In the last century a portion of the land about this part was rented by a French Protestant refugee family, named Moreau, of which General Moreau was a member. They returned to France about eighty years since. {200} All this land one hundred and fifty years ago was the property of Sir John Trevor, many years Master of the Rolls. He was second son of John Trevor, of Bynkinsalt, Denbighshire, Esq., by an aunt of the infamous Chancellor Jeffreys, and was born about 1638. After a very lowly education, he was taken by a relative, Arthur Trevor, a barrister, as his clerk. Here he assiduously applied himself to the study of the law, and afterwards entered the Inner Temple, and was called to the bar. His advancement was very rapid, for, entering the House of Commons, he upheld the Royal Prerogative to an extreme, denying the right of Parliament to inquire into its exercise. He took a prominent part in the unjust prosecution of the unfortunate Lord Strafford, and strenuously defended Jeffreys when he obstructed the right of petitioning in the great controversy between the _Petitioners_ and _Abhorrers_. When James II. called his only Parliament in May, 1685, Trevor, who sat for Denbigh, was, through the Government influence, elected Speaker. {201} The new Parliament, however, did not suit James, and at the commencement of a second session was dissolved. Trevor’s obsequiousness was rewarded with the Mastership of the Rolls, an office to which he was appointed October 20th, 1685. It is said he aimed now at the Chancellorship, and, with that object, endeavoured to injure Jeffreys by aiding the outcry against him on the occasion of the shameless case of Alderman Cornish. In July, 1688, Trevor was sworn of the Privy Council; but William of Orange soon after landing, with characteristic meanness he held aloof, but when James returned after his first flight, imagining a reaction was come, declared in his favour; his hopes proved transitory, and he therefore joined the High Tories, who wished to make William Regent only. He, however, was declared King, and Trevor was removed from the Rolls. In 1690 a new Parliament was called, and Trevor joined the more moderate of the two sections into which his party was divided; and having offered to support the new King, and also bring over partisans from the opposite camp, if restored to the Speaker’s chair, his proposal was agreed to; and so well did he perform his part, that William in a few weeks appointed him First Commissioner of the Great Seal, he still retaining the Speakership, and in less than two years, his successor at the Rolls dying, he was restored to that position also. But great inconvenience resulted, and on May 2nd, 1693, the Great Seal was given to Somers.