Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Trelawny, Charles
TRELAWNY, CHARLES (1654–1731), major-general, was fourth son of Sir Jonathan Trelawny, second baronet, by Mary, daughter of Sir Edward Seymour of Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes. Sir Jonathan Trelawny [q. v.], bishop of Winchester, was his elder brother. He served in Monmouth's regiment with the French army during the invasion of Holland, and at the siege of Maestricht in 1673. He received a commission as captain in Skelton's regiment (also in French pay) on 16 March 1674, and fought under Turenne on the Rhine. He became major in Monmouth's regiment on 1 Nov. 1678, and in the Earl of Plymouth's regiment, which he helped to raise, on 13 July 1680.
The latter regiment (afterwards the 4th or king's own) was formed for service at Tangier, and Trelawny went thither with it in December. He succeeded Percy Kirke [q. v.] as lieutenant-colonel of it on 27 Nov., and as colonel on 23 April 1682. It returned to England in April 1684, and part of it was at Sedgemoor.
At the end of November 1688 he was at Warminster with Kirke when the latter was arrested for refusing to march against William's troops, and Trelawny thereupon deserted to William with his lieutenant-colonel, Charles Churchill, and thirty men. James deprived him of his regiment, but William reinstated him on 31 Dec.
At the battle of the Boyne, 1 July 1690, he commanded the infantry brigade which passed the river at Slanebridge and turned the enemy's left. He was made governor of Dublin. In September he took part in the siege of Cork under Marlborough, and on 2 Dec. he was promoted major-general. On 1 Jan. 1692, at the time of the agitation against William's preference for foreign officers, he resigned his regiment, which was given to his brother Henry, afterwards brigadier-general [see Trelawny, Edward, ad fin.] When Tollemache was killed in 1694, there was a report that Trelawny would succeed him as colonel of the Coldstream guards; but Shrewsbury wrote to William that such an appointment would be greatly disliked by the whigs, and the regiment was given to Cutts. In May 1696 Trelawny was made governor of Plymouth.
He died at Hengar on 24 Sept. 1731, and was buried at Pelynt. He seems to have been twice married, but left no children.
[Boase and Courtney's Bibl. Cornub. p. 762; Dalton's English Army Lists; Scott's British Army; Cannon's Records of 4th Foot; Walton's English Standing Army; Luttrell's Diary; Macaulay's Hist. of England, i.; cf. Trelawny Correspondence, letters between Myrtilla and Philander [i.e. the love-letters of his niece Letitia and his nephew Harry], 1706–36, privately printed in 1884.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.268
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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