Marriage Choice and Kinship among the English Catholic Elite,1680–1730

Debates on the history of marriage throughout the long early modern period have focused on a supposed dichotomy between individual choice and kin control. Individuals, it is argued, were more likely to choose a partner whom they loved or felt emotional attachment toward, and a draconian kin group was more likely to choose partners who brought financial and political advantages to be enjoyed by the group as a whole. Over time, the influence of the individual asserted itself over kin, in a long narrative of progress culminating in the modern individualist marriage. ¹ This Whiggish view was most famously advocated by Lawrence Stone in his monograph, The Family, Sex and Marriage. Stone stated that “between 1500 and 1700 … the importance of the nuclear core increased … so the influence of the kin and clientage correspondingly declined.” As a result, “the importance of affective bonds to tie the conjugal unit together began to increase,” and consequently marriages arranged by kin for mercenary motives gave way to marriages based on love and individual choice. ² Stone’s findings were criticized early on, most notably by Alan Macfarlane, who asserted that the development of individualism occurred much earlier than Stone suggested. ³ Others advocated a more cautious approach, with Wrightson and Houlbrooke arguing that individuals chose marriage partners with kin help and that marriage for love was usually accompanied with consideration of other factors such as wealth and status. ⁴ More recently, a proliferation of case studies covering a wide social group from plebeian to aristocratic marriage has only served to reinforce this middling view. ⁵ However, Stone’s views have remained the central starting point for most historians of marriage, and recent microhistories by Tague, O’Day, and Larminie have suggested that kin influence and the prioritization of dynastic fortunes continued, at least among the ruling elite, well into the eighteenth century. ⁶ It would seem, therefore, that the question remains open. The polarized dichotomy of Stone’s argument is perhaps misleading; what we are in fact looking at is degrees of difference, and the particular weightings given to individual or kin choice, to emotional attachment or money and influence, in marriage choices.

The supposed factors in marriage choice are clear in the historiography: emotional attachment and sexual attraction, economic security, parity of socioeconomic class, and political influence. ⁷ The oppositional forces are still usually posited as material gain versus emotional fulfilment, despite growing understanding that financial considerations could be as important to individuals as to family groups. ⁸ Other possible motivations are often neglected. Religion is rarely mentioned as a criterion; when it appears, it is confined to a sentence or two. Religious endogamy is taken for granted, but with no consideration of how this would impact on either the marriage process or the selection criteria. ⁹ One notable exception is Stephens’s recent study of the pious Puritan Elizabeth Isham, and her decision to choose a life of religious devotion over marriage, even to a respectable Puritan gentleman. ¹⁰ Stephens’s work suggests that religion could be a significant consideration for individuals, but does not consider the impact this could have on kin attitudes. Crucially, Isham’s family did not share her beliefs, and so her choice of religion is seen as individualist. ¹¹ The absence of religion from the history of marriage is surprising, as many analyses of change in marriage criteria over time rest on developments resulting from the spread of Protestantism following the Reformation. Barclay explicitly links the “spread of Protestantism” first to the rise of patriarchy, followed by the development of affective individualism and a decline in familial duty. ¹² Stone’s argument that the individual’s right to veto developed due to a Protestant emphasis on the importance of conjugal compatibility and affection has been backed by most studies of Protestant conduct literature. Fletcher and Davies, among others, have argued that such literature was integral to the idealization of the companionate, domestic marriage from the seventeenth century onward, which emphasized the affectionate bond between husband and wife. ¹³ Protestantism is also held responsible for consolidating patriarchal authority, albeit moderated by affection, as the male head of household replaced the priest as the source of spiritual and temporal authority. ¹⁴ Most historians of marriage and family in Britain have used only Protestant case studies, either of elite Protestant families or of more ordinary communities, where their main evidence base is Anglican parish or church court records. ¹⁵ This article seeks to redress this imbalance by considering that English Catholics may have been exposed to alternative cultural, social, and economic pressures that affected marriage criteria and kin influence. The intention is not to focus on the wider religious differences between transnational Catholic and Protestant communities, but rather on the behavior of a specifically English, Catholic, recusant elite as a persecuted religious minority and as a subsection of the wider British elite in this period. As such, their marriage choices are important for considering the role of religion in British marriage as a whole.

At the most simplistic level, English Catholics were subject to a range of economic and political restrictions that affected their attitudes toward marriage. Stone argues that kin influence decreased because kinship was no longer “the main organizing principle of landed society” and because “the rise of the powers and claims of the state, encouraged by the Protestant reformers … [took] over some of the economic and social functions previously carried out by the family … subordinating kin and client loyalties to the higher obligations of patriotism and obedience to the sovereign.” ¹⁶ This hypothesis encounters problems when applied to English Catholic recusants prior to emancipation. Patriotism and royal obedience were ambiguous concepts following the 1688 Glorious Revolution, the exile of James II and subsequent Jacobite rebellions, and a hostile state could not take on the same “economic and social functions” as a largely cohesive and religiously endogamous kin group. In fact, the increasing power of the state would likely make Catholic recusants more dependent on kin. The penal laws greatly impacted on Catholic relationships with office-holding, patronage, and wealth, encouraging them to seek kin-based rather than state-sanctioned positions. ¹⁷ Catholic individuals, particularly women, also had a viable and honorable alternative to marriage through taking holy orders, which may have affected their willingness to accept a spouse they disliked.

The elite family has long been the focus of research for historians of English Catholicism, primarily due to the importance of lay leadership in the absence of an institutional church. ¹⁸ Although the importance of the household in the transmission of religion and culture has been acknowledged, no connection has been made to the importance of endogamous marriage in preserving family piety. ¹⁹ The use of marriage in patronage and interfamily alliance has been mentioned only as an adjunct to discussion about community cohesion or patronage networks. ²⁰ Studies of Catholic family alliances have recently made great strides in emphasizing the factional differences between groups, moving away from the more monolithic approach of earlier historiography. ²¹ However, there is no discussion of the process of making marriage, nor any analysis of the balance between kin and individual in decision-making. Although there has been much discussion of the role of women in a supposedly matriarchal Catholic community, this has focused on the role of mothers. ²² There has been an emergent interest among primarily Protestant women choosing a single life, but it is only within the last fifteen years that historians have considered the choices of young Catholic women between taking a husband or taking the veil. ²³ Given these evident differences between Catholic and Protestant family life and female life choices, an assumption that marriage was approached in the same way regardless of religious preference is untenable.

This study examines the experience of one Catholic family, the Throckmortons, to illuminate the complex interplay between kin and individual choice, and the priorities of money, family status and connection, emotional attachment, and religious endogamy. The family is perhaps best known for masterminding a plot to oust Elizabeth I from the throne and for their role in the struggle for Catholic Emancipation nearly three centuries later. ²⁴ The focus here is on Sir Robert Throckmorton (1662–1721), the third baronet, and the marriages of his son and heir Robin, his orphaned niece and ward Anne Wollascott, and his seven daughters: Anne, Mary, Elizabeth, Catherine, Charlotte, Apollonia, and Barbara. Two daughters, Elizabeth and Catherine, became nuns, and the marriages of the other children connected them to the foremost Catholic families of the period: Petre, Sheldon, Fermor, Windsor-Hunloke, Blount, Giffard, and Herbert. For a family tree, see Figure 1. Letters detailing the children’s education and marriage arrangements have been preserved, along with accounts and legal settlements. ²⁵ These letters have not previously been used in a study of marriage or kinship. ²⁶

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Figure 1.

The Throckmorton family tree. Source: Compiled from documentary evidence held at Warwickshire County Record Office, the family tree in Marshall and Scott, Catholic Gentry in English Society, 271 and WWTN, Throckmorton Family Tree, accessed July 3, 2015, http://wwtn.history.qmul.ac.uk/ftrees/Throckmorton.pdf.

To a certain extent, the Throckmortons were typical of an upper gentry family of any religion, intent on consolidation and recovery following the Civil War. Sir Robert’s marriage to the Catholic heiress Mary Yate in 1686 had added the lucrative estates of Buckland and Harvington to the family’s substantial holdings in Warwickshire and Buckinghamshire, and prior to the 1688 Glorious Revolution he had been appointed as Justice of the Peace and granted a license to attend the Stuart court in London. ²⁷ In line with recent research emphasizing mutual respect and cooperation between Catholic and Protestant elites along lines of wealth and status rather than religion, the Throckmortons socialized with their Protestant neighbors and shared ideals of gentility, civic duty, and paternalism. ²⁸ Sir Robert took his duties as lord of the manor seriously, providing new bells for the Anglican Coughton Church, echoing Daniel Defoe’s description of Sir Robert’s kin the Petres who, “by a consistent series of beneficent actions to the poor … gained an affectionate esteem … such as no prejudice of religion should wear out.” ²⁹ The Throckmortons were intensely patriotic and proud of their ancestors’ royalism; just as the Protestant Verneys boasted of retrieving Charles I’s standard at Edgehill, so the Throckmortons preserved the sword wielded by their ancestor at that same battle. ³⁰

The education and preparation for marriage given to the Throckmorton girls is indicative of these common elite priorities. Although educated in the Augustinian Convent of Our Lady of Syon, Paris, their religious education was combined with fashionable accomplishments such as dancing. ³¹ Similarly to Protestant girls, accomplishments helped to compensate for a lack of wealth and were regarded as signs of gentility, enabling proper conduct in society. ³² The accounts of their aunt, the nun Anne-Frances who was in charge of the girls’ education, include a “harpsicall Master, draweing Master [and a] painting Misstress” in 1706, and by 1718 she was able to proudly state “My Neeces have … learnt to dance for some time and are … prittly improved.” ³³ Although money was also spent on more academic studies, such as ten livres for “a writing Master … and for paper,” this was a paltry sum compared to the eighty-eight livres spent on the dancing and “harpsicall” masters. ³⁴ Accomplishments cost a considerable amount of money (2,537 livres in 1706), and the girls were expected to work hard; Anne-Frances suggested to Sir Robert in 1718 that “your herpsicalls be put in order [for Anne] for it would be [a] pitty she … loose what has put her to so much charge and pains.” ³⁵ This suggests that these skills were not seen as frivolous but of future utility, evident in a letter to prospective suitor Peter Giffard, in which Sir Robert stated “I will send for my daughter Charlot … whose presence by all the Charecter I Cann hear from those that have seen her will be very Induceing.” ³⁶ This shows that developing “character” was important to attract men who wanted an agreeable wife. This attitude is evident among Protestants, such as Molly Verney, sent to school at age eight in 1682 by her father to learn “all accomplishments that will render you considerable and lovely in the sight of God and man.” ³⁷

However, this is where the similarities to their Protestant counterparts end. The other main criteria in choosing a marriage partner, including wealth, family alliance, and emotional attachment, were deeply affected by the Throckmorton’s Catholicism and informed by a period of chronic insecurity for the English Catholic community. Mathew has named the fifty years from 1670 as “the weakest period in their history,” a picture of decline shared by Aveling, who described it as the “nadir of the … death of the recusant community.” ³⁸ What is clear is that sectarian tension increased markedly from the 1670s onward, in contrast to a period of relative toleration and royal protection either side of the Interregnum. Although antipopery had recurred periodically since the Reformation, it gained sustained momentum in the years following the 1678 Popish Plot, Exclusion Crisis, and the 1688 Glorious Revolution. ³⁹ Following James II’s exile, the penal laws returned with a vengeance, supplemented by a double tax and an act restricting mobility, forbidding Catholic education, and banning Catholics from purchasing land and inheriting property. ⁴⁰ Catholics in office were forced to retreat into the country or join the exiled Stuart court, and by 1690 “most of the papists of any note [were] either in prison or under confinement.” ⁴¹ Although Miller has argued that the severity of the penal laws was mitigated by the protection of sympathetic Protestants, this could vary dramatically and the laws remained on the statute book as an ever-present threat. ⁴² During the lifetimes of the Throckmorton children, the situation was worsened by continued invasion plans from the exiled Stuart court, the failed 1715 Jacobite rebellion and the 1721 Atterbury Plot. ⁴³ The impact of popular anti-Catholicism was also significant. In December 1688, the chapel at Coughton “mett with the fate of all the Other new erected Chappells, being pulled downe by a Mobb’,” and Harvington was attacked. ⁴⁴ The Throckmortons and other elite families lived in fear of arrest and harassment. The 1678 Popish Plot scare had resulted in the arrest of eleven peers and fifty gentry, the houses of the Throckmortons and their kin, the Fermors, had been searched and their arms confiscated in 1688 and 1715, and the 1696 assassination plot had prompted the arbitrary arrest of prominent Catholics John Caryll and Bernard Howard, neither of whom had any connection to the conspirators. ⁴⁵ With no state support and no means to defend themselves against the mob, the Catholic community was left feeling vulnerable and outside the law.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that many sections of the elite Catholic laity turned to exile, rebellion, or apostasy. Between 1688 and 1714, the Catholic peerage was reduced from thirty-eight families to twenty-three families. ⁴⁶ Those who survived were forced to adapt to the new political climate. Glickman has recently put forward a less pessimistic reading of the period, suggesting that it was one of transition and rebuilding rather than decline. ⁴⁷ The Throckmorton evidence would suggest the reality was somewhere in between; Sir Robert’s papers during this period show an intense concentration on a political and economic survival strategy, motivated by fear of the “‘Stormes impending over us.” ⁴⁸ Despite being pious and ideologically committed to Jacobitism, he was prominent in formulating a new oath of allegiance to the Hanoverian monarchy to gain state protection and alleviate the penal laws. It promised that Catholics would “behave ourselves as becomes good subjects,” but crucially did not require full abjuration of James II. ⁴⁹ This suggests that Sir Robert was endeavoring to carve out a middle road, to protect his family’s piety but also their estates and positions in the community. Bankruptcy was also a major fear, as Catholics suffered not only from double taxes, but were also prohibited from other sources of income such as court or civil service perquisites, military office, the universities, and the bar. ⁵⁰ Some families, such as the Petres and the Windsor-Hunlokes, attempted to weather the storm through estate improvement, building up financial reserves and consolidating their positions. This article argues that the education and marriages of children was also a significant part of this survival strategy. Marriage, as for Protestants, was one of the primary means of building up wealth and property, as well as making fruitful alliances with powerful families. Although historians have generally agreed that dynastic concerns became less important in this period as the primacy of individual choice and emotional attachment was emphasized, this article argues that for Catholics this change was delayed due to the particular imperatives of family and faith preservation that affected the community. ⁵¹ Lacking in institutional structure, English Catholicism depended on lay elite families to finance priests and protect poorer Catholics in enclaves around their estates. Family decisions such as the education and marriages of their children were therefore crucial not only to their personal happiness but the preservation of their religion and way of life. The Throckmorton evidence indicates that for Catholic children, individual choice was subordinated by a strong sense of religious and dynastic duty, which made them more accepting of kin involvement.

From childhood, the Throckmorton children were inculcated with a strong sense of religious and dynastic duty. They were taught from a young age that Catholicism was under threat and that they had a role in preserving it through marriage or entering religious orders. Education was seen by Protestants and Catholics alike as imperative for preserving family values in the next generation, but this took on greater significance for Catholics whose faith was so bound up in family continuation, cut off from state and church support. ⁵² The education of the Throckmorton daughters and their cousin Anne Wollascott is detailed in letters sent by their aunt, Sister Anne-Frances, to their father Sir Robert. The girls attended the school attached to the English Augustinian Convent of Our Lady of Syon in Paris where Anne-Frances was novice mistress and later prioress, periodically between 1700, when Anne, the eldest, was eight years old, and 1720, when the youngest, Barbara, was seventeen. ⁵³ Attending school at a young age was common among Catholics and so it likely had a formative effect on their behavior; Elizabeth had arrived at the Paris convent when she was only six, echoed by the arrival of five-year-old “little Miss Petre” at the Bruges Augustinians in 1701, and Mary Gifford, aged four, in 1710. ⁵⁴ The girls were educated during the worst years of the penal double tax, exacerbated by England’s wars with France. Added to this were the restrictions Catholics faced in going abroad. This financial and personal cost suggests that the Throckmortons felt that a convent education was essential to the girls’ upbringing in preparation for marriage and as the future mothers of the next generation of English Catholics.

Although political moderation was necessary at home to avoid imprisonment or bankruptcy, a convent education abroad allowed the family to maintain their ideological commitment to Jacobitism. The Throckmortons were not militarily Jacobite; they did not join James II in exile and did not join in the uprisings of 1715 or 1745. However, Glickman suggests that although active conspiracy was confined to the North, a larger culture of domesticated Jacobitism persisted in Catholic households, and, I would argue, in convent schools. ⁵⁵ As Walker argues, convents were “highly political establishments,” with vital roles in sheltering exiles, providing passports and corresponding with families left behind, continuing a tradition begun during the Civil War. ⁵⁶ As the chaplain of the Louvain Augustinians stated in 1725, religious communities remained “entirely devoted to his Majesty’s interest, prosperity and both temporal and eternal good.” ⁵⁷ This Jacobitism seems typical, as the English Augustinians’ Annals refer to “Holy King James of blessed and glorious memory … dethroned and driven out of the kingdom” by “a malevolent party which were the dregs of Cromwell’s viper’s blood.” ⁵⁸ These polemics were supported by actions; Elizabeth Throckmorton’s convent, the Rouen Poor Clares, had sheltered James II in 1690 and 1692, and Anne Tyldsley, prioress of the English Augustinians throughout the girls’ education, had on James II’s death embalmed “a smale peece of our deceased Holly King’s right Arme” for exposition in the convent church, ⁵⁹ The English Augustinians’ physical proximity to the exiled court of James II at St. Germain, only thirteen miles away, facilitated visits from James and his queen Mary of Modena throughout the 1690s, and enabled a ten-year-old Elizabeth to be touched for scrofula by the Pretender. ⁶⁰ This experience was a potent reminder of the family’s royal and religious allegiances, and created a strong identity based on a “shared sense of separation.” ⁶¹ Like many other communities, the English Augustinians had been founded for English women only, creating a sense of nationhood abroad by keeping them English in Europe and Catholic in England. ⁶² This was integral to their identity as part of a specifically English Catholic community, with a strong sense of persecution and struggle. ⁶³

Dynastic duty was also inculcated through an education that emphasized close familial ties. Although separated from their parents due to the necessity of a foreign education, the sisters were educated together, with their aunt as surrogate parent. They therefore had closer familial contact than many Protestant children, who were often sent to commercial boarding schools. Stone’s only reference to nuns concerns Lancashire gentleman William Blundell, who in the 1670s “shipped” his daughters off to nunneries. To Stone, this indicates poor affective ties between family members, but the Throckmorton evidence shows clear affection between the sisters and their aunt. ⁶⁴ When Anne left to get married in 1718, Anne-Frances wrote to Sir Robert “it has bin a very afflicting parting to us and her which nothing can soe well consolat … as her well doeing and … finding her improved after so much spent in order to it. I assure you my endeavours have not bin wanting.” ⁶⁵ This is echoed in Charlotte’s departure in 1720, when Anne-Frances wrote “realy I am not easye till I know wheather she gives content or noe, my poore prayers attend you all.” ⁶⁶ Anne-Frances took her “endeavours” seriously, admitting that “I am forc’d to goe on borrowing monys” for their education. ⁶⁷ When Elizabeth, Catherine, and their cousin Anne professed, they chose to join the same convent where they had been educated and where their aunt still lived. ⁶⁸ Education was seen as a whole family effort; Anne-Frances wrote in 1704 that her brother George was “the best able to give you an account of [the children] … hee being the chife helper in all things,” before adding that the girls “are desired to goe with him to see my sister,” Elizabeth in Rouen. ⁶⁹ The children were therefore early exposed to the idea that all family members had a role in contributing toward the spiritual and material welfare of the family, which was so deeply inculcated that it affected their marriage choices.

The heavily religious content of the girls’ education, when combined with the spiritual role models of their aunts, indicates the importance placed on female piety. The rules of the school began, “as soon as they awake they give their hearts to God … and thank him for his protection that night.” Catechism and confession occurred throughout the day, and “before they begin their exercises they always say the Veni Sancte spiritus &c with the vers and prayer.” ⁷⁰ This religious atmosphere must have made an impression on the girls; two of them, Elizabeth and Catherine, became nuns in 1713, with Elizabeth following Anne-Frances’s example to become prioress in the 1750s. ⁷¹ Although Stone and Walker have suggested that nunneries were promoted as the cheaper alternative to marriage due to the smaller portions required, there is no evidence that the Throckmorton girls were coerced into it to save money. ⁷² If that had been the case, then it is likely that more of them would have professed, especially as Sir Robert did have difficulty in raising portions. William Goring implied choice in a 1707 letter to Sir Robert, stating that the girls “may choose a Life that may requier a smale portion.” ⁷³ Here the small portion was a bonus, but individual choice was still emphasized. A woman’s individual choice to become a nun or not was respected by the family, although it is significant that this choice was beneficial to the kin group as a whole. As nuns, they could not only continue to forward the Throckmortons’ interests on the continent, but also be involved in educating the next generation. A similar dynamic can be seen in the balance between individual and kin in marriage negotiations.

The Throckmorton marriages were exclusively brokered by kin, which was increasingly unusual among the Protestant elites. As religious endogamy was universal among the Throckmortons and their circle, kinship networks were used primarily to find suitable partners because the pool of marriageable Catholics was so small. Suggestions of matches by relatives seem to have been acceptable, as Sir Robert acted on them and approached the relatives of potential suitors himself. In 1709 his lawyer and kinsman Nathaniel Pigott wrote, “It is my duty as well as inclination to doe every thing may be for the good of your family. I desire to know if … a Match between Mr Neville of Holts eldest son and your daughter … would be acceptable. I believe I could bring him to take 5000.” ⁷⁴ Pigott acknowledged that it was his “duty” to not only suggest a name but also to negotiate finances on the Throckmortons’ behalf. This is echoed in a letter from William Goring, a distant relative of Lady Throckmorton, who was charged with ascertaining the financial hopes of Anne’s suitor Sheldon. Goring took the opportunity to give Sir Robert his personal opinion on the match, desiring to be “any wais servisable to you in it … because I thought it soe Neighborly and Comfortable a match on both sides … give me Leave to spur you up towards it still.” ⁷⁵ Nor was this role confined to relatives: in 1719, Thomas Crathorn, describing himself as “a sincere well-wisher to both the familys,” communicated the offer of a proposal by Lady Clifton on behalf of her son. ⁷⁶ This suggests that unrelated friends as well as distant kin felt a vested interest in the courtship process and that they had a right and duty to state their opinions and share information. ⁷⁷ This is evident in the correspondence between Sir Robert and Bonaventure Giffard. Bonaventure initiated discussions based on “the Charecters he hath had of [Sir Robert’s] two daughters abroad,” which prompted him to “mak[e] A proposall himself to his Kinsman,” Peter Giffard. ⁷⁸ This implies that marriages were brokered on the strength of hearsay, spread through the small Catholic community through kin and friendship networks. This is supported by Sir Robert’s reply, which he begins, “My Lady Petre having writ to me concerning what your [Lordship] writes” and ends by referring to himself as Bonaventure’s “friend,” “servaunt,” and “kinsman.” ⁷⁹ This suggests that Sir Robert felt that asserting himself as Bonaventure’s kinsman would carry weight, refuting Stone’s suggestion that by 1700 the term was no longer influential. ⁸⁰ O’Day has clearly shown the importance of kin influence in her study of the Chandos, but in that case it was the aunt and uncle of the children that interfered, an emphasis on the nuclear echoed in studies by Tadmor and Barclay. ⁸¹ The Throckmortons utilized much wider kinship links: Bonaventure was the cousin of Peter Giffard’s grandfather.

The responsibility and authority in courtship decisions was also not confined to the patriarch, but shared among family members, particularly women. Bossy argues that the increased separation of Catholic men from state office made them more likely to enforce domestic patriarchy. ⁸² This is more consistent with the Protestant elite, which Trumbach, Stone, and more recently Tague argue was patriarchal and highly patrilineal, with women becoming incorporated into their husband’s family and subordinating their matrilineal connections. ⁸³ The Throckmortons differ: parents seem to have acted in partnership and it was Lady Throckmorton’s matrilineal Yate relatives who were most influential. Even though Pigott wrote to Sir Robert, he only offered to pursue the Neville match “If the matter will be agreeable to you and my Lady.” ⁸⁴ The Throckmortons were not unique in this: Pigott stated that the Duchess of Powis “treated with Sir Robert and Lady Throckmorton” over specific methods of settlement, and Thomas Crathorn wrote on behalf of “My Lady Clifton,” stating that a financial settlement “relys entirely upon your and my Ladys generousity.” ⁸⁵

Part of this female authority was dependent on age and finance, and perhaps not entirely typical. Lady Throckmorton was heiress to a substantial estate that was entailed on Robin and did not pass to Sir Robert on their marriage. The couple therefore effectively had dual responsibility and control over their children’s portions. This is reflected in Sir Robert’s changes to his settlement; “My wife is content to charge her estate with 6000 for daughters … I will charge mine with 12000.” ⁸⁶ This shows both separation and partnership; “my wife is content” suggests that Lady Throckmorton independently decided to use her inheritance for her children. Lady Throckmorton’s authority was based not only on legal sanction but their personal relationship, as a later addition to the settlement revoked the children’s portions if they “marry without their mothers consent.” ⁸⁷ Although threatened disinheritance could suggest increased patriarchal authority, I would argue that it shows that Sir Robert had enough confidence in his wife’s judgment to trust her with the children’s inheritance. More distant female relatives were also regarded as having financial responsibility. In 1707, Sir Robert deferentially asked the children’s great-aunt Apollonia Yate to “cast forth those rayes of benignity” and contribute to Anne’s portion. Sir Robert sweetened his request by referring to the “Good which this match may produce,” suggesting that he felt Apollonia should contribute because she too would benefit from the marriage. This indicates that marriages were seen as an alliance between two families and therefore a kin effort. Apollonia was a single woman whose Yate family line had extinguished in 1680, and so she had no younger relatives to carry on the family name. She described the Throckmorton children affectionately as “sweet juells,” regarding them, particularly Robin, as the means “wherby my hopes are revived that … our dead name one day may live againe,” through his inheritance of his mother’s Yate estates. ⁸⁸ Although Apollonia was unable to help, she “truly wishe[d] it lay in my power to answer your expectation … none haveing more cordiall desires or ardent wishes for the happynes and wellfare of all relations then my selfe,” suggesting that she felt his request was justified. ⁸⁹

The primacy of kin in marriage negotiations reflected the low value placed on prior affection between two individuals. Even in cases where negotiations were carried on by one of the potential spouses, the marriages were referred to as alliances between families rather than individuals. Both Powis and Sheldon referred to their desire for family “alliance,” shared by Sir Robert who reminded Bonaventure Giffard that “there has bin in antient times a providentiel match betwixt our families.” ⁹⁰ Fairfax also suggested that partners married for their family’s benefit, referring to it as a “Blessing designed for me and my Family.” ⁹¹ Similarly, Windsor-Hunloke stated that he would consent to “those Termes … thought most Agreeable for the Good of the family,” suggesting that he approached financial negotiations not as an individual but as a family representative. ⁹² The girls are also not referred to individually: suitors generally approached Sir Robert wanting to marry one of his daughters. Peter Giffard originally courted Charlotte, only marrying Barbara when Charlotte married Windsor-Hunloke, and Neville was originally considered for one of Sir Robert’s daughters. This suggests that personality was valued less than family connections and wealth, which could apply to any daughter. Powis wrote to Sir Robert, “I thinke my self extream happy that you have cast your eye upon one of my daughters for your sonne,” suggesting that it is Sir Robert choosing a Powis family alliance, not Robin choosing Teresa. ⁹³ This reflects the subordination of the individual to the long-term interests of kin and Catholicism. As is clear from the values inculcated during their education, individuals were taught to believe that they were only a small part in a much bigger picture: the survival of their community since the Reformation and beyond.

As all of the matches were proposed by kin, the children had usually not met their suitors prior to engagement, and girls were only sent for after the financial settlement. The only evidence of prior attachment is Pigott’s report that “Sir Winsor got a sight of Miss Charlotte when she was in town …. He likes her extreamly well.” ⁹⁴ “Sight” suggests that they may have met briefly, but certainly did not form a relationship. Mendelson has argued that an increasingly late marriage age meant that parents increasingly respected individual choice and that older children with greater economic independence and confidence could resist their parents in favor of their own choice. ⁹⁵ The girls’ average age of marriage was twenty, three years younger than the average for the contemporary nobility, suggesting that their individual choice may have been less respected. ⁹⁶ Anne married comparatively late aged twenty-six, but she had been courted aged fifteen, and remained at the convent until her eventual marriage. This seclusion, combined with the inculcation of strong religious and dynastic duty, would have provided little opportunity to meet alternative partners. There was also no significant gender difference; Robin did not meet his intended wife Barbara Herbert until after their fathers had arranged a financial settlement. In some cases, the girls’ suitors dealt directly with Sir Robert, particularly over money, but this was because their parents were dead and so they had already inherited full control over their estates.

Although a child’s consent was seen as necessary, the letters suggest that it happened late in the process after the financial settlements and was therefore only a formality. This is most evident in Peter Giffard’s courtship of Charlotte. By September 1719, four months after Sir Robert and Bonaventure Giffard had proposed the match, Peter had not yet met Charlotte, who was still at the convent. Peter wrote to Sir Robert that he “desired [to] know … your Daughters portion, for till that is adjusted … to wait on the young Lady will be but trifling,” suggesting Charlotte’s portion was more important than her personality. Sir Robert seemingly agreed, writing that if Peter was “willing to enter into a treaty … [he] will send for [Charlotte] suddenly over.” This suggests that parental and kin opinion was most important, as only approved suitors could reach the veto stage. Peter suggests that this was normal among Catholic elites at least, stating that Sir Robert wanted “to commence a treaty … whereby nothing but a dislike of partys could retard or obstruct its conclusion, which … is the most regular way of proceeding.” ⁹⁷ The interesting use of both “retard or obstruct” implies that “dislike of partys” would only delay rather than prevent the marriage, as an unwilling child could be persuaded to agree. Although Stone links the veto to a Protestant ideal of companionship, here it was used for more practical purposes and certainly wasn’t idealised. ⁹⁸ It was crucial for the long-term success of the marriage that the partners get along. Separation was costly and could impede the production of an heir, as well as sour the family alliances that were one of the most desirable outcomes of marriage. ⁹⁹ The marriage of Sir Robert’s own parents had ended in separation and legal problems, so he was aware of the risks. Once Anne Wollascott had informed Sir Robert of her dislike of one suitor, Thomas Neville, she was not forced to marry him, suggesting that the veto was respected no matter how “desirous” her family were “that I should have young Mr Nevell.” However, she did include a caveat, “I doe really belive whatever may be proposed to me hearafter I can hardly meet with anything worse.” The veto was used here in a case of extreme aversion, and it suggests that Anne not only expected her family to propose another suitor, but also that she did not anticipate using her veto again. She also stated that she was “most Extreemly obligd to you Sir for telling me you wish and desire my happiness,” suggesting that she trusted Sir Robert to act in her best interests to find another match. ¹⁰⁰ Out of all the Throckmorton children, Anne was the only one to have left a record of a veto, and all of her cousins married the men their family proposed for them.

In the end, Anne never married, choosing instead in 1726 to join the English Augustinians in Paris, where she lived with her aunt and cousins. ¹⁰¹ Although her thoughts on her profession have not survived, it is possible that she felt more able to veto an advantageous marriage because, unlike a Protestant, she had an alternative means of serving her family and her religion as a nun. Stone argues that few women exercised their veto due to fear of an alternative life as a single woman with no independent finances and no vocation. ¹⁰² The Throckmorton girls could choose to become nuns and were certainly not lacking in strong female role models. Both their nun aunt Anne-Frances and their single great-aunt Apollonia Yate exemplified the continued family and religious influence that unmarried women could have. Indeed, the surviving portraits of this generation of the Throckmortons indicate the importance placed on nuns as representatives of family piety. In 1729, individual portraits of Anne Wollascott, Elizabeth, and their aunt Anne-Frances were painted by Nicolas de Largillière, who had famously painted both Louis XIV and James II. These were placed prominently alongside a contemporaneous Largillière portrait of Robin, by now fourth baronet and family head, in the family seat at Coughton Hall. These portraits acted not only as potent symbols of the family’s Jacobitism and piety, but also as manifestations of the idea that all family members, of either gender, were responsible for furthering the Catholic cause. ¹⁰³

In turning to the motives rather than processes of marriage, it is evident that Catholicism was the primary criteria in spouse selection. No non-Catholic suitors were even considered, suggesting that Catholicism was valued more highly than wealth, political alliance, or emotional attachment. The Throckmortons prided themselves on their ability to withstand apostasy and had an excellent track record in previous generations of marrying into prominent Catholic families as well as providing nuns for English exiled convents. Through their maternal family, the Yates, the Throckmorton children were connected to the Talbots, Earls of Shrewsbury, and the Viscounts Fairfax, both prominent members of the recusant community. The Throckmortons were intensely pious; the 1701 Clergy Directory shows that they maintained four chaplains, two monks and two secular priests, more than any other family on the list. ¹⁰⁴ The girls’ heavily religious education was also done in part to mold them into attractive Catholic brides for potential suitors. Although Bowden emphasizes the “conditioning” of girls to become nuns, in the case of the Throckmortons most of the girls married and were in fact conditioned to be good Catholic wives. ¹⁰⁵ In a letter to Bishop Bonaventure Giffard, the cousin of potential suitor Peter Giffard, Sir Robert, describes Charlotte as having “hitherto seen nothing but piety.” ¹⁰⁶ Piety could have been valued because of its connotations with chastity and obedience. Peter Giffard felt that to meet Charlotte before negotiations were finished would “cast a slur upon her person,” suggesting that keeping the girls in the convent would raise their marriageability by protecting their reputation. ¹⁰⁷ Although chastity was important among all elites to ensure a legitimate heir, it was perhaps more potent when combined with piety, as a religiously educated Catholic wife was imperative for families seeking to preserve their faith through the generations. Rowlands argues that female piety was more desirable to Catholics due to the emphasis on the cult of the Virgin Mary. While in Protestantism, the male head of household was given extra spiritual power as the “interpreter of scripture,” in Catholicism this role was reserved only for the priest. ¹⁰⁸ The importance of family in Catholic life cannot be underestimated, as without an institutional church it was left to families, particularly women, to preserve a household faith.

However, choosing a spouse solely for their Catholicism was not enough, they had to be the right kind of Catholic. In discussions of Protestant alliance, emphasis is placed on parity of social status; aristocrats tended not to intermarry with gentry and vice versa. Among the Catholic elite, there was no significant gap; the Throckmorton baronets married into the aristocratic Earls of Powis and the minor gentry Fermors. This suggests that what was most important was that the children marry into the right Catholic family in order to ensure the preservation of a particular kind of Catholicism based on strong elite lay leadership. The elite recusant community was not monolithic; recent research has emphasized factional and confessional differences between competing families. ¹⁰⁹ Questier has described the English Catholic community as “a series of entourages and networks, often factionally aligned internally, whose ideological concerns inflected the more basic fact of their blood, kin, and client relationships.” ¹¹⁰ It was therefore essential that the Throckmortons ally themselves with families that shared their particular values, which in this case was primarily Jacobitism. Preservation of Jacobite connections was not only achieved through family members in exiled religious orders, but also through marriage, which allowed them to demonstrate their political and ideological loyalty at fairly low risk. This was a strategy of family preservation, allowing outward conformity and enabling the family to avoid sequestration or imprisonment while still retaining connections should the House of Stuart rise again. This explains why an otherwise politically moderate family would ally itself to Jacobite exiles with insecure estates. Robin married Teresa, daughter of the Earl of Powis, whose father had been privy councilor under James II and had joined him in exile. ¹¹¹ On his death, James’ Queen wrote to the Earl, “my partner has lost a most honest, zealous servant, and I a most faithful friend” and in 1717 Teresa’s elder sister Mary had been mooted as a possible bride for the Pretender. ¹¹² Upon a Stuart restoration, Powis would likely have been very influential in government and so a useful kinsman.

The daughters’ marriages also created valuable alliances. Apollonia’s marriage to Edward Blount cemented the Blount family’s support as the chief lay sponsors of Sir Robert’s oath of allegiance. The support of these long established community leaders was crucial to the success of a politically risky strategy. ¹¹³ Barbara married Peter Giffard, the kinsman of Bonaventure Giffard, the highly influential London Vicar-Apostolic. Bonaventure had been one of James II’s favorite priests and was the king’s controversial choice for master of Magdalen College. ¹¹⁴ Members of the Giffard, Neville, and Sheldon families had gone into exile at St. Germain in the 1690s. ¹¹⁵ Although the Petres had not joined the 1715 uprising, they contributed £3,000 to the military effort. ¹¹⁶ The marriage of Anne Throckmorton to John Petre was something of a coup, promoting an alliance with one of England’s most prominent Catholic families. The Barons Petre had bankrolled the Jesuit mission from their Essex base and were in turn related to the “ultra-Catholic” Waldegraves and the Throckmorton’s kinsmen, the Talbots, and the Sheldons. ¹¹⁷ Politically they were a risky option; William, fourth Baron Petre, had died while imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1684 for supposedly commanding a popish army in the aftermath of the Popish Plot. ¹¹⁸ Nevertheless, their reputation as the “no compromise” wing of the English mission would have appealed to the pious Throckmortons. ¹¹⁹ Anne’s marriage was the beginning of a fruitful kin relationship with the Petres. The families continued to intermarry well into the nineteenth century, and the support of the ninth Lord Petre was crucial to the fifth Baronet, Sir John Courtenay Throckmorton’s formation of the cisalpine Catholic Committee in 1782, and their bid for greater religious tolerance. ¹²⁰ The Giffard connection that began with Barbara’s marriage to Peter Giffard had similar longevity, as Barbara’s niece, great niece, and great nephew all married Giffards. ¹²¹ Through marriage, the Throckmortons were now directly connected to the most pious and active families in the English Jesuit community and had solidified their position in a web of kin connections with other Catholic families.

Wealth was also a decisive factor in the Throckmorton marriages. Although this period was one of financial difficulty for the landed elite as a whole due to low agricultural prices and a poor male replacement rate, financial pressures were exacerbated among Catholics due to the penal laws. ¹²² Gaining wealth through marriage was even more crucial for Catholics because they had few other means of obtaining it. Sir Robert showed great concern over the girls’ small portions, stating “it is no small trubble to me that I have not bin able to make a more plentifull provition for my daughters.” ¹²³ Despite Bossy’s assertion that penal taxes were not a major problem in this period, in 1707 Sir Robert explicitly attributed their small portions to “the Long duration of dubble taxes, the great Rent charges … and other unavoydable expences.” ¹²⁴ Financial problems peculiar to Catholics were often mentioned in negotiations. Lady Clifton’s envoy stated that “six thousand pounds is as little as she can expect considering … incumbrances upon the estate, but her only daughter being resolved to be a nun, she desires no more,” showing that Catholicism could be a hindrance and an advantage. ¹²⁵ In 1720, Sir Robert mortgaged his lands to the wealthy Catholic convert the Duke of Norfolk for £4,000 in order to raise cash for his children’s portions. This was apparently insufficient, as he also petitioned to obtain Robin’s inheritance, “a very great estate,” before he came of age, probably to pay Charlotte’s portion. ¹²⁶ He was eventually able to double the girls’ portions from £2,500, stipulated in a settlement of 1703, to around £5,368, the amount paid to Peter Giffard as Barbara’s portion in 1722. ¹²⁷ The risks and legal loopholes Sir Robert went through to find portions suggest that the penal laws made raising cash difficult, although his financial problems were exacerbated in having seven daughters reach marriageable age simultaneously. It also suggests he believed that larger portions would greatly enhance their chances of marrying well.

The failure of a match between Anne and Sheldon in 1707 indicates the importance of money. The Sheldons were Warwickshire neighbors, with a good Catholic pedigree and Jacobite links. Sheldon however refused the Throckmortons’ financial offer, “the portion … not being within any proportion of his Estate, nor of what the Circumstances of it, doe requier, to make the family Easy … [he] expressed a great Concerne that he could not … treat with a family he had soe great a value for and soe much mind to make an allyance with.” This suggests that Sheldon needed a cash injection to offset his “circumstances,” probably exacerbated by the penal tax, and so Anne’s other attributes of family alliance and breeding were insufficient. In the letter, William Goring also acknowledged anxiety that Anne would have difficulty finding another suitor, stating that “there are noe more such Neighborly matches; nor such Estates to bee had.” ¹²⁸ Unlike Sheldon, who professed regret at his inability to accept Anne’s small portion, Peter Giffard seemed intent on using marriage to make his fortune, informing Sir Robert in 1719 that “5000 is what I require, and have no thoughts … of engaging under.” His reasons were that his “Rents fall very short and little exceed 2000, they are … very improvable” with the injection of a cash portion. Peter’s language was impersonal and businesslike: “I am sure it is equally for the advantage of the person I marry, as for my own, to insist upon a good fortune.” ¹²⁹ He eventually married Barbara, but only after the death of his first wife, an heiress, had reduced his need for a large portion. Another potential suitor, Lord Fairfax, professed his love for an unnamed daughter in a letter to Lady Throckmorton. He stated that he was impatient to hear “whether I might hope for … Happiness,” and assured her that “I have nothing of the Courtier But doe from the Bottom of heart speak my thoughts.” ¹³⁰ However, a later letter reveals that the deciding factor in breaking off his courtship of Miss Throckmorton was her father’s inability to give her an extra £3,000. ¹³¹ The failure of these matches shows that disparity of wealth could make or break them, regardless of other attributes such as virtue or family alliance.

Sir Robert’s niece and ward Anne Wollascott’s engagement with Neville also foundered over financial disagreement. She wrote to Sir Robert that she only agreed to the marriage because she “believed that Maryeing into that family would have bin much to my advantage, for I … heard that Mr Nevells Estate was a very good one.” She later discovered “there is soe great a morgage upon it … that I am persuaded twill prove a very bad Match.” She complained that he was “very Knavvish and unhandsome,” but this was in retrospect of his financial deceit and presumably he had not been so objectionable when she first agreed to marry him. Anne’s case indicates that Sir Robert respected her individual right to veto, but crucially her veto did not occur until she had eventually met him, very late in the negotiations, and was based on his lack of money more than his personality. Anne was also very concerned to avoid displeasing her kin. In her letter to Sir Robert, she “durst not” admit that she no longer wanted to marry Neville “for my grandmother appeard so very desirous that I should have [him] … and I should be very sory to disobleg Either her or your Self that I am resolved to doe as she pleases … if my Grandmother knows it she would be Angry with me and I would rathere ruine my self then displeass her.” ¹³² Anne set out her reasons for rejecting Neville in anticipation that her uncle would help her, but was nevertheless “resolved” to follow her family’s wishes. In the end, Anne’s financial concerns seem to have been shared by Neville, who later that year married a widow forty-eight years his senior who bequeathed him £24,000. ¹³³

The Throckmorton evidence indicates that money was not incompatible with a desire for an affectionate marriage. Although the marriages were brokered by kin, the elder Throckmortons and their circle clearly loved the children and felt financial security would make them happy. While persuading Sir Robert to increase Anne’s portion, William Goring wrote, “I remember [Lady Throckmorton] told me … that she should bee always redy to doe what she Could to marry them well; I know you are both very fond parents of your Children and that there needs noe persuations if it agrees with your Circumstances.” ¹³⁴ Indeed, the risks Sir Robert took to increase their portions would suggest that he valued their future happiness very highly. “Happiness” did not mean emotional satisfaction, but connoted financial security and comfortable lifestyle. One interesting letter from Peter Giffard shows awareness of love as a mitigating factor, but yet uses happiness in both emotional and material contexts. He writes, “as I have never yet had the happiness to fall under the captivating charms of any particular Lady, you will give me leave to engage where most concur to complete the happiness of a marriage.” ¹³⁵ This implies that “captivating charms” could compensate for lack of fortune, but that wealth was key for happiness.

Other letters from both relatives and suitors show similar focus on wealth as the best means of happiness. Goring regarded the Sheldon match as desirable because Anne would be “comfortable,” suggesting continuance of a standard of living. The Powises also showed the primacy of ensuring that the new couple would prosper, stating “that the mutual intent of all parties was to make the young couple happy and easy.” ¹³⁶ This statement was made to a lawyer while discussing financial settlements and so “happy and easy” can be read with material connotations. This attitude was common to both Catholic and Protestant elites. The Catholic Nicholas Blundell stated in the 1720s that “it is my chief aim to settle my daughters to their own liking, that they may make choice of a man they can love, and I will do my endeavour to propose such to them whose circumstances may make them happy.” ¹³⁷ The idea of “a man they can love” echoed the common belief that elites would only be able to love someone of similar wealth, status, and virtue and so love across class boundaries was irrational and unlikely to last. The relatively pro-love Protestant Mrs. Delany reflected this; “I have no notion of love in a knapsack, but I cannot think riches the only thing that ought to be considered.” ¹³⁸ However, even the fairly open-minded Blundell added the caveat, “all I require is that he be a Gentleman of a competent Estate, one of a good character, and a Catholic”; surely a reasonable request. ¹³⁹

In the balance between individual choice and kinship authority, for the Throckmortons kin emerged triumphant. The Throckmorton marriage process involved far more distant kin and friends than their Protestant counterparts, at all stages of the negotiations. Although patriarchal authority, via Sir Robert, was strong, the role of female family members was significant. Protestant evidence has long suggested that women acted as marriage brokers, but this has been confined to married matriarchs. ¹⁴⁰ In the Throckmorton case, it was single women, particularly nuns, who provided the basis of a collective family effort to achieve mutually beneficial marriages. Although Walker in particular has revitalized the study of English nuns to emphasize their role in preserving Jacobite identity, this evidence suggests that they did this not only through educating the next generation of nuns but also by preparing and promoting endogamous marriage. ¹⁴¹ Whyman has noted that “gender clearly affected choice,” but this does not seem to have occurred here. ¹⁴² Robin did make the best marriage in terms of status, to the daughter of an Earl, but the family seems to have put just as much energy into arranging the girls’ marriages, all of which produced fruitful kin alliances. If, as this article has shown, Catholic families were more dependent on marriages and kin for alliances and survival, then daughters would be considered as an equal asset in furthering Catholicism, either as nuns or as wives. Much more research is needed on the role of Catholic women outside of convents, as the Throckmorton evidence suggests that women could utilize a similarly strong sense of dynastic and religious identity through marriage choice, rather than profession. Marriage should not be seen as a less pious alternative, but as a decision that could be made according to similar values and motives of dynastic and religious survival.

Catholicism also greatly affected concepts of individual choice. Unlike the Protestant model, almost no importance was placed on individual choice or emotional attachment. Catholicism was the primary criterion, and although an individual veto was respected, evidence suggests that it was a seldom utilized formality, to ascertain negative rather than positive compatibility. A historiographical emphasis on Protestantism has perhaps clouded perceptions of the individual, whose interests are often perceived as in competition with kin. Even Stephens’s analysis of the Puritan Elizabeth Isham portrays a woman who chose religion over her family’s desire for her to marry. For Catholics, however, religious and dynastic duties were united. An inculcation of piety, ideological Jacobitism, and dynastic duty through their education ensured that the girls in particular were strongly aware of their expected role in the preservation of their family and community. This was perhaps peculiar to the minority status of English Catholicism. The preservation of English Catholicism depended on the transmission of a certain habit of mind, based on what Alexander Pope called “the noble power of suffering bravely.” ¹⁴³ Developed during decades of persecution and fostered through a separate religious education and religious endogamy, it created a mind-set of survival and individual sacrifice. The precarious position of Catholics engendered a feeling of vulnerability and distrust of the state; marriages created a separate safety network that ensured the piety of the next generation. This sense of isolation engendered strong affective ties among kin, who all had a stake in family welfare and so were expected to contribute. The close involvement of Anne-Frances and Apollonia Yate, as well as more distant kin in the children’s upbringing, would suggest that they felt a shared responsibility to “settle” them to the best advantage. In these circumstances, the interests of the family and the individual were seen as one and the same. Anne Wollascott certainly recognized the concept of herself as an individual with a right of veto, but I would argue that the idea of individual autonomy as understood today is anachronistic in a society in which individual prosperity was so dependent on family preservation. The inculcation of an identity and shared values based on dynastic and religious duty ensured that both children and kin wanted to act for the good of their family.

Although it is unwise to generalize strongly based on the evidence of only one family, this study has shown that religion was a highly significant variable not only in marriage criteria but also by affecting the balance between kin and individual. Recusant Catholicism needs to be reintegrated into a study of British marriage in this period, as it is clear that their status as a persecuted minority deeply affected their marriage choices. It would be interesting to see if other minorities reacted similarly in Britain and elsewhere, and also whether religious difference was evident among lower status groups as well as their elite leaders. Historians should also think more about the coexistence of separate marriage cultures within societies, along lines other than socioeconomic status. Finally, religion, of any denomination, needs to be examined more closely as a significant criterion in partner selection, as it could deeply affect the consideration of other variables such as wealth or alliance.