Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Trevor, Marcus
TREVOR, MARCUS, first Viscount Dungannon of the first creation, and Baron Trevor of Rose Trevor in the peerage of Ireland (1618–1670), born on 15 April 1618, was son of Sir Edward Trevor of Rostrevor, co. Down, and Brynkinalt, Denbighshire, by his second wife, Rose, daughter of Archbishop Ussher, primate of Ireland. When the Irish rebellion of 1641 broke out, Sir Edward was imprisoned in Narrowater Castle, Newry, by the rebels, till April 1642, and died soon after his release (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1641–2, p. 326; Gilbert, Contemp. Hist. of Ireland, i. 421–8).
Marcus Trevor was one of the ‘commanders’ in co. Down to whom the rebel Con Magennis addressed a letter threatening reprisals in October 1641 (ib. i. 364). At the close of 1643 he came to England, probably with the division despatched by Ormonde under the command of Colonel Robert Byron, who made Chester his headquarters (Carte, Ormonde, iii. 41). On 12 Jan. 1644 he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner at Ellesmere, when Colonel Thomas Mytton [q. v.] surprised the royalists in a night attack (A True Relation of a Notable Surprise at Ellesmere). He afterwards received command of a regiment of horse, and was present at the battle of Marston Moor in July, when he is said by Burke (on what authority is not clear) to have wounded Cromwell.
After the battle Trevor again served in the north-west, and in October defended Ruthin against Middleton (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1644–5, p. 81). In the winter of 1645–6 he was in Cornwall under Hopton. After having fought with Fairfax at Torrington, ‘the last action in the west,’ the royalist army was disbanded, and Trevor probably went with most of the officers to Oxford. Three months afterwards, in May 1646, he and Sir Joseph Vaughan ‘came in’ to Fairfax at Oxford (Whitelocke).
Trevor soon after took service under the parliament against the Irish rebels, and in October 1647 was in Louth (Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. iv. 86). In June 1649 he deserted Monck on account of his treaty with Owen Roe O'Neill [q. v.], which he probably divulged, and joined the royalists under Ormonde (Gardiner, Commonwealth, i. 104 n.) He helped to beleaguer Drogheda, and on 15 July routed Lieutenant-general Ferral, who was carrying ammunition for O'Neill to Dundalk. He afterwards helped to defend Drogheda. On the night of 26 Sept. he surprised Colonel Robert Venables [q. v.] at Dromore, but the parliamentarians rallied at daybreak and compelled him to retire on the Bann (Carte; cf. A Brief Chronicle of the Irish Warre, 1650). In November 1649 he was in the south, and in an engagement near Wexford was shot through the belly and carried to Kilkenny. Cromwell, who calls Trevor ‘one of their great ranters,’ and describes him as ‘very good at this work,’ wrote news of the affair to Lenthall (cf. Ludlow, Memoirs, i. 309). In March 1649–50 Trevor was chosen by the Irish lieutenant-general of horse (Whitelocke), but soon afterwards deserted and came in to Colonel Hewson ‘upon mercy’ (W. Basil to Speaker Lenthall, ib.) For the next few years he played a shifting game, and Cromwell in November 1654 describes him to his son Henry as a very dangerous person who was to be secured in some very safe place.
In September 1658 Henry Cromwell, who professed himself satisfied with Trevor's resolution ‘to live as an honest man under the present government,’ requested a favour for him from Secretary Thurloe (Thurloe State Papers, vii. 410); but Carte says that Trevor subsequently tried to induce the lord deputy himself to declare for Charles II. It is at any rate clear that Trevor had returned to his allegiance before the Restoration; for on 6 Dec. 1660 he was made ranger of Ulster, and received a grant of twelve hundred acres in the liberty of Dundalk and six hundred near Carlingford (Deputy-Keeper of Irish Records, 32nd Rep. App. i. pp. 566, 656, 750). He was also sworn of the Irish privy council, and on 28 Aug. 1662 was created Baron Trevor of Rostrevor and Viscount Dungannon of Tyrone. He acted as one of the commissioners for the execution of the first act of settlement and explanation. In 1664 he was made lord-lieutenant of co. Down. Sir George Rawdon [q. v.] told Conway that Dungannon's government of Ulster brought him much trouble and little profit (State Papers, Dom. 1671, p. 584). He was active in hunting down the tories, and Ormonde in a letter written in 1668 commends Dungannon for setting distrust and enmity betwixt the Irish (Prendergast, Ireland from the Restoration to the Revolution, p. 107).
Dungannon died at Dundalk on 3 Jan. 1670 (N.S.), and was buried in Clanallin church, near Rostrevor. He was twice married: first, to Frances, daughter and coheir of Sir Marmaduke Whitechurch of Loughbrickland; and, secondly, to Anne, daughter of John Lewis of Anglesey, and widow of John Owen of Orieltown, Pembrokeshire. Two of his sons by the second wife matriculated on the same day, 27 March 1686, at Christ Church, Oxford. On 31 Dec. 1687 John, the elder, was accidentally shot by his younger brother, Marcus Trevor (Alumni Oxon.) Lewis Trevor, who succeeded as second Viscount Dungannon, died in Spring Gardens, and was buried at Kensington on 3 Jan. 1692. His name is among the subscribers to the fourth edition of ‘Paradise Lost’ (Masson, Milton, vi. 785). His son, Marcus Trevor, third viscount, dying in Spain without male issue on 8 Nov. 1706, the peerage became extinct. The property eventually passed to Arthur Hill-Trevor, viscount Dungannon [q. v.]
[The only exact statement of the birth, parentage, and death of Dungannon is in a manuscript book (F. 4. 18) in the library of Trinity College, Dublin. Approximate pedigrees are given in Le Neve's Knights, Burke's Extinct Peerage, and G. E. C[okayne]'s Peerage. A letter of H. Puckering to the Duchess of Beaufort of 30 Nov. 1685, giving an account of Dungannon's services in the English civil war, is printed in full in Hist. MSS. Comm. 12th Rep. ix. 38–45. See also Carte's Life of Ormonde and Original Letters; Carlyle's Cromwell, letters 115, 207; O'Hart's Irish Landed Gentry; Whitelocke's Memorials, pp. 203, 412, 417, 450; Rawdon Papers, pp. 217–218, 222–5.]