 Tresham's father, born near the end of Henry VIII's reign, was regarded by the Catholic community as one of its leaders. Thomas was received into the Catholic Church in 1580, and in the same year he allowed the Jesuit Edmund Campion to stay at his house in Hoxton. For the latter, following Campion's capture in 1581, he was tried in Star Chamber. Thomas's refusal to fully comply with his interrogators was the beginning of years of fines and spells in prison. He proclaimed the accession of James I to the English throne, but the king's promises to Thomas of forestry commissions and an end to recusancy fines were not kept. His finances were seriously depleted by fines of £ 7,720 for recusancy, and the spending of £ 12,200 on the marriages of six daughters meant that when he died in 1605, his estate was £ 11,500 in debt.
