ABSTRACT
In the early modern period, the Throckmortons were a very large kinship network whose various lines of descent populated the English Midlands, particularly Warwickshire, Worcestershire and Buckinghamshire. During the Reformation years some members of the family remained Catholic, while others embraced the new Protestant religion and still others became identified as Puritan. Most of the main branch of the family, seated at Coughton Court in Warwickshire, remained Catholic, and this chapter will focus primarily on these descendants of Sir George Throckmorton. An examination of the records of the family in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries provides a wealth of insight into the dynamics of a family group and suggests some conclusions not only about how similar these Catholics were to other Catholics but, more importantly, how similar they were to other members of the gentry, regardless of religion.
