor took the Covenant on 24 February 1647 with 19 other Members.31CJ v. 97a. He was then absent from the Journal for over ten months, during which, his first wife having died, he married the younger daughter of a merchant of Flemish extraction, Samuel Fortrey (also de la Forterie or Fortery), who had built a fine house at Kew before his death in 1643. Her brother, also Samuel Fortrey (1622-?1682), was one of the original investors in the Bedford Level project and later published a well-received tract on English trade.32London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 1358; Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), 284; St Mary Magdalen, Richmond, par. reg.; PROB11/202/267; ‘Samuel Fortrey’, Oxford DNB.

Trevor resurfaced in the Commons on 4 January 1648, when in the aftermath of the Vote of No Addresses to the king, he was named with Sir John Trevor and the latter’s son John Trevor* to the committee of grievances.33CJ v. 417a. His sole committee appointment came more than ten months later, when he was included on the committee to decide the future of castles and other garrisoned strongholds (25 Nov.).34CJ vi. 87a. It is therefore surprising – since the occasion surely demanded a heavyweight – to find him as a teller on 4 December for the majority who defeated the radicals’ motion to put the question as to whether the king’s response to the House’s proposition to him was satisfactory, and who by their refusal to abandon the possibility of peace with Charles provoked the army into Pride’s purge. Less surprisingly, Trevor’s partner was a Mr Herbert – probably one of the earl of Pembroke’s younger sons, either John Herbert* or James Herbert*.35CJ vi. 93b. This fact hints at the patronage network which may have brought him closer to the centre of political action than his low profile in the Journal suggests. Trevor paid the price of his rare prominence, being secluded on 6 December.36A List of the Imprisoned and Secluded Members (1648, 669.f.13.62); A Vindication (1649), 28 (irregular pagination) (E.539.5).

Like his father, Trevor steered clear of public life under the commonwealth and early protectorate, although he re-engaged with the Inner Temple, where he was chosen Christmas marshal four times between 1652 and 1655 (and was to be so again in 1660).37CITR ii. 303, 307, 310, 316, 335. Following the death in December 1656 of his father, to whom he was executor, he inherited the manor of Leamington Hastings, and in 1657 was named both to the Warwickshire assessment commission and the sewers commission for the home counties.38C181/6, p. 221; A. and O.; PROB11/261/13. His cousin John Trevor’s position as a protectorate loyalist and the shortage of suitable high-status officeholders in Warwickshire may both have played a part in this.39A. Hughes, Politics, Society and Civil War in Warws. (Cambridge, 1987), 297.

Trevor made no impression on the records of Long Parliament after its return in February 1660, but he was named to assessment and militia commissions in January and March.40A. and O. He did not sit in Parliament again, but was otherwise visible in public life. Created a knight of the bath at Charles II’s coronation, he occupied his office as auditor of the duchy, and handled the interest in fee farm rents which he had inherited from his father.41CB; CTB ii. 448; iii. 619, 994, 1009-10, 1049, 1184-5, 1197; CSP Dom. 1671-2, p. 171. Judging by the dedications made to him by the former sequestered clergyman John Allington, who was his household chaplain in Warwickshire by 1671, Trevor was a devoted royalist.42J. Allington, The Period of the Grand Conspiracy (1663), sigs. A3, A4; The Regal Proto-Martyr (1672), sig. A2; Walker Revised, 301. In March 1675 he and his Surrey neighbour Henry Capel† obtained a patent to extract gravel from New Park in Richmond.43CTB iv. 717.

When the childless Trevor began to draft his will in August 1669, the two John Trevors were still living, and the younger was named as a beneficiary, but both pre-deceased him.44PROB11/353/178. He died on 5 February 1676, and was buried at Leamington Hastings like his father.45CB. His widow went on to marry Sir Francis Compton† as his third wife, the second having been a daughter of Sir John Trevor: Compton thus acquired the future royal palace at Kew as his residence.46HP Commons 1660-1690. By a prior disposition, Sir Thomas Trevor left the bulk of his estate to his kinsman Sir Charles Wheler†, 2nd bt., heir of William Wheler*.47PROB11/353/178.