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LIFE OF FRANCIS TREGIAN SEPVLTADO NESTA IGREIIA DE
S. ROQVE DA COMPA DE IHS NO DE 1625 AOS 25 DE ABRIL SE A CHOV SEV CORPO INTEIRO E INCORRVPTO E FOI COLLOCADO NESTE LVGAR PELLOS INGRESES CATOLICOS RESIDENTES NESTA CIDADE AOS 25 DE ABRIL DE 1626
Translation: Here standeth the body of Master Francis Tregian, an illustrious English gentleman, who after the confiscation of his estates and after great sufferings endured in 28 years of imprisonment for the defence of the Catholic Faith in England during the persecution under Queen Elizabeth, died in this City of Lisbon on the 25th of December , 1608, with great fame of sanctity , and was buried in this church of St Roch belonging to the Society of Jesus. Seventeen years after , on the 25th of April, 1625, his body was found entire and incorrupt , and was here deposited by the English Catholics residing in this city on the 25th of April, 1626.]
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NOTE
II.
We are indebted to the Rev. Father Francisco Rodriguez , S.J., of Lisbon, through the Rev. Father C. A. Newdigate , S.J. , for the following information . (1) The original " Prefect's Book quoted by Father Ignatius Stafford in his letter of April, 1625, * is"still preserved in the archives of the Santa Casa da Misericordia de Lisboa, and in 1916 was published by Victor Ribeiro under the title of Obituarios da Igreja e Casa Professa de San Roque da Companhia de Jesus for the Lisbon Academyof Sciences. Therein, at page 55, will be found the passage quoted by Father Stafford; with the information added by another hand that " in 1624, on the vault being opened for another burial, Tregian's corpse was found incorrupt , and was reinterred upright under the pulpit; and that the other body was not laid in the vault out of reverence for the servant of God ; and that in future none was to be buried there without express order of the superior. " (2) In the Synopsis Annalium Societatis Jesu in Lusitania of Father Antonio Franco, S.J. (Augsburg , 1726) , there is an elogium of some length of Francis Tregian . The writer sums up by saying: His life was exemplary and his death that of a saint." He then goes on to give the reason of Tregian's burial in the Jesuit church: On his death-bed he implored the Fathers of the Professed House, who had been his spiritual directors, that he might be buried in their church. Many years after his tomb was opened and his body found entire, fresh and incorrupt . The whole proceeding was committed to authentic records . The venerable body was deposited in the wall of the church, with an inscription to show how great a man is there interred."
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* See Father J. Morris's Troubles of our Catholic Forefathers , series i ,
p. 61 .