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Oportet Meliora Tempora Non Expectare Sed Facere. The Arduous Life of Francis Tregian, the Younger

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

Pamela Willetts
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Extract

‘One must not wait for better times but create them’. Such was the message that the young Francis Tregian (1574–1617) received from the teaching of Dr William Allen, president of Douai. In such a way he lived his life, preserving his faith and later struggling, in adverse political conditions, to improve the fortunes of his family. Was he also able to copy several important music manuscripts, including the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book? This article is yet another examination of a problem much discussed for over a hundred years.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , May 2007 , pp. 378 - 396
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2007

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References

Notes

1 Landmarks of earlier bibliography: Barclay Squire, W. and Fuller-Maitland, J. A., The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book (1899);Google Scholar Schofield, Bertram and Dart, Thurston, ‘Tregian's Anthology’, Music and Letters, vol. 32 (1951), pp. 205–16;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Cole, Elizabeth, ‘In Search of Francis Tregian’, Music and Letters, vol. 33 (1952), pp. 28–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Thompson.

3 Smith, David, ‘A Legend? Francis Tregian the Younger as music copyist’, The Musical Times, vol. 143 (2002), pp. 7–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Exhibition catalogue, Trésors des Bibliothèques d'Italie (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, 1950), no. 333,Google Scholar Plate 18.

5 Boyan. Later bibliography summarised by Thompson. See also Trudgian, R. F., Francis Tregian 1548–1608 Elizabethan recusant. A Truly Catholic Cornishman (1998).Google Scholar

6 Trudgian (1998), pp. 42–43.

7 Douay (1878), p. 213.

8 Francis Edwards, S.J., Robert Persons, The Biography of an Elizabethan Jesuit (1995), p. 65.Google Scholar

9 Allen, pp. 64–67. Long quotations from the letter to Dr. Vendeville are translated in the introduction to Douay (1878).

10 Douay (1878), introduction, pp. lxxxi-ii.

11 Douay (1878), p. 240.

12 Douay (1878), p. 246.

13 Foley, vol. 6 (1880), p. 565.

14 Allen, p. 376.

15 Allen, pp. 364–70.

16 HMC, Salisbury, vol. 11 (1906), p. 231; see also Thompson, p. 12, n. 44.

17 Sega's report is printed in Foley, vol. 6 (1880), pp. 1–66.

18 For Roger Baines see Petti, Anthony G., The Letters and Despatches of Richard Verstegan, Catholic Record Society, vol. 52 (1959), p. xx; Foley, vol. 6 (1880), p. 739.Google Scholar

19 CSPD, James I, vol. 3, no. 77; Thompson, p. 12, n. 45.

20 Boyan, p. 119.

21 Boyan, p. 146.

22 Petti (1959).

23 Douay (1911), p. 74.

24 Thompson, p. 12, n. 48.

25 Thompson, pp. 12–14, gives detailed references.

26 Thompson, p. 14, n. 59.

27 Thompson, p. 14, n. 65.

28 Thompson, p. 15, n. 69.

29 Thompson, p. 15, n. 70.

30 Boyan, pp. 117, 127.

31 Magee, Brian, The English Recusants (1938).Google Scholar

32 Thompson, p. 13, n. 58.

33 Fraser, Antonia, The Gunpowder Plot (1996), pp. 145, 274;Google Scholar Nicholls, Mark, Investigating Gunpowder Plot (1991), p. 77.Google Scholar

34 Joseph Stourton, Charles Botolph, Mowbray, Lord, Segrave and Stourton, The Noble House of Stourton (1899), vol. 1, pp. 450–53, 459.Google Scholar

35 There are many references to (Sir) Spiller, Henry in CSPD, James, I. A statement in the Addenda, 1610, p. 544,Google Scholar accuses him of leniency and mentions his brother Robert as involved in the Gunpowder Plot.

36 Magee (1938), pp. 70–71, refers to the life of Arthur Wilson who worked in Spiller's Office.

37 Shaw, W. A., The Knights of England, vol. 2 (1906), p. 169.Google Scholar

38 Loomie, Albert J., Spain and the Jacobean Catholics, Catholic Record Society, vol. 64 (1973), pp. 1–10;Google Scholar Nicholls (1991), p. 141.

39 HMC, Salisbury, vol. 17 (1938), p. 611.

40 Harley, John, William Byrd Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (1997), p. 143.Google Scholar

41 CSPD, James I, vol. 18, no. 124.

42 The epitaph on the monument to him in the Fitzalan chapel, Arundel Castle, gives the years of his service to the Countess. This monument shows the regard that the Earl had for his long service to the family, since the Fitzalan chapel was normally reserved for family tombs and monuments. I am grateful to Sara Rodger, Assistant Librarian at Arundel Castle, for information on the epitaph.

43 Foley, vol. 3 (1878), pp. 298–300; vol. 7, ii (1883), p. 736.

44 Douay (1911), p. 74.

45 Fitzalan Howard, H. G., Duke of Norfolk, ed., The Lives of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, and of Anne Dacres, His Wife (1857); Hervey, Mary, The Life Correspondence & Collections of Thomas Howard Earl of Arundel (1921).Google Scholar

46 Slim, H. C., A Gift of Madrigals and Motets, vols. 1, 2 (1972),Google Scholar Supplement (1975).

47 Milsom, John, ‘The Nonsuch Music Library’ in Sundry Sorts of Music Books, eds. Banks, C., Searle, A. and Turner, M. (1993), p. 166.Google Scholar

48 Slim (1972), vol. 1, pp. 111–12.

49 HMC, Salisbury, vol. 11 (1906), p. 231.

50 Cecil, Algernon, A Life of Robert Cecil First Earl of Salisbury (1915), pp. 97, 319;Google Scholar Knight, Caroline, ‘The Cecils at Wimbledon’ in Pauline Croft, J., ed., Patronage, The Early Cecils (2002), p. 62.Google Scholar

51 Boyan, pp. 110–11; CSPD, James I, vol. 3, no. 77, 21 Sept. 1603, minute by the Earl of Lincoln.

52 HMC, Salisbury, vol. 15 (1930), p. 136, letter of Lady Hunsdon to Cecil, 16 June 1603.

53 Thompson, p. 13, nn. 50, 51.

54 A. Cecil (1915), pp. 97–101.

55 CSPD, James I, vol. 4, no. 84; see also Edwards, Francis, Guy Fawkes. The Real Story of the Gunpowder Plot? (1969), pp. 57–60,Google Scholar for the involvement of George and Henry Brooke in the Main and Bye plots. The recent publication by Edwards, Francis, The Succession, Bye and Main Plots of 1601–1603 (Dublin, 2006),Google Scholar provides ample evidence that Cecil's conduct was influenced by political considerations, not family relationships.

56 Loomie (1973), pp. 3, 5, 6, 8. Loomie's introduction, p. xxii, summarises Cecil's attitude: ‘Some courtiers, such as Robert Cecil, admitted that they desired friendship not on the basis of religion but from the conditions of the diplomatic scene at the time’. See also Loomie, ‘Sir Robert Cecil and the Spanish Embassy’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, vol. 42 (1969), pp. 30–57,CrossRefGoogle Scholar reprinted in Spain and the Early Stuarts 1585–1655 (1996).

57 Boyan, p. 112.

58 Hulse, Lynn, ‘The Musical Patronage of Robert Cecil, First Earl of Salisbury’, Journal of the Royal Musical Association, vol. 116 (1991), pp. 24–40;CrossRefGoogle Scholar another survey by Hulse is in Pauline Croft, J., Patronage (2002), pp. 139–58.Google Scholar

59 Charteris, Richard, ‘John Coprario's five- and six-part pieces: instrumental or vocal?’, Music and Letters, vol. 57 (1976), pp. 370–78;CrossRefGoogle Scholar Bertenshaw, Derry, ‘Madrigals and madrigalian fantasies: the five-part consort music of John Coprano and Thomas Lupo’, Chelys, vol. 26 (1998), pp. 26–51.Google Scholar

60 Neighbour, Oliver, The Consort and Keyboard Music of William Byrd (1978), p. 23.Google Scholar

61 London, British Library MS Egerton 3665 (‘The Tregian Manuscript’), with introduction by Frank A. D'Accone (Garland Publishing, Inc., New York and London, 1988).

62 See Boyan, plate between pp. 120–21: a small section is reproduced in Trudgian (1998), p. 40.

63 Botstiber, H., ‘Musicalia in the New York Public Library’ in Sammelbdnde der International Musikgesellschaft, vol. 4 (1903), p. 741.Google Scholar

64 The play, Los empeños de una casa, by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, first performed in Mexico City in 1683, quotes this passage for a character in distress: ‘I am like a ship wrecked in a storm on tempestuous seas…’ (from the translation by Catherine Boyle, House of Desires, 2004).

65 Willetts, Pamela, ‘Tregian's Part-Books’, The Musical Times, vol. 104 (1963), pp. 334–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 An example is cited by Ledbetter, Steven in ‘Marenzio's Early Career’, Journal of the American Musicological Society, vol. 32 (1979), p. 316.CrossRefGoogle Scholar