Chapter 5 - After the fall, 1629–1637

Summary

There is abundant evidence that Lady Hester played an important role in the years including and following 1629. After Thomas's accident, John Rous offered his mother-in-law advice on what she needed to do when acting on Sir Thomas's behalf in legal matters. There is once more occasional written evidence that Hester acted as Thomas's filing clerk and aide-mémoire. For instance, in 1630 Thomas recorded that she had reminded him of debts owing to him: ‘[margin: To my wife the Lady Hester Temple] Memorandum delivered to her of which she told me & I remembred not 2 statutes which mr Edw Ewer acknowledged to me Sir Tho Temple & other obligacons which & howe manye she remembreth not.’ And again she served to remind him of the existence of a lease: ‘memorandum my wife putt me in minde of a lease to me Sir T Sir Ro: Hide made of Holloway Grange rendring yearely 70li, which I delivered & lent to my daughter the Lady Ashcombe to answere the sherife of Oxfordshere whereupon remayneth dew to me in her hands & dew arrerages of rent, but when I delivered it query [margin: My daughter the Lady Ayschcombe].’

In 1630 Sir Thomas deployed his wife and Robert Smith to renew the valuable lease he had of Tingewick fish pools from New College, Oxford. Probably on this occasion she sent George Rouce, to inquire about the status of the lease. His letter makes clear Lady Hester's capacity as Sir Thomas's agent. Sir Thomas had Hester search for documents in one or more of the studies he maintained in each of their residences during this period – Wolverton and Burton Dassett – and follow his detailed instructions in respect of them: ‘Quere for thob [the obligation] I thinck I Sir T. saw on my study at Wolverton to put downe his Quernes in Lutterworth & then being found to deliver to my said wife to be shewed in Easter Terme 1631 by mr W. Lenthall in Theschequer [the Exchequer] at the hearing of mr Tho: Incelye.’

Spring 1631 saw Sir Thomas asking Hester to search for his unfinished will.