Sir Thomas Temple, 1st Baronet, of Stowe

Sir Thomas Temple, 1st Baronet (9 January 1567 – 10 February 1637)[1] was an English landowner and Member of Parliament.

Although he is said to have been born at Burton Dassett in Warwickshire, this seems improbable as his baptism on 9 January 1566/7 is recorded at Everton, Northamptonshire, the childhood home of his mother.

He grew up in a well connected, Puritan family - two of his brothers-in-law were William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele and Sir Nicholas Parker, while his nephew was James Temple, the regicide.

[9] She died of smallpox in January 1620, her father built a magnificent marble monument to her that can be seen in the "Penyston chapel" in Stowe church.

[citation needed] He was elected MP for Andover, Hampshire in 1589 as a result of the influence of his father in law - the first member of his family to serve in Parliament.

The wool industry on which the Temple family fortune had been founded had been suffering since the beginning of the seventeenth century.