Francis Tregian the Younger

Francis Tregian the Younger (c. 1574–1618) was a Cornish recusant. Once thought to have been the copyist of a handful of important music manuscripts, his musical activities are the subject of dispute. Biography Francis Tregian was the son of Francis Tregian the Elder and Mary Stourton. He is thought to have been born in about 1574. (The birth year is derived from a household list drawn up in 1594 at the death of his teacher William Allen which referred to Tregian as being 20 years old: “molto nobile, di 20 anni, se colare di ingennio delicessimo dotto in filosofia, in musica et nella lingua latina.” Not only is this the only document suggesting his age but it is also the only document associating him with music.) In 1577 his father was arrested for being a Roman Catholic and sheltering priests. He was imprisoned and dispossessed, and the Tregian family had to leave their manor house in Probus, Cornwall. Tregian’s mother and her children travelled 200 miles to London. She hoped that her brother John Stourton, 9th Baron Stourton, could intercede for her husband. She lodged in Clerkenwell with her mother, who had remarried after her father’s death (her father had been executed). She e