Robert Throckmorton (courtier)

He was joined with his father in several stewardships from 1527 and was perhaps the servant of Robert Tyrwhitt, a distant relative by marriage of the Throckmortons, who in 1540 took an inventory of Cromwell's goods at Mortlake.

Throckmorton's role in the succession crisis of 1553 is unknown, but his standing with Queen Mary is shown by her reputed answer to the news of Edward VI's death sent her by four of his brothers: "If Robert had been there she durst have gaged her life and hazarded the hap."

His adherence to Roman Catholicism explains his disappearance from the House of Commons in the new reign, although the most Catholic of his brothers, Anthony Throckmorton, was to sit in the Parliament of 1563.

Judged an "adversary of true religion" in 1564, Throckmorton remained active in Warwickshire until his refusal to subscribe to the Act of Uniformity led to his removal from the commission of the peace.

Mary Arden kept an excellent record of a woman persecuted for recusancy, documenting the fines and searches made at Coughton Court, that is still in the family archives.

Robert Throckmorton died on 12 February 1581, six days after making a will in which he styled himself as being of Weston Underwood, Buckinghamshire, but asked to be buried at Coughton, where an alabaster and marble tomb was accordingly erected to his memory.