ABSTRACT

The origins of the long recusant tradition of the Throckmorton family are generally traced to the notable figure of Sir George Throckmorton, who inherited the estates from his father Sir Robert in 1518 and died (having substantially consolidated them) in 1552. Remembered locally as the builder of, in William Dugdale’s phrase, ‘that stately Castle-like Gatehouse of free-stone’ at Coughton, he has the reputation of a ‘staunch Catholic’, who consistently resisted all the changes of the early Reformation.1