Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 57.djvu/172

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Engraved portraits of him are at Lincoln's Inn and in the National Portrait Gallery.

Treby married four times. He had issue neither by his first wife (married by license dated 15 Nov. 1675), Anna Blount, a widow, born Grosvenor; nor by his second, whose maiden name was Standish. His third and fourth wives were respectively Dorothy, daughter of Ralph Grainge of the Inner Temple (license dated 14 Dec. 1684), and Mary Brinley (license dated 6 Jan. 1692–3), who brought him 10,000l. By his third wife he had a son, who survived him, and a daughter who died in infancy. By his fourth wife he had a son. His son by his third wife, George Treby, M.P. for Plympton 1708–34, appointed secretary at war 24 Dec. 1718, and teller of the exchequer 25 April 1724, was father of George Treby, M.P. for Dartmouth 1722–47, and lord of the treasury in 1741. The last-mentioned George Treby purchased the estate of Goodamoor, Plympton St. Mary, which remained in his posterity until the present century.

Sir George Treby's

    Steady temper, condescending mind,
    Indulgent to distress, to merit kind,
    Knowledge sublime, sharp judgment, piety,
    From pride, from censure, from moroseness free—

with other excellent qualities, are lauded to the skies by Nahum Tate, who had probably tasted of his bounty (Broadside in British Museum). He is also panegyrised in a ‘Pindaric’ ode printed in ‘Poems on State Affairs’ (1707, iv. 365–8). Evelyn (Diary, 8 Dec. 1700) mourned him as one of the few learned lawyers of his age, and this character is amply sustained by his arguments and decisions (see Cobbett, State Trials, vii. 1308, viii. 1099, ix. 312, x. 383, xii. 376, 1034–47, 1248, 1379, xiii. 1, 64, 139, 386, 451, xiv. 23; Modern Reports, iii–iv.; Pleadings and Arguments of Mr. Heneage Finch, Sir Robert Sawyer, and Mr. Henry Pollexfen, &c., London, 1690, fol.; and The Arguments of the Lord-keeper, the Lord Chief Justice, and Mr. Baron Powell, when they gave judgment for the Earl of Bath, London, 1693, fol.). He is understood to have contributed the notes to Dyer's ‘Reports’ [see Dyer, Sir James].

Treby edited ‘A Collection of Letters and other Writings relating to the horrid Popish Plot, printed from the Originals,’ London, 1681, 2 pts. fol.; and he was reputed to be the author of ‘Truth Vindicated; or a Detection of the Aspersions and Scandals cast upon Sir Robert Clayton and Sir George Treby, Justices, and Slingsby Bethell and Henry Cornish, Sheriffs, of the City of London, in a Paper published in the name of Dr. Francis Hawkins, Minister of the Tower, intituled “The Confession of Edward Fitzharris, Esq.,”’ London, 1681, 4to.

His ‘Speech to the Prince of Orange, Dec. 20th, 1688,’ is among the political tracts in the British Museum, and in ‘Fourth Collection of Papers relating to the present Juncture of Affairs in England,’ 1688. Two certificates on petitions referred to him in 1689, and his learned opinion on the incidence of the cider tax, dated 30 March 1691, are in Addit. MSS. 6681 pp. 460–3 and 492, and 6693 p. 463.

[Le Neve's Pedigrees of Knights (Harl. Soc.), p. 343; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500–1714; Boase's Hist. of Exeter Coll. (Oxford Hist. Soc.) p. cxxxi; Wood's Athenæ Oxon. ed. Bliss, iv. 499; North's Lives, i. 211; Official List of Recorders of the City of London, 1850; Evelyn's Diary, 30 Nov. 1680, 4 Oct. 1683, 4 July 1696; Luttrell's Brief Relation of State Affairs; Clarendon and Rochester Corresp. ii. 296; Commons' Journals, ix. 582, 601, 663, 708; Official Returns of M.P.'s; Parl. Hist.; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1689–90, pp. 11–12, 487; Burnet's Own Time, fol. pp. 497–8; Clarke's Life of James II, ii. 299; Lords' Journals, xv. 656–98, 748–50, xvi. 172–9, 206–13, 218, 289–92, 326, 360, 430–441, 443–61, 470, 473, 493, 495, 531; Genealogist, ed. Selby, p. 84; Marriage Lic. Vic.-Gen. Cant. 1660–79 (Harl. Soc.); Marriage Lic. Vic.-Gen. Cant. 1679–87 (Harl. Soc.); Marriage Lic. Fac. Offic. Cant. (Harl. Soc.); Noble's Continuation of Granger's Biogr. Hist. of England, 1806, i. 166; Mackintosh's Hist. of the Revolution in 1688, p. 555; Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. App. p. 22, 5th Rep. App. p. 383, 7th Rep. App. p. 205, 9th Rep. App. i. 282, 12th Rep. App. vii. 230; Polwhele's Devonshire, p. 452; Cotton's Account of Plympton St. Maurice; Burke's Landed Gentry, 1863; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]

J. M. R.

TREDENHAM, JOHN (1668–1710), politician, was the elder surviving son of Sir Joseph Tredenham of Tregonan, St. Ewe, Cornwall (M.P. for St. Mawes in that county, and for Totnes), who died on 25 April 1707, and was buried in the south aisle of Westminster Abbey. Sir Joseph married, about 9 May 1666, Elizabeth (d. 1731, aged 96), only daughter of Sir Edward Seymour, third baronet, of Berry Pomeroy, near Totnes, and sister of Sir Edward Seymour [q. v.], the speaker of the House of Commons.

John was baptised on 28 March 1668, and admitted as student of the Inner Temple in 1682. He matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, on 6 May 1684, and in the following year contributed a set of verses to the university's collection of poems on the accession of James II, but he left Oxford without taking a degree. The family was