Scholars in history and related disciplines have been writing about specific examples of sibling relationships for years. Only now, however, are they studying the phenomenon of the sibling relationship itself or what historian Amy Harris calls ‘siblinghood’. The subject has received more but not overly much attention from scholars and practitioners in the social sciences. Here studies have been of relatively small family units, containing youngsters who grew to adulthood within the same household, often within a primarily urban environment. Specific explorations of modern sisters and brothers have frequently concentrated upon no more than two siblings. Handling multiple sibling relations has been regarded as too complex and slippery for the scholar to attempt. Historians of the early modern period do not have this luxury. The Temple family with which this book is concerned involved at least three very large nuclear families, comprising eleven, thirteen and ten children, most of whom achieved adulthood.

Within the Temple household these relations between brothers and sisters may have been underpinned by what we today might term ‘family feeling’ but they were also played out against a more pragmatic backcloth. Hester's brother Henry, for example, loaned her and his brother-in-law Thomas money and also borrowed money from them. He and her brother William acted as her trustees and thus formed a continuing and crucial part of her life. The issue of the entail placed on the Temple estates by John Temple and its implications for sibling relationships among his heir Sir Thomas's children are treated in later chapters.

Thomas, as executor of his father John's will, had a particular obligation to his several younger siblings, male and female. He was made responsible for the education of his brothers. In John Temple's will especial care was taken to make watertight provision for these four younger sons, John, William, Alexander and Peter, and especially for the three youngest. To safeguard their interests further, copies of the will and of documents securing the annuities of the younger brothers were deposited both with their mother Susan Spencer Temple and with Sir Edward Wotton. Thomas was also left to tidy up the jointure arrangements for his sisters, especially young Mary and Elizabeth. He was a trustee for Elizabeth's separate estate and provision for her younger children.