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Through exploration of the financial, professional, educational, social, sentimental and cultural experiences of an elite family between the late sixteenth and later seventeenth centuries, this study of the Newdigates of Arbury Hall, North Warwickshire, considers the lifestyle and attitudes of contemporary gentry. The wide circle of Newdigate kin, friends, agents and correspondents included peers like the Egertons, Leighs and Cecils, and clergy like futurearchbishop Gilbert Sheldon, and stretched from Lancashire and Cheshire in the north-west as far as London, Surrey and Sussex in the south-east. This web of contact and patronage provides a solid basis for consideration of controversial questions about marriage, inheritance, family relationships and the role of education. Sir John Newdigate, pious and studious country magistrate, his wife Dame Anne, and her sons John, parliamentary diarist, and Richard, prudent and successful lawyer and landowner, emerge as members of a resilient and well-informed ruling class, in close touch with news, politics and with the literary and religious developments of their day. Dr VIVIENNE LARMINIEhas taught for various institutions, including several Oxford colleges, the Open University, and continuing education.