Abstract
In this painstakingly researched, densely detailed work, Rosemary O’Day examines the connections and relationships of one large gentry family from the English midlands. By minutely studying correspondence and court cases, she aims to uncover how the Temples lived their lives, and what family meant to them. Her focus is the family rather than the household and thus siblings, in-laws, grandchildren, and wards are included.
Fifteen children over the course of twenty years were born to Hester and Thomas Temple, nine daughters and four sons surviving to adulthood. Sir Thomas Temple (1567–1637), landowner, JP, High Sheriff, and Deputy Lieutenant, kept a methodical record of all his activities and was clearly heavily involved in the public and domestic worlds. But the center of this story belongs to the formidable and indefatigable matriarch: Lady Hester Temple (1570–1656). Hester, despite being busy with childbearing, entertaining, and household concerns, also dealt with farming, estate, financial, and legal matters. She took part in the marriage negotiations of her children and wards, and was ever alert to any threat to her welfare. She fought strenuously to protects her rights, especially with respect to financial arrangements for daughters-in-law and her demands in one case torpedoed a proposed match for Peter, the eldest son.
Hester was an industrious partner from the time the couple married in 1586, but really came into her own after a fall from a horse in 1629 left Thomas a semi-invalid. Hester acted on her husband's behalf in legal matters, and helped with land transactions. Thomas had the final say, but he clearly expected his wife to be knowledgeable about legal and estate matters and discussed all of the family's affairs with her. In recognition of her abilities, Thomas named Hester sole executrix, though she requested that her youngest son Miles be appointed to administer the estate.
The Temples were part of a network of kin and gentry families tied by the distribution of patronage. Marriages were thus all about enhancing these connections. Through a careful reconstruction of links noted in ledgers, legal papers, and account books, O’Day shows that patronage was not just top-down from noble to social inferior. Even relatively humble individuals could offer patronage, ensuring that the Temples were both givers and beneficiaries. Hester, routinely asked by members of the Temple network to intercede on their behalf, acted as a gatekeeper for Thomas. She, having funds available to use as she wanted as a wife and the fruits of her jointure estate as a widow, also dispensed patronage in her own right. She loaned money often, especially to her adult children and grandchildren, keeping detailed accounts of the money she laid out for them and making sure they realized these were loans not gifts. Hester did not grant every solicitation. She refused one granddaughter who had already been well supplied with funds, and said no to several requests from her son Peter, preferring to spend money on his younger children instead.
Despite the richness of the archive, the quality of personal relationships remains elusive. Hester and Thomas were apparently closer to some children than others, although they retained contact with all four sons and most daughters after they left home, as well as forging bonds with most grandchildren. Married daughters maintained close connections with parents and siblings, often returning home for childbirth. One married daughter, Martha, apparently had an affair but the family archive reveals no outrage at this, and she continued to be welcome in her parents’ home. Thomas was concerned with training his sons for manhood and their future as heads of a household. His letters to them offered spiritual counsel, cautioned them not to be idle, urged them to provide for their family, and gave practical advice on all aspects of estate management.
Relations between adult children and their parents could be tense. Both Hester and Thomas had a notably strained relationship with Peter whom Thomas saw as wayward and extravagant. Peter had rejected his father's choice of a wife, had to testify before Star Chamber in 1612 about his role in a manslaughter case, and had spent far too much money. Because his parents secured his loans, the last was particularly alarming and threatened their financial security. Peter was equally annoyed by his parents, even taking his father to court twice. The second son, John, was equally improvident, and Thomas was also a guarantor of his loans. Neither did the Temples approve of the way John treated his children. At one family gathering, Hester gave everyone her blessing save John, much to his distress. Thomas, the third son, was a lawyer, and member of the clergy. He, too, was often in debt, seen as quarrelsome, and ruined his reputation by engaging in and paying for sex in a church pew.
The Temples strove to provide for all their children in order to prevent sibling discord. Harmony, however, did not prevail. The two eldest sons fought constantly: Peter claimed his father had spent too much money providing for the younger sons while John complained that his parents favored Peter. The two youngest daughters also had an acrimonious relationship with one, Meg, convinced that Hester gave other children more.
Money was always an issue. The couple tried to provide for all their children, maintain an appropriate standard of living, and avoid too much indebtedness. Marrying his seven daughters stretched Thomas financially—he offered handsome portions, though often struggled to pay them, and paid for the wedding clothes and festivities—but all married. Tenants, especially during times of crisis like the civil war, were often unwilling or unable to pay rents. Financial issues were the basis of most familial conflict and law suits. The family were involved in many court cases, both as plaintiffs and defendants. Thomas sued a brother-in-law so as to ensure the financial welfare of his sister Mary who was estranged from husband, and also to protect his financial interests. A dispute with a married grand-daughter, Anne, over the latter's rights to part of Burton Bassett led to Anne and her husband attempting to remove poultry, malt, and corn from the estate by force. Peter accused his father in one case of ploughing up profitable pasture. In another, he alleged that Thomas had given John, the second son, land, cattle, and money to the value of £10,000. Eventually, they worked out a compromise: Thomas and Hester could enjoy the estate while they lived, and Peter had the right to stop anything to his prejudice. These cases highlight the complex financial demands juggled by members of the gentry. Peter was in debt and concerned for his and his children's inheritance. Thomas was trying to provide for all children, was short of funds himself and was thus willing to break his father's will, arguing that he had the right to use the estate as he wished in his lifetime. These families lived lives of complicated entanglements in which wills, bequests, and entails of the dead ensnared the living.
None of the above information will be a surprise to scholars, but O’Day does incorporate some new information on abused wives, wardship, disabled, and servants. Even elite women who had resources and parental support were unable to have penalties imposed on abusive husbands. The Temple's seventh daughter, Anne, married at the age of sixteen Sir William Andrewes, bringing a substantial portion of £3000. William, alas, turned out to be a bully. He beat her when she was pregnant, starved her and the children, and threatened to fire the servants if they came to her aid. Anne fled to her parental home to escape the abuse. Thomas worked hard on his daughter's behalf. He reminded William of his marriage vows. He brought in a local magistrate and when William denied that he was abusive and refused arbitration, Thomas referred the matter formally to the Justice of the Peace, seeking to have William bound over to keep the peace and to be fined heavily if he mistreated his wife. The case was investigated, but the JP was reluctant to move against a member of the local gentry. Thomas then turned to the church courts, and sought alimony for Anne and the children in the Court of High Commission. No formal sanction appears to have been imposed on William but the couple were apparently reconciled and had two more sons.
One chapter is devoted to the care of Thomas’ younger brother, “Peter the Lunatic,” who by the age of 24 was not always rational and was increasingly not in control of his affairs. Thomas was deeply involved in the care of Peter, his wife, and children even after Peter was taken into the custody of court of wards. Care of Peter and his family cost Thomas, already taxed with other commitments, money and created emotional turmoil—both of which were exacerbated when the court of wards sued Thomas for improper use of funds. Another chapter focuses on the Temples’ two wards, Dorothy and Mary Lee. Buying a wardship was expensive and time-consuming but brought income from the estate and opportunities for marriage. The Lee girls were co-heiresses, near neighbors, and young, and Thomas clearly hoped for marriages with his sons. In the event, Dorothy married a Temple, but her sister Mary married John Claver and then sued Thomas on the grounds that he had privileged Dorothy and defrauded Mary of some of her estate.
The Temples also made use of servants to manage family relationships. In the Andrewes’ marriage, William ordered servants to monitor the behavior of his wife, to give her no help, and to remain silent about what they had seen—although they later testified against him in court. Hester asked a former servant of hers who now worked for Peter to report on her son's behavior. Other servants related to Hester that Peter and John were trying to reach an agreement over land. The servants involved were anxious about their role, asking Hester to keep this secret, and to burn the letters.
A detailed case study, O’Day claims, is needed to balance the prevalence of thematic macro-histories. She clearly sees her book as a corrective to previous assertions. A family, she argues, was much more complicated than the nuclear family of demographers; there were extensive relationships among parents, children, and grandchildren; parents were important for adult children; relationships were founded on affection as well obligation; women were neither divorced from the family nor wholly restricted by it; marriage agreements alone do not tell the whole story of provision for wives and widows. The interpretations she revises, unfortunately, are often old ones that have already been amended. The carefully collected evidence upholds most of what we know about the early modern landed family. The organization by relationship rather than theme makes for some repetition and confusion and prevents more wide ranging interpretations.
O’Day sticks closely to the archive, paying meticulous attention to the welter of detail contained there. Her conclusions are brief, often perfunctory, and resolutely non-speculative. Thus, notwithstanding the length of the book and the extensive appendices, we are left wanting more: more engagement with recent scholarship, more nuanced discussion of the copious quotations, more of an overall argument, more probing of the issues, and more pushing the boundaries. Take court cases, for example. These seem to testify to the existence of frayed relationships. Yet, even during court proceedings, Peter and his father enjoyed a close relationship. There were very few periods of time when the Temples were not involved in lawsuits. They spent their lives worrying about money. Everyone apparently had a deep knowledge of their rights and were alert to any diminution of these. Lawsuits may be less evidence of discord but a routine—even if time-consuming and expensive—method of settling matters so as to prevent a family falling apart.