1672. They conclude with an expression of his opinion: ‘But the French king shall find no more security herein than the Dutch and Spaniards did in the king's joining in the Tripple League’ (Kennet, Hist. of Engl. iii. 289).
According to his colleague Sir Joseph Williamson [q. v.], Trevor had nonconformist leanings (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1671, p. 569). Yet he had to send instructions to inquire into, and if necessary suppress, sectarian meetings in the eastern counties and Northamptonshire (ib. 1668–9, p. 294). On 18 Jan. 1671 he was named a member of the committee to report upon the petition of Irish owners dispossessed by Cromwell and not restored; and on 2 July a commissioner to report upon the settlement of Ireland (ib. 1671, pp. 30, 358). In June he himself claimed a title to lands at Moira sold and mortgaged by his relative, the late Marcus Trevor, first viscount Dungannon [q. v.] (ib. pp. 313, 558). On 5 April he was associated with Ashley, Clifford, and Arlington in negotiations with the States-General ‘concerning a defensive unlimited alliance’ (ib. p. 172).
Trevor died of fever on 28 May 1672, and was buried at St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield.
He married Ruth, fourth daughter of John Hampden, by whom he had five sons and a daughter. The second son, Thomas, first baron Trevor of Bromham [q. v.], is separately noticed. The eldest, John Morley-Trevor, M.P. for Sussex and Lewes in several parliaments, died in April 1719. He married a sister of George Montagu, second earl of Halifax, and had a son, John Morley Trevor (d. 1743), who was M.P. for Lewes and a lord of the admiralty. The third, Richard (d. 1676), was a physician (cf. Wood, Fasti, ii. 251; Munk, Coll. of Phys. i. 308).
[In addition to authorities cited, see Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Soc.); Noble's Memoirs of the House of Cromwell, ii. 111–20; Ret. Memb. Parl.; Sir W. Temple's Corresp. ed. Swift, passim; Mignet's Négociations relatives à la Success. d'Espagne, ii. 364, 608–11, 626–30; Foster's Alumni Oxon. The instructions for the embassy of 1668, signed by Charles II and countersigned by Arlington, as well as letters of Trevor to Lord Coventry (1671–2), are at Longleat (Hist. MSS. Comm. 4th Rep. p. 231).]
TREVOR, Sir JOHN (1637–1717), judge and speaker of the House of Commons, second son of John Trevor of Brynkinalt, Denbighshire, by Margaret, daughter of John Jeffreys of Acton in the same county, was born in 1637. His father, a judge on the North Wales circuit, is said to have been a descendant of the Tudor Trevors. Through his maternal grandfather he was first cousin to George Jeffreys, first baron Jeffreys of Wem [q. v.] He read law in the chambers of his cousin, Arthur Trevor, a member of the Inner Temple, where he was admitted a student in November 1654, called to the bar in May 1661, elected a bencher in 1673, treasurer in 1674, and reader in 1675. He is said to have been a great gamester, and particularly proficient in the law of gambling transactions. He was knighted on 29 Jan. 1670–1. On 10 Feb. 1672–3 he was returned to parliament for Castle Rising, Norfolk. He sat for Beeralston, Devonshire, in the parliaments of 1678–9 and 1679–81. In parliament he at first courted the protestant interest, and was chosen chairman of a committee appointed to discuss with the lords the burning question of the growth of popery, of which he brought in the report on 29 April 1678. The result was the appointment of another committee, of which Trevor was also chairman, to frame an address to the king for the removal of popish recusants from London (23 Oct. 1678). In May 1679 he presided over the committee deputed to confer with the peers on the case of the five popish lords, on whose impeachment he appears as one of the managers of the evidence. On the motion for the removal of Jeffreys from the recordership of London on 13 Nov. 1680, Trevor's was the only voice raised on his behalf; and his advancement to the rank of king's counsel in 1683, the year of Jeffreys's appointment to the chief-justiceship, was probably the reward of his courage.
In the Oxford parliament of 1681 Trevor sat for Denbighshire, and in James II's parliament he represented Denbigh borough. On the meeting of the latter assembly on 19 May 1685 he was chosen speaker by a unanimous vote. The choice was made on the recommendation of Charles Middleton, earl of Middleton in the peerage of Scotland; was supposed, and probably with truth, to have been advised by Jeffreys, and was highly acceptable to the king. Bramston (Autobiography, Camden Soc. p. 196) describes him as ill-versed in the forms of the house, which his past record renders unlikely, and as almost tongue-tied. On 20 Oct. following he was appointed to the mastership of the rolls, vacant by the death of Sir John Churchill. Sworn of the privy council on 6 July 1688, he was present at Windsor when the king came to the decision to call a new parliament, and at the extraordinary meeting held to certify the birth of the Prince of Wales (22 Oct.). He was also one of the faithful eight who obeyed the king's
