Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tregury, Michael
TREGURY or TREVOR, MICHAEL (d. 1471), archbishop of Dublin, was born at St. Wenn in Cornwall, and was educated at Oxford, where he graduated M.A. and D.D. From 1422 to 1427 he was fellow of Exeter College, and in 1434 he was junior proctor (Boase, Register Coll. Oxon. p. 33; Wood, Hist. and Antiq. i. 562–3). He is said to have been chaplain to Henry V, and to have been one of the learned men whom that king established at Caen in 1418 to replace the French professors who had fled on its capture by the English in 1417. It was not, however, until 6 Jan. 1431 that letters patent were issued by Henry VI founding the university at Caen, nor does it appear to have been in full working order until 1440, when Tregury was appointed first rector of the university (‘L'Ancienne Univ. de Caen,’ apud Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de la Normandie, 3rd ser. ii. 474 et sqq.; Chroniques Neustriennes, p. 322; Gallia Christiana, xi. 427). The university of Paris wrote to Oxford protesting against the establishment at Caen of a university in rivalry of the mother university of Europe (Lyte, Oxford Univ. p. 333). The expulsion of the English from Normandy soon deprived Tregury of this occupation; he is is said to have been principal of various halls attached to Exeter College, and was appointed chaplain to Henry VI and Queen Margaret of Anjou (Harl. MS. 6963, f. 84). About 1447 the latter wrote recommending Tregury's appointment to the vicarage of Corfe Castle or bishopric of Lisieux (Letters of Margaret of Anjou, p. 92). Neither suggestion seems to have been adopted (Hutchins, Dorset, i. 297; Gallia Christiana, xi. 795); but on 16 June 1445 Tregury was appointed archdeacon of Barnstaple, and soon afterwards dean of St. Michael's, Penkridge, Staffordshire.
On the death of Richard Talbot [q. v.], archbishop of Dublin, in 1449, Tregury was papally provided to that see. He was at once sworn a member of the Irish privy council, in which capacity he received an annual salary of 20l.; but he seems to have taken little part in politics, and his tenure of the archbishopric, which lasted twenty-two years, was marked by few incidents save the usual ecclesiastical visitations and disputes with the archbishop of Armagh over the claims to primacy. In 1453 he is said to have been taken prisoner by pirates in Dublin Bay, but was recaptured at Ardglass, and in 1462 he was violently assaulted and imprisoned in Dublin by some miscreants, who were excommunicated for the offence. On the news of the capture of Constantinople in 1453, Tregury ordered a strict fast to be kept within his diocese. He died at his manor-house of Tallaght, near Dublin, on 21 Dec. 1471, and was buried near St. Stephen's altar in St. Patrick's Cathedral. The monument erected over his tomb was afterwards buried under the rubbish in St. Stephen's Chapel, where it was discovered by Dean Swift in 1730, and replaced, with a fresh inscription, on the wall to the left of the west gate. By his will, which is dated 10 Dec. 1471, and is extant among the manuscripts in Trinity College, Dublin, Tregury bequeathed to St. Patrick's his ‘pair of organs’ and two silver saltcellars; he also directed that oblations should be made on his behalf to St. Michael's Mount, Cornwall.
Bale attributes to Tregury the authorship of three works, apparently lectures delivered at Caen: 1. ‘Lecturæ in Sententias,’ lib. iv. 2. ‘De Origine illius Studii [university of Caen?].’ 3. ‘Ordinariæ Quæstiones,’ lib. i. None of them is known to have been printed or to be extant. His register of Dublin wills is preserved in the library of Trinity College, Dublin (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. App. p. 597).
[Authorities cited; Rymer's Fœdera; Bekynton's Corresp. and Cartularies of St. Mary's, Dublin (Rolls Ser.); Cal. Rot. Pat. Hiberniæ, pp. 266–7, Lascelles's Lib. Munerum Hib. pt. iv. pp. 95–7, pt. v. p. 35; Bale's Script. Illustr. Cat. i. 591; Pits, pp. 662–3; Tanner's Bibl. Brit.-Hib. s.v.; Trevor, pp. 721–2; Ware's Ireland, i. 339–41; Monck Mason's St. Patrick's, pp. 132–7; D'Alton's Mem. of the Archbishops of Dublin, pp. 159–65; Cotton's Fasti Eccles. Hib. ii. 16; Gent. Mag. 1831, i. 197–200; Davies Gilbert's Hist. of Cornwall, iv. 141–51; Anstey's Munimenta Academica, pp. 324, 508; Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. ii. 760.]