made a profitable investment of 100l. in purchasing some Etruscan vases which Thomas Hope (1770?–1831) [q. v.] had given to his servant as the refuse of a collection which he had bought (presumably Sir William Hamilton's vases, which Hope purchased in 1801). Tresham parted with a portion of these to Samuel Rogers for 800l., and for the remainder, with additions which Tresham himself had collected abroad, Frederick, fifth earl of Carlisle, the father-in-law of his first patron, Lord Cawdor, settled upon him an annuity of 300l. for life. Upon this annuity he largely depended during the last years of his life, when ill-health prevented him from painting. Another source of income was the salary which he received for his share (the descriptive text) in the ‘British Gallery of Pictures,’ a series of good engravings from pictures in English collections, which the firm of Longman & Co. continued to issue till 1818. Tresham was largely concerned in the selection of these pictures, and in obtaining the consent of the owners to their publication. He died in Bond Street on 17 June 1814.
Tresham published five volumes of verse: 1. ‘The Sea-sick Minstrel,’ 1796. 2. ‘Rome at the Close of the Eighteenth Century,’ 1799. 3. ‘Britannicus to Buonaparte: an Heroic Epistle,’ 1803. 4. ‘Recreation at Ramsgate’ (1805?). 5. ‘A Tributary Lay to the Memory of the Marquis of Lansdowne,’ 1810.
Four portraits of Tresham were engraved, viz. (1) a drawing by George Chinnery, 1802, etched by Mrs. Dawson Turner; (2) a profile drawing by George Dance, engraved by William Daniell; (3) a picture by Opie, exhibited at the Royal Academy, 1806, engraved by Samuel Freeman, 1809; (4) a drawing by Alexander Pope, engraved by Antony Cardon, and published on 27 Jan. 1814.
[Gent. Mag. 1814, i. 701, ii. 290; Sandby's Hist. of Royal Academy, i. 313; Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
TRESHAM, Sir THOMAS (d. 1471), speaker of the House of Commons, was the eldest son of William Tresham (d. 1450) [q. v.] by his wife Isabel, daughter of Sir William Vaux of Harrowden, Northamptonshire. He was brought up from childhood in the household of Henry VI (Rot. Parl. v. 616). He was returned to parliament for Buckinghamshire on 25 Jan. 1446–1447, and for Huntingdonshire on 8 Feb. 1448–9. He was with his father on 22 Sept. 1450 when the latter was killed at Thorpland Close, and was himself robbed and wounded. But, in spite of his father's Yorkist sympathies and his own maltreatment at the hands of Lancastrian partisans, Tresham remained a devoted adherent to Henry VI, and was appointed controller of his household. Early in 1454 he promoted a bill for the establishment of a garrison at Windsor for the defence of Henry VI and his son (Paston Letters, i. 364). In 1455 he was one of those selected to explain the king's measures for the defence of Calais and to collect a loan for his expenses (Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Nicolas, vi. 239, 242). On 23 May in the same year he fought on the Lancastrian side at the first battle of St. Albans, where the Yorkists were victorious (Paston Letters, ii. 332).
In 1459 the Lancastrians defeated the Yorkists at Ludlow, and a parliament, in which Tresham represented his father's old constituency, Northamptonshire, was summoned to meet at Coventry in November. Tresham was elected speaker, and the principal business of parliament was the attainder of the Duke of York and his chief adherents. Tresham accompanied Queen Margaret of Anjou when she marched south and defeated Warwick at the second battle of St. Albans (17 Feb. 1461); he was knighted by Henry VI's son after the battle (Collections of a London Citizen, p. 214). Six weeks later, on 29 March, he fought at Towton and was taken prisoner (ib. p. 217; Rot. Parl. v. 616–17). On 14 May a commission was issued for seizing his lands (Cal. Patent Rolls, 1461–7, pp. 35, 36), and in the parliament which met in July he was attainted of high treason. His life was, however, spared, and on 26 March 1464, ‘by the advice of the council,’ a general pardon was granted him. On 25 Jan. 1465–6 he was placed on the commission for the peace in Northamptonshire, and on 9 April 1467 he was re-elected to parliament for his old constituency. In that parliament his attainder was reversed and a partial restoration was made of his property, on the ground that he was the household servant of Henry VI and ‘durst not disobey him at Towton’ (Rot. Parl. v. 616–17). He was also placed on a commission to inquire into the state of the silver coinage (ib. v. 634). In the following year, however, Queen Margaret was again threatening to invade England, and on 29 Nov. Tresham and other Lancastrians were arrested as a precaution (Ramsay, ii. 335). When Warwick restored Henry VI in October 1470, Tresham was released; he was proclaimed a traitor on 27 April 1471 after Edward IV's return to
