TREVOR, Sir John (c.1596-1673), of Plas Têg, Flint, Trefalun, Denb. and Canon Row, Westminster

Twenty-first in descent from tenth-century Welsh chieftain Tudor Trevor, this MP had a Londoner for his grandmother and a Cornishwoman for his mother, and was brought up mainly in Surrey. There his father, a younger son who had carved a career at court as a protégé of the lord admiral, Charles Howard, 1st earl of Nottingham, was keeper of the royal park of Oatlands; he sat seven times in Parliament for English boroughs.55‘Sir John Trevor I’, HP Commons 1604-1629. Although our MP represented north Welsh counties on his first three stints in Parliament between 1621 and 1625, his marriage had already linked him with a south midlands nexus which included John Hampden*, Sir Richard Wenman† (1st Viscount Wenman of Tuam), Sir Alexander Denton* and Sir Ralph Winwood†. He came in for English seats from 1628, when he owed his return to his father’s latest patron, William Herbert, 3rd earl of Pembroke.56‘Sir John Trevor II’, HP Commons 1604-1629; Glynde Place Archives, 62-4.

Sir John junior’s marriage settlement ensured he was well provided for even before his father’s death in 1630; thereafter he acquired lands in several counties of England and Wales, some subject to the life interest of his mother, with whom he was for a while in dispute.57Glynde Place Archives, 53-4, 63; PROB11/157/398. Although not all his father’s offices came his way, he was himself appointed gentleman of the privy chamber in 1628, he had long had a share in the auditorship of the duchy of Lancaster, and from 1627 he was deputy to his younger brother Charles as keeper of Oatlands.58LC5/132, pp. 3, 122; Duchy of Lancaster Officeholders, 70; E. Suss. RO, GLY/224-6, 255-70. He also inherited his father’s portion of the Newcastle-upon-Tyne coal farm, that is, the collection of a duty on every chaldron of seabound coal, of which Trevor senior had become a co-lessee in 1604.59E. Suss. RO, GLY/389, 390, 454-66; CSP Dom. 1661-2, p. 616. The lease, held with others including Sir Thomas Bludder*, was renewed in 1638.60Coventry Docquets, 233; CCC 2260-1. Meanwhile he was named in 1635 to a potentially lucrative commission to seek out those engaged in illegal exports.61CSP Dom. 1635, p. 514. The death, probably in 1639, of his father’s elder brother Sir Richard Trevor then put him in possession of the family’s principal estate at Trefalun in Denbighshire.62Trevors of Trevalyn, 36-8, 65; Glynde Place Archives, p. xxi; PROB11/182/87.

Through the 1630s Trevor had from time to time been named to the commission of the peace in counties where he had property.63Justices of the Peace ed Phillips, 70-1, 107. His varied and far-flung connections, landed and personal, may well have pulled him in different directions by the end of the decade. While he remained a courtier, his brother-in-law John Hampden was prosecuted in the celebrated Ship Money case by his uncle, Sir Thomas Trevor†, a baron of the exchequer, with whom he shared the duchy of Lancaster auditorship.64s.v. ‘John Hampden’; ‘Sir Thomas Trevor’, HP Commons 1604-1629. Surprisingly, given his previous service, Trevor was not returned to the Short Parliament.

Long Parliament 1640-5

In the autumn of 1640 Trevor was elected to Parliament for Grampound either on his mother's family interest, or through the influence of Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, as steward of the duchy of Cornwall, or both. On 16 November he was named fifth in the list for the committee of privileges.65CJ ii. 2b. As the grievances arising from the personal rule of Charles I, including Ship Money, surfaced in the House and Sir Thomas Trevor came under fire, Sir John Trevor’s position may have been awkward. On 14 December Sir Simonds D’Ewes noted him as having been present at a committee ‘on forest business’ to which he had not been nominated, but in which he displayed a long-term interest. D’Ewes misidentified him as ‘one of the barons of the exchequer’ in recording that he stood up to adopt a less assertive line with regard to the crown’s forest rights in Essex than that taken by the now beleaguered lord keeper, Sir John Finch†.66Procs. LP i. 592.

After this, Trevor disappeared from the House’s records for more than three years. Even his whereabouts are uncertain. In January 1642 he was in Paris, evidently on some kind of mission for the king; he was communicating with envoys in Brussels and Madrid, and his expenses were considerable.67SP78/111, f. 189. On 19 March he was named first in a commission to justices of the peace in Anglesey, and four days later it appeared from a coal lease warrant that he was still a member of the privy chamber.68CSP Dom. 1641-3, p. 299; Glynde Place Archives, 49. Yet it seems clear from what followed that he took no part in the royalist war effort. Given that his eldest son entered the University of Leiden in 1643, and received no higher education in England, it may be that for a time Sir John also put physical distance between himself and the conflict.69English-Speaking Students at Leyden ed. E. Peacock, 99.

On 22 January 1644, after the disabling of several royalist Members including his wife’s kinsman Sir Alexander Denton*, Trevor was ‘admitted to sit as Member of this House’.70CJ iii. 374a He took the Covenant eight days later with others including Pembroke’s heir, Philip Herbert*, Lord Herbert (31 Jan.).71CJ iii. 383b. Although the recent inroads made by the forces of Sir William Brereton* into the royalist-controlled north west may have been a factor – offering as they did the best prospect since the beginning of the war of regaining possession of estates placed beyond safe reach – the immediate motivation for Trevor’s belated commitment to Parliament is unknown, but his adherence was unquestionably serious. In the ensuing twelve months he received 28 committee nominations, as well as being entrusted by the House with other business.

Just as the permission he received on 19 March with his brother-in-law Thomas Wenman*, 2nd Viscount Wenman, to visit Denton in the Tower offers one clue to royalist ties which might explain Trevor’s inactivity heretofore, so certain preoccupations soon emerge which indicate his religious and political stance.72CJ iii. 432a. Only five weeks after his re-appearance, he was asked with the religious Presbyterian Francis Rous* to convey the thanks of the Commons to the preachers at the recent fast day at St Margaret’s (28 Feb.), indicating a close relationship with leading London ministers.73CJ iii. 410a. Similarly, in December he was requested, with the recorder of London, John Glynne*, a frequent associate on committees, and Samuel Browne*, to thank Stephen Marshall, Thomas Hill and Obadiah Sedgwick for their sermons to both Houses at Lincoln’s Inn chapel.74CJ iii. 727a. In the meantime he had been placed on committees dealing with the reorganisation of Westminster Abbey (27 Mar.) and a petition from those parishioners of St Margaret’s who had formed a new congregation near Tothill Fields (7 June), and had been named first to a small group of MPs (including Glynne) and ministers (including Marshall) tasked with selecting suitable Welsh-speaking preachers to despatch to parliamentarian commander Sir Thomas Myddelton* in north Wales (20 July).75CJ iii. 439b, 521a, 565b. Subsequently he was nominated to the Presbyterian-dominated committee preparing an ordinance to suppress drunkenness, blasphemy and sexual sins (29 Jan. 1645).76CJ iv. 35b.

Religious reform, probably at this point of a Presbyterian cast, was clearly important to him; undated religious meditations reveal his personal piety.77Glynde Place Archives, 42. But Trevor’s major parliamentary involvement in 1644 was in the fundraising for, and the organisation of, the war effort. His appointments – presumably stemming at least in part from his duchy of Lancaster experience – concerned both national and local initiatives, and reached beyond the ostensible scope even of his far-flung business and property interests. His first nomination (29 Jan. 1644) related to the payment of arrears, and he was soon named to committees to formalise the pay and command structure all parliamentary forces (23 Mar.), to raise money (11 Apr., 27 May), and to prepare ordinances for excise (11 May) and for taking the accounts of the kingdom (6 June).78CJ iii. 380b, 437a, 457a, 489a, 508b, 519b. Later he was named to the Committee for Sequestrations (7 Aug.) – of which he was an active member – and to committees for considering the receipt and issue of public money (24 Aug.) and preparing the ordinance for weekly assessments for the campaign in Ireland (27 Aug.).79SP20/1, ff. 196v, 283, 288, 302v, 356, 365, 377, 440, 487, 500; SP20/2, ff. 43, 177; SP20/3, f. 38; CJ iii. 581b, 606a, 609a. He was on committees dealing with forces, garrisons and arenas of war from Gloucester to Newport Pagnell; the southern association under Sir William Waller*; and on the northern counties occupied by the Scots (30 Jan., 26 Feb., 23 Mar., 30 May, 8 June, 8 Oct., 21 Nov.).80CJ iii. 383b, 408a, 435a, 498a, 510b, 523a, 655b, 701a.

However, it was plausibly the affairs of the north west and north Wales which engaged his most specific attention, ranged him with his most frequent associates, and were to be of the most enduring concern in the 1640s. He was placed with Sir William Brereton and Sir Thomas Myddelton on a committee to review the condition of Cheshire, Lancashire, Staffordshire and Shropshire (15 Feb.), and on 6 May was sent with William Ashhurst*, a pious Presbyterian from Lancashire, to expedite the payment of funds to Brereton’s forces in Cheshire.81CJ iii. 400a, 482a. As early as 9 March he was drafting instructions for collecting money from receivers of royal lands appointed by the Committee for the Revenue, to be expended on Brereton’s army.82Glynde Place Archives, 43.

As with Ashhurst, but not Brereton, there is no evidence to link Trevor directly to the parliamentarian commander Robert Devereux, 3rd earl of Essex. On the other hand, his record through 1644 seems to place him in the camp of the political Presbyterians. That his activity to promote the war effort was accompanied by a desire to bring the conflict to a swift conclusion is indicated by his inclusion in the deputation headed by Glynne, which on 3 May went with peers to assure the City authorities that they were working on peace propositions.83CJ iii. 478a. It is true that he was nominated on 3 July to work on the ordinance for keeping courts to punish papists and delinquents – a measure arguably calculated to exacerbate divisions.84CJ iii. 550b. But in the autumn he was added to the committee on northern counties to which he had been named with Ashhurst and Brereton in February – this time with a whole clutch of peace-party activists including Denzil Holles* – once again with a brief to consider papers from the Scottish commissioners (13 Sept.).85CJ iii. 408a, 626b. Nominated to the Presbyterian-dominated committee to expand London forces (5 Oct.), he was in similar company on the committee chaired by Walter Long* which considered propositions to the king advanced by the City of London (15 Oct.).86CJ iii. 654b, 665a. When a joint committee with the Lords addressed the king’s answer, he was again included (16 Dec.).87CJ iii. 725b.

But by this time Trevor’s appearances in the Journal were beginning to fall away from the regular pattern he had maintained since January, which had been punctuated only by a leave for ten days obtained on 24 July.88CJ iii. 570b. Five weeks passed between the order of 19 December for him, Glynne and Browne to thank preachers and Trevor’s inclusion with Browne on a committee investigating complaints of soldiers’ ‘outrages’ in Bedfordshire (24 Jan. 1645).89CJ iii. 727a; iv. 28b. That day he also reprised a previous assignment when ordered to expedite payment of a regiment in the north west – in this case that of Raphe Assheton II*.90CJ iv. 29b. As Parliament was riven by dissension over the Self-Denying Ordinance and plans for a New Model army, Trevor was absent from the Journal in February, but the fact that he was among MPs who accompanied Presbyterian leader Sir Philip Stapilton* to the Lords on 6 March to announce a Commons adjournment points to a continuing association with the peace party.91CJ iv. 71b. Like Glynne and Ashhurst he was named on 24 March to the Presbyterian-dominated committee refining the ordinance.92CJ iv. 88a.

Soon afterwards news from north Wales arrived which both fed into factional conflict at Westminster and affected Trevor personally. At some date in early April – uncertainty over which has been described as ‘mysterious to the point of arousing suspicion’ – some troops from the army of Brereton and Myddelton plundered Trevor’s house at Plas Têg while quartered there.93Brereton Lttr. Bks i. 168n. On the 7th the two commanders wrote to reprimand the soldiers’ officers for contravening parliamentary orders giving Trevor protection from such depredations, but Brereton’s readiness to bring others’ attention to the fact that the ‘great spoil’ of Trevor’s goods stemmed from the perpetrators’ lack of pay and supplies suggests that, at the least, he was keen to make political and financial capital out of the incident, and possibly even – despite his protestations to the contrary – that he had allowed it to unfold.94Brereton Lttr. Bks i. 165-9, 171, 298; CSP Dom. 1644-5, p. 425. Trevor’s initial response to Brereton of the 19th was relatively restrained, perhaps on account of their previous co-operation, or a measure of agreement on the root of the problem. Trevor considered there was ‘good reason the captains should reflect on what they have done’; if ‘they will not deal fairly with me’ in restoring his property, he requested ‘leave to press against them, which divers of my friends that are of the best judgement and in trust in the House advise me to’, but he hoped ‘by your favour and power that that will be prevented, and small matters I shall not press’.95Brereton Lttr. Bks i. 259. Most other letters to Brereton suggest active co-operation at Westminster in April and May between Ashhurst, Glynne, Assheton and Trevor over both Trevor’s loss and the maintenance of forces in the north west and north Wales. A dissonant note was struck by Myddelton, who told Brereton on 29 April that Trevor and Glynne had written requesting ‘condign punishment of both officers and men’ who had offended at Plas Têg, and there are other hints that Trevor’s line hardened.96Brereton Lttr. Bks i. 22-3, 272, 292, 295-6, 312, 338, 389. How exactly this fits into Commons politicking at this juncture is difficult to determine, although it is evident that the episode fed into tensions between Myddelton and Brereton (and possibly also into pre-war antagonism between Trevor and Myddelton), and that together these caused a stir at Westminster.97Glynde Place Archives, 60. According to a correspondent of Brereton, there had been ‘so many letters from so many Members of the House on one subject’ and a ‘deep impression’ had been made by information from one ‘Mr John Jones, a kinsman or officer’ of Myddelton’s, almost certainly John Jones I*.98Brereton Lttr. Bks i. 22-3, 292.

In the midst of this Brereton was transferring his allegiance from the Presbyterians towards the Independents and the New Model; Trevor’s precise stance does not appear. On 11 April he was placed with Ashhurst – who was already in the pro-army camp – on the committee working on an ordinance for reconstituting the excise, only to disappear from the Journal for nearly three months; perhaps preoccupied with his losses, Trevor was nonetheless apparently for the most part still in London.99CJ iv. 107a. He resurfaced on 5 July to be appointed with Glynne, Myddelton, Brereton and others to consider a petition from Pembrokeshire, while on 2 August he was not only added with Glynne and Ashhurst to the important committee which sifted all petitions presented to the House, but was also designated its chair.100CJ iv. 197a, 228b. Since fulfilling this potentially highly-influential function entailed meeting at least once a week, it is somewhat surprising that on 5 August he was given a fortnight’s leave to go into the country.101CJ iv. 230a. However, given that on 23 July the Committee of Both Kingdoms gave him the first of two permissions that year to send a letter to his mother in a royalist-occupied area, his absence might be put down to a domestic concern.102CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 26. His departure may anyway have been delayed for a few days: also on the 5th he was nominated with Ashhurst, Assheton and Myddelton to a committee to plan the capture of Chester from royalist hands, an appointment he presumably welcomed.103CJ iv. 230b.

Trevor received only a handful of further mentions in the Journal in 1645, but they indicate that he lacked neither friends nor influence. Following Glynne’s report from the Committee for the Revenue, on 29 September he and his partners secured confirmation of their possession of the farm of seal coals, and at a lower rent, in recognition of their losses during the war; Sir Robert Harley*, another with interests on the borders of Wales, took the vote to the Lords.104CJ iv. 293a. On 4 October Trevor was added to Parliament’s naval executive, the Committee for the Admiralty and Cinque Ports, and on 22 November to the committee of Gloucester to deal with representations from Carmarthenshire.105CJ iv. 297a, 351b. On the latter day he also collected nominations to committees regulating the University of Cambridge and the College of Arms.106CJ iv. 350b, 351b.

Long Parliament 1646-8

In the early months of 1646, as circumstances offered the prospect of an end to hostilities, Trevor once again appeared more regularly in the Journal. Previously his experience as a gentleman of the privy chamber had rendered him useful when Parliament came to deal with property at St James’s palace (June 1644).107CJ iii. 516a, 541a. On 20 December 1645 he delivered to the Committee of Both Kingdoms papers from Windsor Castle, which had reached his hands by means that do not appear.108CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 271. Two weeks later, with Cornelius Holland*, another former member of the royal household, he was among those nominated to establish maintenance for the castle garrison, while on 7 April he was among those appointed to organise the sale of brass there to help pay for it.109CJ iv. 399a, 502b.

But north Wales was still his primary focus. Placed on the committee to consider plans for seizing control of garrisons and counties in the region (4 Feb.), with Glynne, Ashhurst and Edward Ashe* he was given charge of an ordinance to provide £10,000 for forces to be employed for the purpose (16 Feb.).110CJ iv. 429a, 443b. This was to be raised from the excise, in which he evidently maintained an interest, being named among scrutineers of its accounts (11 Mar.).111CJ iv. 472b. With Myddelton, Glynne and two others, he was appointed a commissioner to go ‘forthwith’ to north Wales and oversee its ‘reduction’ (28 Mar.), although it was not until 25 April that Glynne reported from the Committee of Both Kingdoms the instructions which were a pre-requisite.112CJ iv. 493b, 522a. In the meantime Trevor was named to committees settling government in the key north-western city of Chester (17 Apr.) and preparing an ordinance for assessments for use in Ireland.113CJ iv. 512a, 521a. Perhaps still at Westminster on 28 April, when he was nominated to the committee for the ordinance to drain the Great Level, he subsequently had an opportunity to fulfil the Welsh commission, his next definitive appearance in the House not being until late August.114CJ iv. 525a. He may have been visible when nominated to the committee for the ordinance regulating Oxford University (1 July), but appointments as a commissioner for exclusion from the sacrament (3 June) and a deputy lieutenant for Denbighshire (2 July) need not presuppose his physical presence in the House.115CJ iv. 562b, 595b, 598b.

When Trevor re-emerged on 28 August, after the surrender to Parliament of Anglesey, Flint and other royalist strongholds, it was in harness with Presbyterian leader Sir John Clotworthy*. In Trevor’s first outing as a teller, the pair marshalled a majority against an Independent move to reprove the sheriffs of London for their peace-seeking petition of the previous day.116CJ iv. 657a. On 10 September Trevor appeared in a similar partnership with Stapilton, this time defeating Sir Peter Wentworth* and Oliver Cromwell* to obtain a majority in favour of seeking the concurrence of the Lords to City propositions for paying off the Scottish army.117CJ iv. 665b. This did not betoken Trevor’s transformation into a Presbyterian activist, however. In the next seven months he received only five committee nominations – two religious (maintenance of [preaching] ministers, 11 Nov.; purging malignant ministers, 22 Mar. 1647), and one each relating to creditors of the crown (3 Oct. 1646), the enfranchisement of Durham (21 Dec.) and proposals for the navy (9 Jan. 1647) – and was absent from the Journal altogether in February and in April 1647.118CJ iv. 681b, 719b; v. 21b, 47a, 119b.

On 21 May Trevor received a nomination relating to consideration of a private petition, and on 15 June was directed, with Presbyterian-sympathiser Giles Grene*, to acquaint his old friend Stephen Marshall and Philip Nye that Parliament had designated these prominent ministers to reside with the army.119CJ v. 181a, 210b. Yet over the summer, when deteriorating relations between Presbyterians and the New Model gave rise first to the Presbyterian coup of late July and then to the army’s entry into London and the resurgence of the Independents, Trevor was conspicuous by his absence from the Journal – although his name was included on one of the lists of those Members who took refuge with the army following the Presbyterian coup.120HMC Egmont, i. 440. He re-emerged on 16 October, apparently free from implication in the coup, being given leave to go into the country for three weeks notwithstanding the order commanding MPs’ attendance on 3 November.121CJ v. 336a. Evidently postponing his departure, he received two committee nominations (30 Oct., 1 Nov.) and was chosen an alternative messenger to Miles Corbett* of the Commons’ invitation to a prospective preacher, this time to William Bridge.122CJ v. 340a, 346a, 347b. That Bridge, like Nye, was an Independent minister hints at complex allegiances.

By the end of 1647 Trevor was back at Westminster, the distance between him and hard-line Presbyterians becoming more explicit. His addition on 27 December to the Committee for Plundered Ministers looks overdue in the light of his acknowledged links to leading clergy, but might have stemmed from new perceptions of his sympathies – for example on the part of Corbett, the Committee’s leading light.123CJ v. 407a. Four days later Trevor joined his neighbours William Wheler* and Sir Robert Pye I* to work on an ordinance enlarging the power of the Westminster militia, which would inevitably impact on its Presbyterian-dominated equivalent in London.124CJ v. 413a. Among many MPs named, in the wake of the Vote of No Addresses to the king, to the committee to redress grievances (4 Jan.), he then disappeared again from the Journal.125CJ v. 417a.

Whatever the explanation for this, it seems clear from what followed that Trevor did not retire into impotent obscurity. His name resurfaced briefly on 16 March, when the Commons nominated him to the Committee for the Revenue in place of John Glynne, disabled and imprisoned as one of the Eleven Members, but the Lords ignored this order.126Supra, ‘Committee for the Revenue’; CJ v. 500b. Next visible two months later, in a House surrounded by pro-royalist rioters Trevor joined forces with Presbyterian supporter Charles Kerr*, Lord Kerr, as a teller for immediate consideration of the appointment of Philip Skippon* as major-general of the City militia (16 May).127CJ v. 561b. The opposing tellers, Clement Walker* and Henry Hungerford*, who were also Presbyterians, might have detected on Trevor’s part a stratagem intended to appease them. Temporarily carrying the vote, Walker and Hungerford were to be denied victory once the crowds had gone home. On 17 May Trevor and Walker were both among MPs named to a committee to investigate the riot, while Skippon, secure as major-general, was ordered to ‘press’ the City to punish the perpetrators.128CJ v. 562b–563a. The same day Trevor and Corbett were once again called on to thank parliamentary preachers, respectively Marshall and Bridge.129CJ v. 562b.

At this juncture Trevor appears to have been treading a middle path, both in religion and politics. Added on 1 June 1648 to the Derby House Committee, then dominated by those who wished to defeat royalist insurgency but also to negotiate a tough peace with the king rather than tow the more radical line of army activists, Trevor proved a fairly assiduous member. His presence at sittings was recorded 68 times between 5 June, when he was sworn, and 1 December.130Supra, ‘Derby House Committee’; CJ v. 578b; LJ x. 295b; CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 99–337. His grasp of Welsh affairs was invoked on 2 June, when he was requested to attend the DHC on the matter, and it underlay occasions when he carried messages from the Commons to the Lords (10, 12 June) or chaired a Commons committee composed of DHC members (11 Aug.).131CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 91; CJ v. 592b, 594b, 595a, 668a.

But as ever, his interests were wider than that. On 7 June he reported from the DHC a letter regarding the suppression of insurgency in Essex, and then took the ensuing order to the Lords ; he also reported from the DHC to the Commons on Farnham Castle, Surrey, where his son-in-law John Fielder had once been governor (29 June), on prisoners (20 July), and on a communication from the bailiffs of Yarmouth (27 July).132CJ v. 588a-b, 616b, 641b, 648b. A DHC direction to him of 11 July to speak to Yorkshire MP Sir William Lister*, or anyone else he chose, to suppress the publication of an unacceptable justification by Lister’s son-in-law Colonel John Lambert*, reveals an otherwise unsuspected aspect of Trevor’s interests and connections, even if it is no surprise to find him opposing a document issued from the army.133CSP Dom. 1648-9, p. 182. On 20 July he was named to the Commons committee to investigate the background to the Scottish invasion.134CJ v. 640b. Already on 3 July he had proclaimed his attachment to the middle way espoused by DHC grandees by partnering Sir John Evelyn of Wiltshire as a teller to secure a small majority for binding the king by act of Parliament to propositions in the prospective peace treaty.135CJ v. 622a.

As negotiations proceeded in September and October, Trevor appeared only three times in the Journal. On 4 October he was asked with William Foxwist*, Member for Caernarvon, to prepare a letter of thanks to officers who had put down rebellion in Anglesey, while on the 14th he was added to a committee devising an ordinance to channel the proceeds of sequestrations in Anglesey and north Wales towards the navy.136CJ vi. 27b, 43b, 52a. He attended at Derby House nine times in November and also on 1 December, but there is no evidence of his whereabouts when the Commons was purged on 6 December.137CSP Dom. 1648-9, pp. 315-37. The next day he fought a rearguard action as a teller with Lislebone Long*, attempting to reject moves to proceed with the latest proposals from the army.138CJ vi. 95a. Defeated by nearly two to one in the thinned-down House, he then absented himself.

The Rump

For more than six months Trevor kept away from Parliament. A report which he had been due to give to the House on the reduction of Anglesey was assigned on 20 March 1649 to Thomas Scot I*.139CSP Dom. 1649-50, p. 42. But while his son and namesake, elected to the Commons in December 1646, did not return to the Rump, Sir John was readmitted on 29 June, joining his son-in-law John Fielder*.140CJ vi. 245b. That day he headed a list of additions to the committee for the bill to secure soldiers’ arrears; Fielder was among the claimants.141CJ vi. 246a. This was of itself perhaps hardly a sufficient catalyst for renewed involvement in Parliament, but as in 1644, further evidence is unavailable. What can be said is that Trevor’s re-emergence coincided with the completion of a series of family settlements begun the previous autumn in which links to the Hampden family were strengthened through the marriage of his son John Trevor* to his cousin and for which the major trustees were Richard Knightley*, a former DHC member now in retirement, and Sir William Masham*, father-in-law to one of young Trevor’s sisters and an important, but hardly radical, member of the council of state.142Glynde Place Archives, 66-7.

At first Trevor’s commitment to the Rump looks somewhat tentative. Over the succeeding six weeks he received an unprecedented clutch of appointments, although this may have owed something to a lack of alternative candidates. On a delegation sent to treat with the City for a loan of £150,000 to support the campaign in Ireland (4 July), he was subsequently placed on committees dealing with a petition from Yorkshire (6 July), the probate of wills (18 July), institutions to benefices (18 July) and the payment of arrears to Fielder (21 July).143CJ vi. 250a, 251b, 263b, 267a. More importantly, on 20 July he was added both to the Committee for the Army and the Star Chamber Committee of Irish Affairs.144CJ vi. 265a, 266b. However, having been an unsurprising addition on 4 August to the committee working on arrangements for delinquents in north Wales to compound, Trevor then disappeared from the Journal.145CJ vi. 274b.

It was almost another six months before he re-emerged, this time into a more prolonged period of activity and to hints of greater importance in the House. Money and religion were again prominent themes, as they were for Fielder. Named on 29 January 1650 to the committee preparing the bill for the propagation of the gospel in Wales – where his connections had doubtless assumed even greater importance in a House almost totally denuded of Welsh-born MPs – Trevor was later one of the MPs appointed a commissioner under the act (15 Feb.).146CJ vi. 352a, 365b. In the meantime he was placed on the committee discussing presentations to church livings in England and Wales (8 Feb.), and perhaps as an extension of his involvement as a commissioner for Westminster school and almshouses, was later named to the committee for Sackville College in Sussex (31 May).147CJ vi. 359a, 418a.; A. and O. Nominated to work on the bill to consolidate the treasury (18 Apr.), he was a teller (2 May) against transferring revenue-controlling powers vested in the Committee for the Affairs of Ireland, where he had a voice, to the council of state – successfully, thanks to the Speaker’s casting vote – and partnered Sir Henry Mildmay* to secure a majority for blocking a vote on proceeding with the business of the excise (18 July).148CJ vi. 400a, 408b, 442b.

In the first of five tellerships that year – and the only division he lost – Trevor could only muster a minority of MPs in favour of including former fellow courtier Sir Henry Vane I* on the council of state.149CJ vi. 369a. His adversaries then were radicals Edmund Ludlowe II* and Henry Marten*, but his alliances were not consistently in juxtaposition to their stance. Trevor had a stake in the new order, while at the same time being in a position to assist delinquents if he chose. Even before he was appointed a sequestrator in north Wales in August 1649, he appears to have been wielding authority over property in that region, including estates confiscated from James Stanley†, 7th earl of Derby.150CCC 248, 943. Among his nominations in 1650 connected with the sale and redistribution of land was one to the committee considering the discovery and disposal of the personal estate of members of the royal family (14 Mar.), while he was a teller in favour of respiting the fine of the foremost landowner in Gloucestershire, George Brydges, 6th Baron Chandos (30 May), and of engrossing the act permitting another delinquent, Thomas Pope, 2nd earl of Downe, to make sales to meet his obligations (17 Dec.).151CJ vi. 382a, 409a, 417b, 455b, 510b.

Once again there were notable gaps in Trevor’s appearance in the parliamentary record, the last-mentioned tellership being his only visible contribution to proceedings between 19 August 1650 and 10 February 1651. However, this was not a general political eclipse. On the latter date Trevor was elected in tenth place to the council of state.152CJ vi. 532b-533a; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 44. While his attendance in the Commons during his stint was to be fitful, his attendance at the council board was surpassed by only six of his 40 colleagues, one of them his son-in-law Fielder.153CSP Dom. 1651, p. xxxv.

With Fielder, Trevor was appointed to the conciliar committees for the admiralty (1 Mar.), and the related matter of preserving timber (27 Feb.).154CJ vi. 534a; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 63, 66. In this as in other business, there was evidently cross-fertilisation between his two functions. Added on 21 May to the Commons committee for Whitehall in particular relation to keeping track of royal property, Trevor already had, and continued to collect, conciliar responsibilities related to the palace including: furnishing locks for the doors; installing statuary in the garden; organising an official dinner in the Banqueting House; and explaining to Parliament why, in contradiction of its orders, secretary John Milton required lodgings there to fulfil his duties to the council.155CJ vi. 576b; CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 158, 200, 243–4, 413. On three other occasions he was deputed to report from the council to the Commons – concerning the composition of the corporation of Chester (14 Aug.), the capture of insurgent Colonel Edward Massie* (9 Sept.) and the disposal of money in the hands of Trevor’s business partner George Twistleton* for projects in Denbighshire and Shropshire (19 Nov.) – although it is not certain he did so; between 5 August and 1 October, for example, he was absent from the Journal.156CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 329, 418; 1651–1652, pp. 26–7. His conciliar role was both more varied and more significant than his Commons profile, extending as it did to security, posts and entertaining ambassadors.157CSP Dom. 1651, pp. 169, 223, 227, 322, 417, 450, 455, 497, 505; 1651–1652, pp. 4, 11. Committee nominations in the House included those to consider abolishing the titles of honour bestowed by the late king during the war (16 Apr.) and regulating the universities (22 May) and were not negligible, but hardly substantial either.158CJ vi. 562b, 575b, 577b; vii. 23b. A sense that Trevor had less clout in the Commons than he might have anticipated is indicated by the fact that, in three tellerships with different partners, each time he was among the minority: against considering a petition from the sheriffs of London (11 Apr.); for reading one from Lady Borlase (5 Aug.; with Sir William Masham); and against overturning an order for adjournment (15 Aug.). 159CJ vi. 560a, 617a; vii. 1a.

Selected with his son-in-law Harbert Morley* as a teller of the poll for the next council of state (24 Nov.), Trevor was not himself returned.160CJ vii. 41b. Perhaps because he was deprived of this channel of influence, he was immediately a little more visible in the Commons, receiving three committee nominations in December, including one dealing with a petition about Cheshire sequestrations (11 Dec.).161CJ vii. 49a, 49b, 55b. Although in the early months of 1652 he then surfaced only to lose a division (24 Feb.) in which he tried to assert the authority of the sitting Parliament in relation to the general pardon bill, and to be named (27 Feb.) to a delegation to receive an agent from the north German cities, he later entered a period of more intense activity than heretofore.162CJ vii. 96b, 99a. Its scope was familiar, but overall Trevor’s alignments defy easy categorisation.

His nomination in company with Fielder, Masham and Morley to the committee to review progress on the sale of bishops’ lands (6 Apr. 1652) doubtless reflected his increasing stake, direct and indirect, in confiscated property.163CJ vii. 115a. In 1651 Trevor and Morley had been co-operating with the Committee for Compounding over cases which had come before it from north Wales and Sussex, and perhaps acting as spokesmen for the Committee in Parliament, while the coal farm and debts owing by or to Trevor had for some time come periodically within the Committee’s purview, leaving him dependent on their good-will.164CCC 164, 925, 943, 1843, 2233, 2260-1; CCAM 605-6, 1334-6. During 1652 Trevor advised Oliver St John* on whether to purchase Osterley Park, Middlesex, while with his partner Twistleton he was completing arrangements for purchasing the manors in Flint and Denbigh belonging to the earl of Derby in which the former had had an interest already noted.165TSP i. 205; CCC, 1116; H. Taylor, ‘The Lords of Mold’, Flints. Hist. Soc. vi. 52-3; The Case of Sir William Glynne, Baronet (1685); Trevors of Trevalyn, 66-7. But it is not clear that Trevor’s stance was exclusively selfish, acquisitive or even predictable. Appointed to committees dealing with delinquents (27 July), land sales (15 Sept.) and claimants on estates forfeit for treason (12 Oct.), he was a teller against Feilder for the minority who sought to engross the bill concerning receivers-general (16 July) and with Masham for the majority who blocked progress on the petition of William Craven, 1st Baron Craven (29 Oct.), but was a teller against Morley for the minority who favoured a proviso in the bill for the sale of confiscated estates relieving those covered by surrender articles (12 Nov.).166CJ vii. 155a, 158b, 182b, 190b, 203b, 217a. On 2 July, moreover, he wrote to the Committee for Compounding blaming unequal rating for arrears from Anglesey: while rich men had ducked their obligations and laid the burden on the poor and middling sort, the latter had refused to pay.167CCC, 592. A fortnight later he was first signatory to a submission put before the House by Sir William Brereton seeking redress for former administrators in Cheshire who had incurred debt on public service.168CJ vii. 155a-b.

Meanwhile, Trevor was involved in sundry other matters which combined to maintain his profile in the Commons. He joined with Carew Ralegh* to prevent the committal of a petition from leading Rumper John Weaver* (28 May).169CJ vii. 137a. He was once again associated with business related to the University of Oxford (11 June), to receiving foreign ambassadors (29 June) and to the rationalisation of the revenue (27 July).170CJ vii. 141a-b, 146a, 147a, 159a. Autumn nominations included one to discuss the Anglo-Scottish union (7 Oct.), while he was deputed to issue invitations to Independent ministers to preach both at the thanksgiving for the victory at Worcester (to William Strong, 2 Sept.) and at the 5 November commemoration (to Philip Nye, 27 Oct.).171CJ vii. 173b, 189a, 198a, 205a, 215a.

All this makes his re-election to the council of state on 25 November – in tenth place with 45 votes – unsurprising, although how much he owed to his son-in-law Morley, returned again despite his promotion of the unpopular Dutch war, is difficult to gauge.172CSP Dom. 1651-2, p. 505; CJ vii. 220b. Trevor proved to be tenth also in terms of attendance, participating in 77 sessions until April 1653 – fewer than his son-in-law Fielder and Sir William Masham.173CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. xxviii–xxxiii. He resumed activities mostly familiar from his previous stint, being chosen – often with Fielder, Masham or Morley – for committees of the council of state: for the admiralty, for treating with the Portuguese and other ambassadors, for the Mint, the Scottish and Irish committee, the committee for examinations and for the committee (27 Jan. 1653) to examine Morley’s proposition for the public service.174CSP Dom. 1651-2, pp. 2, 9, 41, 48, 62, 128, 157, 173, 193, 216, 242. Meanwhile in the House, in something of a faint echo as before, he was one of the delegation to meet the French ambassador, 21 Dec. 1652, was committed to consider the proceedings of the trustees for the sale of the late king's property (25 Jan. 1653), for the further act for the sale of forfeit lands (1 Mar.) and on 19 April, the last day the Rump did business, for the petition of Sir Edward Bayntun*.175CJ vii. 233b, 250b, 263b, 280a.

The protectorate 1653-9

Unlike his son, elected for Flintshire in 1654, Sir John Trevor did not sit again until 1656. However, under the protectorate he continued to serve on and be appointed to numerous local commissions; his kinship to the Hampdens and thus by extension to the Cromwells probably helped.176Justices of the Peace ed Phillips, 77, 112-13; C181/6, pp. 3, 4, 21, 63, 200; A. and O. The pursuit of claims related to the Newcastle coal farm involved him and partner Lancelot Lake in frequent supplication to the government in 1653–4, and the awards made to them presuppose satisfactory relations.177CSP Dom. 1653-4, pp. 310, 369, 376, 391, 459; 1654, pp. 36, 445. Further developments connected to the acquisition of the earl of Derby’s estates, including Derby’s devising of some of the property to John Glynne, now rehabilitated as the lord protector’s serjeant, required Trevor and George Twistleton to remain active in protection of their interests and entailed transactions with various political figures including Sir Charles Wolseley* and William Foxwist.178NLW, Coleman Deeds DD 1233; Taylor, ‘Lords of Mold’, 53-4.

In May 1655 Trevor, Sir Gilbert Gerard* and Philip Nye were among the treasurers appointed for the relief fund for the Waldensian protestants of Piedmont.179CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 182, 197. Gerard and Trevor reported on behalf of the other commissioners in early July that £9,000 had already been collected, a sum that indicates the success of the team.180SP46/112, f. 11. Trevor was to be involved in the undertaking for some months to come, and headed the committee members who signed an account of their work published in 1658.181CSP Dom. 1655, pp. 237, 369; By the Committee for the Affairs of the poor Protestants (1658), 4 (E.1073.2). Meanwhile, Trevor seems to have been close to protectorate insiders like Oliver St John and the secretary of state, John Thurloe*, and in May 1656 he was among those to whom the council referred consideration of a patent for discovering a way of repairing highways.182TSP iv. 277; CSP Dom. 1655-6, pp. 353-4.

For all that, Trevor’s attitude to the protectorate may well have been equivocal. On 23 August 1656 Major-general William Goffe* informed Thurloe of his concern that Harbert Morley, whom he considered to ‘rule the roost’ in Sussex ‘by the help of a disaffected party, much to the grief of the honest party’, ‘designed’ to get his father-in-law returned to Parliament for Arundel.183TSP v. 341. Goffe’s attempt to prevent this was thwarted. Trevor was duly elected, while his son was again returned for Flintshire. Morley, on the other hand, gained a Sussex county seat only then to be excluded. He wrote to Sir John on 12 October disavowing any subversive intention, protesting that he would ‘ever live quietly in my own house’, and asking his father-in-law to counter any talk to the contrary.184TSP v. 490-1.

Trevor’s contribution to the first half of this Parliament was modest. Although on 22 September 1656 he was named to the delegation to attend Cromwell, he then received only three more nominations that autumn: none were of the first importance; one was to deal with a petition from Anthony Morgan*, on whose case he had chaired a committee in 1648 (10 Nov.).185CJ v. 668a; vii. 426a, 434b, 447a, 452a. On 1 November he was teller with Sir Gilbert Pykeringe* against putting the question for punishing attorney George Hill for his arrest of a sitting Member.186CJ vii. 449a. But for someone interested in religious matters, he was a notable absentee from the Journal after 10 November, taking no apparent part in the prolonged debates on James Naylor. On 8 January 1657, the day after his son John – more visibly active in the chamber at this point, if no less conspicuously silent on Naylor – had delivered a lengthy speech in favour of winning over delinquents by avoiding excessive penalties, both men were granted leave of absence to go into the country.187CJ vii. 480a; Burton’s Diary, i. 314-15.

Unlike his son, who resurfaced in the Journal before the end of the month, Sir John Trevor did not reappear until 4 March, when he was placed on a committee to consider the division of the Middlesex parish of St Andrew, Holborn.188CJ vii. 498a. Yet over the next three months he seems to have put unprecedentedly intense effort into Parliament, receiving a further 19 nominations. Plausibly, his prime motive was the opportunity to shape the future of the government, although he left debate on the floor of the House to his son in this as in other matters. Publicly noted as a kinsman of the Cromwell and among the ‘kinglings’ who offered him the crown, Sir John was named to two delegations to attend Cromwell with the Humble Petition (3 Apr.) and receive his ‘doubts’ (9 Apr.). 189A Narrative of the Late Parliament (1658), 17, 22 (E.935.5); CJ vii. 519b, 521a. Among several committee appointments related to Irish affairs, Trevor was named to work on the clause in the Petition dealing with Scotland and Ireland (6 Mar.).190CJ vii. 499b, 526b, 537b, 539a. He was also nominated to the committee for the bill of indemnity for public servants (31 Mar.) – an essential concomitant to any political settlement – and, when the House came to debate its ecclesiastical element, he was a teller for the majority who rejected a committee recommendation that Parliament approve ministerial appointments (28 Apr.).191CJ vii. 516a, 524b. Like his son, who spoke at least twice that day, he seems to have lined up behind the attempt of commissioner of the great seal Bulstrode Whitelocke* to protect traditional rights of patronage and modes of maintenance for the ministry.192Burton’s Diary, ii. 61-2.

Otherwise, Sir John chaired a committee to which two Members were added on 21 May, possibly one still dealing with Anthony Morgan.193CJ vii. 536a. There was a range of other committee nominations, largely in familiar areas, including forest rights (29 Apr.), the regulation of chancery (30 Apr.) and raising money to inspect the treasuries (30 May).194CJ vii. 501a, 504a, 509a, 528a, 531b, 536a, 540b, 543a. On 29 May he was among Members chosen to consider which bills should be prioritised before the prospective adjournment, while on 2 June he was again associated with Welsh affairs on a committee considering a petition from the governor of Conway.195CJ vii. 542a, 543b.

Trevor was invisible in the last few weeks of the first session, but returned for the short second session in 1658. On the opening day he was named as a commissioner to administer to MPs the oath of loyalty to the protector (20 Jan.), and a week later was among the party despatched to invite Cromwell to publish his Banqueting Hall speech.196CJ vii. 578a, 589a. As before, however, it was his son who was noticed in debate. After the dissolution, Sir John was in touch in August with George Downing*, envoy to The Hague, seeking his assistance ‘in favour of’ Lady Herbert (possibly the wife of Henry Somerset*, Lord Herbert of Raglan), although Downing considered that Trevor ‘being much nearer Whitehall than I, could much better do it himself’.197TSP, vii. 310. Later he was in friendly correspondence with Whitelocke. 198Whitelocke, Diary, 505.

At the elections for Richard Cromwell’s Parliament, Trevor was returned for Steyning, another Sussex borough. The patron was John Fagge*, Harbert Morley’s brother-in-law. Trevor was named only to the elections committee (28 Jan.) and to the committee to investigate the disposal of church revenues in Wales, in which the conduct of some of his fellow commissioners came under scrutiny (5 Feb.).199CJ vii. 594b, 600b. Thereafter, while his son John, perceived by this point as ‘a leading man of the court party’, spoke on most days until the dissolution in April, Trevor himself disappeared from the record.200Burton’s Diary iii. 69.

Rump Parliament 1659-60

Once the Rump was restored in May, Sir John took a little time to resurface in the chamber. His first appearance on 1 June, when he was added to the committee for the Forest of Dean, probably arose as much from his interest in coal as in woodland.201CJ vii. 670b. Eight further appointments and three tellerships between then and 20 August suggest that he was moderately active over this period. As in the previous Parliament, he was involved in a range of business.

As a majority teller (4 June) in favour of setting a date to consider the long-running complaint of commonwealthsman Henry Neville* against William Strowde, the sheriff who had blocked his election to the 1656 Parliament, Trevor was ranged with councillor of state Robert Wallop* against Neville’s associates. 202CJ vii. 672b. This was evidently the product of a desire to quash definitively the pretensions of one who had been a thorn in the side of protectorate government. Placed the same day on a committee to constitute Charles Fleetwood* as commander-in-chief of the forces, in the face of royalist insurgency, Trevor is likely to have been sympathetic to his old council colleague.203CJ vii. 672b. That month he was also added to the committee to look after maimed soldiers and military widows (13 June), and was directed with Bulstrode Whitelocke and Sir Henry Mildmay to attend the French ambassador to Parliament (24 June).204CJ vii. 682a, 693a. Two committee appointments in July included that concerned with tightening up the law against religious radicals and sectaries who ‘disturbed’ divine service (1 July).205CJ vii. 700b, 717b. Meanwhile he lost a division against civilian republican Sir Arthur Hesilrige* over the wording of the bill for indemnity (11 July), but told for the majority against adding to the Yorkshire militia commission Philip Howard*, a one-time protectorate loyalist who had become an opponent of the Rump (19 July).206CJ vii. 712a, 724b.

Over a summer of royalist insurgency, between 19 July and 30 September Trevor appeared in the Journal on only one day. On 20 August he was named to the committee to consider the future of the confiscated Worcester House, and added to two others, one being the Irish land settlement bill.207CJ vii. 763b, 764a. After such a low profile it seems unsurprising to find him appearing briefly on 30 September as a majority teller against fining for absenteeism James Ashe*, who had been a university contemporary of his son and who apparently shared a similar religious and political outlook.208CJ vii. 790a.

By this point royalist intelligence regarded Sir John as among friends of the cause in Parliament, like his son-in-law Morley, now again a councillor of state.209CCSP iv. 401. Trevor vanished from the parliamentary record before Morley’s regiment vainly tried to prevent the army’s ‘interruption’ of proceedings on 13 October. When he re-emerged on 27 December, the day after Parliament reassembled, it was apparently alongside Morley, as a champion of parliamentary sovereignty but probably also, in juxtaposition to civilian republican hard-liners, at least in some measure as an advocate of a robustly negotiated restoration of the monarchy on Presbyterian terms. That day, with his son-in-law Fielder, Trevor was a teller for the minority against republican Thomas Scot I* over the appointment of a customs commissioner, an issue in which he had a commercial interest.210CJ vii. 798a. Between 7 and 25 January 1660 he was named to six important committees, including those nominating judges and commissioners of the great seal (9 Jan.), and commissioners for the admiralty and navy (12 Jan.); preparing a new Engagement to the government (10 Jan.); investigating monies levied for the militia (25 Jan.); and reviewing government offices, among them that of custos brevium, to which his son John had only just been appointed (21 Jan.).211CJ vii. 805a, 806a, 806b, 808b, 817b, 818a, 822a.

Trevor’s appointment on 25 January was to be his last in Parliament, but this did not initially betoken withdrawal from politics. Three days later an order to provide a key to the orchard at Whitehall to all members of the council of state (who again included Morley) was specifically extended also to Trevor.212CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 329. While there is no sign of him in the Journal, it is possible that he continued to sit until the dissolution in March; his son was elected to the next council of state on 23 February.213CJ vii. 849b. There is no evidence that Sir John tried to obtain election to the Convention, and he discouraged his son from seeking a seat in Flintshire, where he faced a strong royalist candidate.214Dodd, Studies in Stuart Wales (2nd. ed.), 178. As the new Parliament assembled, however, John Mordaunt, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, described Trevor, his friend Richard Knightley, and Morley as three of the ‘most violent’ members of the cabal which sought a closely-regulated Restoration.215CCSP iv. 674.

Restoration and retirement

On 24 July 1660 Trevor received the royal pardon, and then largely withdrew from public life.216DWB. But, as his son was re-elected to Parliament in 1663, he was despatched as an envoy to France and then became a secretary of state, Sir John himself maintained a certain standing.217HP Commons 1660-1690. He held occasional local office, despite support for nonconformists and others compromised by their interregnum careers.218SR. In November 1661 ‘Dr Winter, a great sectarian, and one [whom] the bishop of Chester hath silenced’ was reported to be preaching ‘every sabbath day at the chapel of Sir John Trevor’; this was possibly Samuel Winter, the ejected provost of Trinity College, Dublin.219SP29/44, f. 94; Calamy Revised, 539; Al. Cant.; ‘Samuel Winter’, Oxford DNB. Claiming also that Trevor had placed his steward, former sequestrator John Peck, on the commission of the peace for Denbigh and Flint (where he did indeed appear twice, fleetingly), the informant placed himself among loyal subjects ‘dejected to see such men still in power’.220SP29/44, f. 94; Justices of the Peace ed Phillips, 111-16. Later Trevor gave sanctuary to William Jones, an ejected minister, enabling him to license Plas Têg as a conventicle in 1672.221A. N. Palmer, A Hist. of the Older Nonconformity of Wrexham (?1888), 8-9.

Sir John’s wealth was also apparently little diminished. From 1660 Richard Stanley, 10th earl of Derby, attempted to retrieve the manors which Trevor and others had acquired, but during Trevor’s lifetime the earl made limited headway.222LJ xi. 91b-92a, 271b; CJ viii. 366a; Trevors of Trevalyn, 66-7; Glynde Place Archives, 77. In petitioning Charles II about the coal farm, Trevor’s partner Lancelot Lake invoked efforts that he and Trevor had made in Parliament to preserve the royal interest, claiming that they had done Charles I a service which he said he would not forget.223CSP Dom. 1660-1, p. 472; 1661-2, p. 616.

John Trevor, who was knighted by February 1668, and his younger brother Ralph, established as a merchant at Dort in the Netherlands, both pre-deceased their father, respectively in May and October 1672.224SP29/319A, f. 50; CSP Dom. 1672-3, p. 35. In September Sir John, who had been a widower for nearly a decade, appears to have remarried, although there is no mention of his wife in his will.225London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 1358. He was living in Westminster and in good health when on 12 December he began to draft it. Notable expressions of piety were accompanied by the provision of housing for two poor men, one at Plas Têg and the other at Trefalun, together with annuities and an allowance to buy coal lest they be tempted to pluck up hedges for fuel. Trevor died between 3 December 1673, when he signed the final codicil, and 19 December, when the will was proved by his son Richard, a physician.226PROB11/343/522. He was buried at Hope, Flintshire, on 2 January 1674.227Hope par. reg. His heir was his grandson, also John Trevor, whose son John Morley Trevor† sat in Parliament for Sussex and for Lewes in the early eighteenth century.228HP Commons 1690-1715. Neither is to be confused with their kinsman, Sir John Trevor† of Westminster and Denbighshire, son of John Trevor of Brynkinallt, who was first elected to Parliament in 1673 and was Speaker of the Commons in the 1680s and 1690s.229HP Commons 1660-1690.

Assessment

Trevor falls into a category of MPs usually resident in Westminster and often with court connections and/or government office who adhered to Parliament in the civil war and came to terms with successive regimes, playing a significant part in financing them without visibly endorsing any army or radical agenda, and emerging relatively unscathed at the Restoration. Like others, he combined genuine piety, expressed in connections to leading ministers and individual acts of charity or evangelical investment, with a hard-headed attitude towards business and sequestrations. A friend of nonconformists after 1660, his religious allegiance before then is hard to pinpoint precisely. At times he was classifiable as a political Presbyterian, but not consistently so, being apparently closer to the centre in the mid to late 1640s. Throughout this period, however, he was among those moneyed men with wide geographical interests whom it was difficult for any government at Westminster to ignore. For all his metropolitan base, his standing in north Wales alone ensured that his co-operation or participation in decision-making would be sought.