Sir Thomas Tresham, the father of Francis, had suffered much in the
cause of Rome. Perverted by Campion in 1580, he was repeatedly
imprisoned for recusancy and harbouring Jesuits, but remained the more
resolutely devoted to the faith of which he speaks as "his beloved,
beautiful, and graceful Rachel," for whom his "direst adversity" seemed
"but a few days for the love he had to her." By his wife Muriel,
daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, he had two sons, of whom Francis
was the elder. He was educated at Gloucester Hall; and having been very
actively participant in the rebellion of Essex, was on his trial
extremely insolent to the Lord Chancellor. His life was saved only by
the intercession of Lady Catherine Howard, whose services were purchased
apparently for 1500 pounds. Catesby never ceased to regret the
admission of Tresham to the conspiracy: but if as is probable (see
_ante_, Monteagle), Lord Monteagle were himself a party to the plot, the
much-vaunted earnestness of Tresham to save him is in all probability a
fiction, and a mere piece of the machinery. Gerard says that he was "of
great estate, esteemed to be worth 3000 pounds a year. He had been wild
in his youth, and even till his end was not known to be of so good
example as the rest." Jardine says, "He was known to be mean,
treacherous, and unprincipled." He vehemently denied, however, the
charge of having sent the warning letter to Lord Monteagle, of which he
was always suspected by his brother conspirators. Catesby and Thomas
Winter had determined to "poniard him on the spot" if he had shown any
hesitation in this denial. He escaped the gallows by dying of illness
in the Tower on the 23rd of November. Lord Salisbury has been accused
of poisoning Tresham because he knew too many State secrets. But why
then did he not poison Lord Monteagle for the same reason? The fact
that Tresham's wife and servant were admitted into his prison, and
allowed to nurse him till he died, is surely sufficient answer. By his
wife, Anne, daughter of Sir John Tufton, Tresham left no issue. He
"showed no remorse, but seemed to glory in it as a religious act, to the
minister that laboured with him to set his conscience straight at his
end: had his head chopped of and sent [to] be set up at Northampton, his
body being tumbled into a hole without so much ceremony as the
formalitye of a grave." (_Domestic State Papers_, 17; 62.)