Earlier in this book I raised the question whether ‘family’ mattered in early modern English society, whether to the individuals who inhabited them or to the society in which they formed the primary unit. The various chapters have explored this question from many different vantage points. Clearly the ‘family’ was very much more than a nest and nursery for the simple, nuclear family so beloved of demographers. The ‘family’ had many different facets. This study of the early Temples of Stowe has shown that there were active family relationships between parents, children and grandchildren that endured from cradle to grave and even beyond. The Temple descendants formed a kind of mini society; frequent family gatherings and communications drew together cousins and connections, and, unsurprisingly, cousin marriage is noticeable in the family tree. The fact that a child had reached adulthood and entered the married state did not mean that the influence of the parents ceased. Equally the Temples were heavily involved in the affairs of some of their siblings and half-siblings and their descendants. Certain of these relationships appear to have been more active than others, although it is never possible to establish this with certainty because the surviving documentation is partial. As noted, the creation of new nuclear families as children married and had children brought with it tensions. The extant archives do not facilitate a chronological narrative but rich documentation surrounding particular episodes permits the historian to study in considerable detail specific relationships, and especially those in times of crisis, within what was essentially an upper gentry family.

At the level of a study of family interaction I hope that I have given some sense of how this particular family ‘operated’. The family did not exist in isolation; children were prepared for the outside world in many ways by both parents.