Intergenerational conflict in the early modern period has received some welcome attention from historians. For example, Lawrence Stone and Barbara Harris both pointed to the many arguments that focused on finance. Recently Carole Levin has examined the dreams of early modern parents who penned autobiographical documents as well as manuals of dream interpretation. In Thomas Hill's The Pleasant Art of the Interpretation of Dreams (published in London in 1576) one dream depicts a father being consumed by his children. Levin sees this as revealing ‘one of the most intense sites of cultural anxiety …: conflicts between parents and children’. She concludes, however, that parents’ actual dreams not only revealed this fear of the power of surviving children but also anxiety about illness and death; dreams of children about their parents reflected pain and guilt; and amidst it all the dreams ‘testified to deep affection’. The transition from childhood to adulthood was tense in the past as it is often today and valuable work has been done in this area also. The Temples’ complex relationships with their sons, and especially their two eldest – Sir Peter and Sir John – show how such tensions lingered into mature manhood.

Sir Alexander Denton beinge at Stowe with Sir Peter, Sir Peter complayned, and alleadged his want of Armes to be caused by my Mr [Sir Thomas Temple]

Sir Thomas's ‘education’ of Sir Peter was interrupted by a series of family quarrels, one or more of which resulted in major court cases. In order to appreciate the severity of the problem it is necessary to understand its origins. The story of Sir Thomas and Lady Hester's strained relations with Peter is relatively well known although its interpretation is problematic. Nevertheless, there is certainly evidence to indicate that the couple viewed Peter as a ‘problem’. According to Thomas, Peter had always been wayward. In his teens he was already seeking loans where he could to support him in London. Worse still, he was being interviewed in the Star Chamber in 1612 for his part in the manslaughter of Thomas Pilkington by Sir Edward Peyto and his servant Peter Peyto. Sir Thomas and Lady Hester were more than anxious to see him settle down with a wife but a few matches did not materialize.