BISHOP JONATHAN TRELAWNY

A Brief Overview of

BISHOP JONATHAN TRELAWNY

Bishop John Trelawny Jonathan Trelawny was born in Pelynt in 1650. He was ordained in 1673. Along with his brother, Major General Charles Trelawny, he helped to put down the rebellion in the west led by the Duke of Monmouth. In gratitude for his services, King James II knighted him and appointed him Bishop of Bristol in 1685. Although he was loyal to the crown, Trelawny was one of seven Bishops who petitioned against the king’s Declaration of Indulgence in 1667, granting religious tolerance to the Catholics. Along with the other bishops, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London for three weeks, then tried and acquitted. He became Bishop of Exeter in 1688 and Bishop of Winchester in 1707. He died in 1721. Trelawny was the hero of the 1825 “The Song of the Western Men” or “Trelawny”, the unofficial national anthem for Cornwall.