You will much gratify me, and, I may venture to add, many other
correspondents, by inserting in your most excellent repository,
which has now survived one century with a spirit and vigour that
give promise for its continuing through another, some particulars
of an individual sprung from this county, who must have been a
man of talent and of learning sufficient for adding lustre to any
origin; but who is now almost entirely forgotten, his family
having long since become extinct, and the records of the
University, of the Church, of the Diocese, and of the Province
over which he presided, having in great measure perished in the
devastations of the civil war, and especially of those aggravated
by religious dissensions.
Mr. Lysons, in his History of Cornwall, states, that in the
parish of St. Wenn is situated Tregury, Tregurra, or Tregurtha,
the seat of a family so called, of whom was Michael de Tregury,
Archbishop of Dublin, who died in 1471. The last heir male of the
elder branch of this family died in the reign of Henry the Fifth,
leaving three daughters coheirs, who sold this barton to the
family of Botreaux, from whom it passed successively, by
inheritance or sale, through the families of Hungerford,
Hastings, Edgcumbe, Parkins, and Vivian, to Mr. William Hals, who
wrote the Parochial History of Cornwall, and resided here in the
latter part of his life. The estate, now called Tregotha, is the
property of Thomas Rawlings, Esq.
This brief notice of the Archbishop scarcely made any impression
on my mind beyond a mere recollection of the circumstance, when a
Cornish gentleman informed me that he had observed a monument to
this Prelate in the Cathedral at Dublin. I then took the liberty
of applying, through Mr. Dawson, Member for the County of
Londonderry, to his brother the Dean of St. Patrick’s, who not
only gave me every information and reference that is known to
exist, but also a drawing of the monument, of which I have sent a
wood engraving.――Since this was engraved, I have seen a tracing
tracing from an old drawing in the possession of Sir William
Betham, Ulster King at Arms, which shows that the sides of the
original altar-tomb were adorned with trefoil-headed arches
rising from short pillars.
It appears that few records are extant of the Prelates and
Dignitaries of Dublin prior to the Reformation, in places where
they might most reasonably have been expected to be found; and
the monument itself would have perished but for the care and
attention of the celebrated Doctor Jonathan Swift, who, with the
Chapter, exactly a hundred years ago, rescued it from a
dilapidated chapel, and carried the monument to its present
situation in the Cathedral.
Michael Tregury attained his reputation for learning at the
University of Oxford. He was Junior Proctor in the year 1434,
under which Anthony Wood gives the following notice of him in his
“Fasti.” He “was now Fellow of Exeter College, and about these
times Principal of several Halls successively that stood near to
the said College. But the King, having a special respect for him
(being now accounted the utmost ornament of the University), made
him Prefect or Governor of [the College at] Caen in Normandy,
lately erected by King Henry the Fifth of England; which office
he performing with singular applause, became at length, through
divers preferments (of which the Deanery of St. Michael of
Pencryche[16] was one) Archbishop of Dublin in Ireland.”
The foundation of the College or University of Caen, is again
mentioned by Wood in his Annals, under 1417. In consequence, he
says, of discontents regarding preferment and tithes, “the
corruptness of provisions, and especially the wars between
England and France, many dispersed themselves to other places.
And because Normandy, Angiers, Poyctou, Aquitaine, Bretagne,
Gascoigne, and other places that were subject to the Crown of
England, could not for that reason exercise their Scholastical
Arts at Paris publicly and without murmurings, they receded to
Caen in Normandy,[17] and studied there, which place Henry the
Fifth, of England, made an University, causing one Michael
Tregorie, an Oxford Doctor, sometime Fellow of Exeter College, to
be governor and reader there, to the end that the doctrine of the
University of Oxford might dilate itself and take root in those
parts.”
The following memoir is extracted from Ware’s History of Ireland,
vol. I. p. 359:
“Before the close of the same year (1449), Michael Tregury, a
native of Cornwall, and Doctor of Divinity of the University of
Oxford, was consecrated Archbishop of this See. He was a man of
such great eminence for learning and wisdom, that in the year
1418, King Henry the Fifth invited him over to Caen in Normandy,
to take upon him the government of a College, which that Monarch
had then founded in the said city; to whom he joined, out of the
Mendicant Friars, learned professors in all sciences.[18] There
he is said to have discharged the trust committed to him with
great applause, both by his public prelections and writings. A
catalogue of his works may be seen in Bale and Pits. At last,
upon the death of Talbot in 1449, he was promoted to this See by
a papal provision, and was the same year, on the 10th of February
(English style), restored to the temporalities by King Henry the
Sixth, whose Chaplain he was: [But was obliged to submit himself
to the King’s favour, and renounce every clause in his Bull
prejudicial to the Crown.[19]] He was called into the Privy
Council immediately, and had twenty pounds per annum[20] granted
him by the King, _pro sano consilio_, for giving good counsel, as
his predecessors, Archbishops of Dublin, who were of the Council,
had; and in 1453 King Henry the Sixth, for securing an arrear of
two years and a half, and the growing salary, granted him a
custodium on the manor of Tassagard, and the town of Ballachise,
parcel thereof, to continue during the time he should be
Archbishop of Dublin.[21]
“In certain Annals ascribed to Dudley Firbisse, there is a
mention made under the year 1453, that an Archbishop of Dublin
was taken prisoner at sea. I must leave the passage to the credit
of the Annalist, not having met any hint of it elsewhere. There
is extant in the Black Book of the Archbishop of Dublin (p. 82),
a copy of a Bull of Pope Pius the Second, dated the 23d of
November 1462, and directed to the Bishop and Archdeaconry of
Ossory, commanding them to pronounce excommunicated, Geofrey
Harold, Thomas and Edmund his sons, Patrick Birne, Thady Sheriff,
Thomas Becagh, Robert Burnell, and other laymen of the city and
diocese of Dublin, for laying violent hands on this Prelate, and
committing him to prison; and that they should keep them under
excommunication until they went to Rome for absolution, with the
testimonials of the Bishop and Archdeacon. The reason of this
insult is no where mentioned, that I can find. He repaired the
manor house of Tawlaght, and died there in a very advanced age,
on the 21st of December 1471; having governed this See about
twenty-two years. His remains were conveyed to Dublin, attended
by the clergy and citizens, and buried in St. Patrick’s Church,
near St. Stephen’s altar [as he had directed by his will], where
heretofore might have been seen a specious monument, adorned with
his statue, of elegant workmanship, on which are inscribed the
following verses, penned without the aid of the Muses:
‘Præsul Metropolis Michael hic Dubliniensis
Marmore tumbatus, pro me Christum flagitetis.’
And at the head of the statue,
‘Jesus est Salvator meus.’
“This monument was found under the rubbish in St Stephen’s
Chapel; the cover of it was preserved by the care of the Rev. Dr.
Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, and the Chapter, who in
the year 1730 fixed it up in the wall, on the left hand, as you
enter the west gate, between the said gate and the place where
heretofore the Consistory Court was held; and they have placed
this inscription over it: ‘Vetus hoc Monumentum, è ruderibus
Capellæ Divi Stephani nuper instauratæ erutum, Decanus et
Capitulum hùc transferri curaverunt, A.D. 1730.’
“The will of this Prelate, dated the 10th of December 1471, is
extant among the manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College,
Dublin (B. 52), whereby he deviseth his two silver gilded
saltsellers (salsaria) with their covers, to make cups for St.
Patrick’s, to serve in divine offices. He also bequeathed his
pair of organs to the said Church, to be used at the celebration
of divine service in St. Mary’s Chapel. ‘I devise also (says he)
that William Wyse, whose industry for this purpose I choose,
shall in my stead visit with a decent oblation St. Michael’s
Mount in Cornwall, which by vow I am bound to perform either by
myself or proxy;’ and also orders him to give some largesses
towards building the neighbouring churches near where his friends
dwell.
“The registry[22] of the Dominican Abbey in Dublin gives an
account, that above fifty persons went out of the Diocese to Rome
in 1451, to celebrate the jubilee then held under Pope Nicholas
the fifth, and that this prelate gave them recommendatory
certificates to the Pope; that seven of the number were pressed
to death in the crowd, besides what died in their return. This
squares with the relation given by Mathias Palmerius, in his
additions to the Chronicle of Eusebius, ‘That there was so great
a concourse of people from all parts of the Christian world at
this jubilee, that at Hadrian’s Mole almost two hundred perished
in the press, besides many who were drowned in the Tiber.’ They
who returned sate in 1453, brought the melancholy news, that
Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the Emperor
Constantine Palæologus slain. Our Archbishop was so afflicted at
the account, that he ordered a fast to be kept strictly
throughout his diocese for three days together, and granted
indulgences of an hundred years to the observers of it; and he
himself went before the clergy in procession to Christ Church
cloathed in sackcloth and ashes.”
The works of Tregury are thus noticed by Pits, in his volume “De
illustribus Angliæ Scriptoribus:”
“Multa scripsisse perhibetur, quæ Gallis inter quos vixit vel
Hibernis apud quos obiit, magis quàm Anglis e quibus natus est,
nota esse poterunt. Hos tamen paucos titulos sequentes invenio:
Super Magistro Sententiarum lib. iv.
De Origine illius Studii lib. i.
Quæstiones Ordinarias lib. i.
Contra Henricum Albrincensem lib. i.
Yours, &c. DAVIES GILBERT.
_De Restitutione Temporalium Archiepiscopatus Dublinensis._
[_Rymeri Fœdera, tom. xi. p. 260._]
Rex Cancellario nostro, vel ejus deputato, seu Custodi Magni Sigilli
nostri in terrâ nostrâ Hiberniæ, qui nunc est vel qui pro tempore
fuerit, salutem. Cum dominus Summus Pontifex, nuper vacante ecclesiâ
metropolitanâ Dublinensi, per mortem bonæ memoriæ Richardi ultimi
Archiepiscopi ejusdem loci, dilectum Capellanum nostrum Magistrum
Michaelem Tregorre, sacræ theologiæ professorem, in Archiepiscopum
illius loci præfecerit et pastorem, sicut per literas bullatas ipsius
domini Summi Pontificis nobis inde directis nobis constat, Nos, pro eo
quòd idem Archiepiscopus omnibus et singulis verbis in dictis literis
bullatis contentis nobis et Coronæ nostræ prejudicialibus coram nobis
renunciavit, et gratiæ nostræ humiliter se submisit, volentes cum eo
agere gratiòse, cepimus fidelitatem ipsius Archiepiscopi, et
temporalia archiepiscopatûs illius, prout moris est, restituimus
eidem; et ideo vobis mandamus quòd eidem Archiepiscopo, seu ejus in
hac parte attornatis, deputatis, seu procuratoribus, temporalia
prædicta infra terram prædictam, cum pertinentiis, per brevia nostra
inde in cancellariâ nostrâ terræ nostræ prædictæ, tot et talia quot et
qualia sibi in hac parte necessaria fuerint, seu quomodolibet
opportuna, sub magno sigillo nostro ejusdem terræ debitè conficienda
deliberari demandetis, habenda in formâ prædictâ, cum suis juribus et
pertinentiis universis. Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium, decimo die
Februarii.
Et mandatum est militibus, liberis hominibus, et omnibus aliis
tenentibus de Archiepiscopatu prædicto infra terram nostram prædictam,
quod eidem Michaeli tanquam Archiepiscopo et domino suo in omnibus quæ
ad Archiepiscopatum prædictum pertinent, intendentes sint et
respondentes, sicut prædictum est. In cujus, &c. Teste, ut supra.
_Pro Archiepiscopo Dubliniæ._
[_Rymeri Fœdera, vol. xi. p. 325._]
Rex omnibus ad quos, &c. salutem.
Sciatis quòd, cùm venerabilis in Christo pater Michael Dublinensis
Archiepiscopus habere et percipere debeat viginti libras per annum, de
nobis pro suo sano consilio utilitatem et politicum regimen terræ
nostræ Hiberniæ concernente, nobis impenso et impendendo tempore quo
Archiepiscopus ibidem extiterit, prout ejus prædecessores,
Archiepiscopi loci prædicti, ac de consilio nostro et progenitorum
nostrorum Regum Angliæ existentes, habere solebant de nobis et
progenitoribus nostris prædictis pro hujusmodi consilio suo,――dictoque
nunc Archiepiscopo summa quinquaginta librarum, de dictis viginti
libris annuis (videlicet, a quarto die Novembris, in anno regni nostri
vicesimi-noni usque quartum diem Februarii in anno regni nostri
tricesimi-primi, scilicet per duos annos integros et unum dimidium
annum, per quod tempus ipse venerabilis pater Archiepiscopus
Dublinensis extitit, et sanum suum consilium ad utilitatem terræ
nostræ prædictæ impendit,) per nos debita jam existat,――volentes
eundem Archiepiscopum tam de dictâ summâ quinquaginta librarum
contentari, quàm de viginti libris annuis hujusmodi, pro tempore quo
ipsum Archiepiscopum ibidem fore contigerit percipiendis et habendis,
ipsum Archiepiscopum securiorem fieri et reddi, de gratiâ nostrâ
speciali ac de mero motu et certâ scientiâ nostris, commissimus eidem
nunc Archiepiscopo custodium manerii sive dominii de Tassagard cum
pertinentiis, necnon villæ de Ballachize, parcellæ manerii prædicti,
cum pertinentiis, in manu nostrâ certis de causis existentium,
habendum et tenendum eidem Archiepiscopo, unà cum proficiis,
commoditatibus, curiis, juribus, emolumentis, et pertinentiis suis
quibuscunque, per totum tempus quo ipsum Archiepiscopum Dublinensem
fore contigerit, reddendo inde nobis per annum, pro custodiâ prædictâ,
durante tempore illo, ad Scaccarium nostrum in Hiberniâ, tales et
tantas denariorum summas, de qualibus et quantis nobis pro custodiâ
manerii et villæ prædictorum cum pertinentiis modo responsum existet;
et ulteriùs volumus et præfato Archiepiscopo concedimus quòd ipse
centum solidos annuatim de denariorum summis, quæ per ipsum
Archiepiscopum de custodiâ prædictâ deberi contigerint, in manibus
suis propriis habeat et retineat, quòdque ipse dictam summam
quinquaginta librarum inde sic levaverit, perciperit, et in manibus
suis retinuerit.
Et insuper quòd ipse Archiepiscopus annuatim, durante toto termino
prædicto, quo ipse Archiepiscopus ibidem et de consilio nostro fuerit,
de hujusmodi denariis, de custodiâ prædictâ nobis per ipsum
Archiepiscopum debendis et extunc proveniendis, in manibus suis
propriis habeat et retineat viginti libras per annum, habendas,
percipiendas, et retinendas in satisfactionem dictarum viginti
librarum per annum, quas ipse Archiepiscopus pro consilio suo prædicto
de nobis per tempus prædictum percipere debet, quamdiù ipse
Archiepiscopus Dublinensis extiterit, pro sano suo consilio nobis
impendendo; et ulteriùs concedimus præfato Archiepiscopo quòd ipse, in
solutione dictarum denariorum summarum et custodiæ prædictæ, ad
Scaccarium prædictum de omnibus hujusmodi summis, quas ipse
Archiepiscopus, prætextâ harum literarum nostrarum patentium,
habuerit, perciperit, aut retinuerit, de tempore in tempus, debitam
habeat deductionem et allocationem; aliquo statuto, actu, ordinatione,
sive restrictione in contrarium factis, editis, seu provisis, sive
aliquâ aliâ re, materiâ, vel causâ non obstantibus. In cujus, &c.
Teste Rege apud Westmonasterium, nono die Maii [1453].
Per Breve de Privato Sigillo.
St. Wenn measures 3,858 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 2963 0 0
Poor Rates in 1831 228 5 0
Population,――{ in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 358 | 452 | 589 | 649
giving an increase of 81 per cent. in 30 years.
Present Incumbent, the Rev. R. P. Gilbert, instituted in 1810.