Sir John Trelawny, 1st Baronet (24 April 1592 – 16 February 1664) was a Cornish baronet and soldier from Trelawne, Cornwall. He was High Sheriff of Cornwall. A Royalist Member of Parliament, he fought for Charles I in the English Civil War.
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Origins
John Trelawny was born in Hall, near Fowey in Cornwall on 24 April 1592, and baptised in Fowey on 7 May. He was the eldest son of Jonathan Trelawny and Elizabeth Killigrew. He studied at Merton College, Oxford where he matriculated 23 October 1607.
He succeeded his father in 1604 to the Trelawne manor his father had bought from the crown in 1600.
Parliament
In 1628, Trelawny became involved in the dispute between Charles I and leading members of Parliament which eventually led to the English Civil War. The King was anxious to influence the election of MPs so as to secure a more pliable Parliament, and in Cornwall efforts on his behalf were being directed by one James Bagg, acting in concert with the Duke of Buckingham. Two of the King's most implacable opponents, William Coryton and Sir John Eliot, had announced their intention of standing for election as knights of the shire for Cornwall, and Bagg arranged for a caucus of influential Cornish magistrates to mobilise against them. They not only used the official posts to promote alternative candidates and attempted to instruct the High Sheriff (Trelawny himself was High Sheriff of Cornwall in 1630) who he should return as elected, but they wrote open letters to the freeholders of the county appealing that they should not elect Coryton or Eliot, and to Eliot and Coryton themselves, warning them against persisting with their candidacy. These letters were signed by all the magistrates concerned, of whom Trelawny was one.