Chapter 1 - Meet the Temples

Summary

Cast of characters

This book is about a family. It is that of the Temples of Burton Dassett and Stowe. This family belonged to the gentry. It is generally estimated that the entire landed elite or aristocracy represented about 2 per cent of the population of England at this time. Under Elizabeth I there were about 55 peers of the realm and 350 knights. By 1603 nationally there were approximately 1,600 esquires or gentlemen who, together with the knights, made up the gentry. Buckinghamshire, wherein lay Stowe, had about 200 gentry families, of whom 40 or so were especially prominent. If one prefers to describe social status using the contemporary language of sorts, then the Temples were clearly the ‘better sort’ of people. Their estate was large and their net annual income from farming in the first quarter of the seventeenth century has been estimated as ￡2,000. Richard Grenville by 1640 assessed the estate at ￡3,000. The Temples of Stowe made the move from the squirearchy (lower gentry) to the ranks of knights and baronets (upper gentry) quite early in James I's reign. James I made a conscious attempt to raise money through the sale of honours and swelled the ranks of the titled elite.

This book is about people. The line of Temples with which it is concerned originated with Thomas Temple of Whitney. Thomas's son Peter settled in Burton Dassett, Warwickshire, and it was there that he and his wife Millicent Heritage Temple raised two sons (John and Anthony) and Millicent's four daughters by two former husbands. Central to the book are Sir Thomas Temple and Hester (Sandys) Temple and their children and grandchildren, and, to a lesser extent, their own parents, siblings and half-siblings, nieces and nephews, and cousins. Thomas Temple was born in winter 1567/8 to John and Susan (Spencer) Temple. John was the elder of the two sons of Peter Temple of Burton Dassett. Towards the end of old Peter's life he leased land at Stowe, Buckinghamshire and this became his heir John and Susan's main home thereafter. Thomas their eldest son was baptized at Stowe, near Buckingham, on 9 January 1567/8.Thomas seems to have been their first child and first-born son and heir. John was styled as an esquire.