Who was Catherine Collingwood?
Catherine Collingwood, "Dearest Colly" to her friends, was the much loved second wife of Sir Robert Throckmorton, 4th Baronet (1702-91).
Daughter of an executed Jacobite
Her father, George Collingwood, had been hung, drawn and quartered in 1716, after the Battle of Preston, for his support for the Catholic Jacobite cause. Catherine was therefore fatherless and the family estates in Northumberland had been confiscated before she was 2 years old.
Convent or Coughton?
As a young woman Catherine seems to have been much admired and had her fair share of suitors. However she did at one point consider becoming a nun. Her family and friends pleaded with her to reconsider and thankfully for Sir Robert Throckmorton, she decided not to enter a convent. As one of her friends wrote, "I don't take you to have any nun's flesh about you". Another wrote "I think the Death of a Person I loved would hardly give me so much pain as their shutting themselves up in a cloister to think they are in the world and that there is no possibility of seeing them, would be dreadfull. Stay amongst us my Dear Colly, your fair example will be more meritorious to yrself, as well as beneficial to the world than retiring to a cell" (18th century spellings)
Interestingly Sir Robert Throckmorton's sister Ann became abbess of an Augustinian convent in Paris and there were 4 Throckmorton nuns from this generation .
A Happy Marriage and a Lively Correspondent
Catherine would not have regretted her decision as her marriage to Sir Robert in 1738 appears to have been a very happy one. That same year the couple had a daughter, Barbara, who later married into another leading Catholic family, the Giffards.
