In this chapter the focus is upon the Temple connection. Only a knowledge of the Temples’ past will enable the reader to understand their present in the period 1570 to 1660. This knowledge leads us to comprehend many of the relationships which the Temples formed and maintained with others. This said, the late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Temples made other, newer friendships which were important to them. The terms ‘friend’ and ‘friendship’ are used to refer to people with whom the Temples had close associations marked by liking, affection or loyalty and also to those who were their allies, patrons and/or supporters. These relationship characteristics frequently overlapped.

The chapter does not attempt to mention all members of the Temple connection – that would be a huge task and create a mammoth narrative. Additionally we should approach with due caution any attempt to define precisely the nature of some of these relationships and their repercussions. One should not assume that because individuals knew one another or moved in the same social circles there was a close relationship which influenced their behaviour or fortunes. Moreover, as observed earlier, the Temple archive is insufficiently comprehensive to enable us to create a complete picture with any confidence. Instead, these pages introduce only those individuals and groups within the Temples’ social ‘reach’ who were important in our story of the Temples, their roles and active relationships.

To recap briefly, historians for some time have been aware of kin connections in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English society. As long ago as 1975 Anthony Fletcher concluded from an examination of Nicholas Assheton's Journal for 1617–18 that 30 per cent of people Assheton met were kin and 40 per cent of those he simply mentioned. Miriam Slater opined, ‘in this society it was the family, defined here as the parents and their children, who together with the kin were the brokers of access to opportunities of all kinds, whether educational or career, and especially of marriage’. Ian Archer's analysis of Pepys's social network revealed that, even within London, kin outside his immediate household formed a significant part of his male and female interactions. The importance of kin has, however, been much debated and contested.