CHAPTER I - Birth and Family of Catharine Burton

Summary

Mrs. Catharine Burton was born at Bayton, near St. Edmund's Bury in Suffolk, on the 4th day of November, in the year 1668. Her father, Mr. Thomas Burton, was descended from a very good family of that name in Yorkshire. Her mother was Mrs. Mary Suttler, only daughter of Mr. Christopher Suttler, of a gentleman's family in Norfolk. Her parents, considering the hardness of the times and their strait circumstances, provided very well for all their children: but their chief care was to bring them up in the fear of God, and leave them heirs of their virtues. They lived together twenty years in great peace and concord, and their whole family was always remarkable for their piety and virtue. Their children used to ascribe their happiness in the frequent blessings they received from God to the piety of their parents, and their father, who lived till his children were grown up, had the satisfaction to see them all (this daughter in particular) correspond perfectly to the care and pains he had taken in their education. Her mother left nine children behind her, four sons and five daughters. She died of her tenth child in the thirty-fifth year of her age, much lamented by her husband, children, and all her neighbourhood, particularly by the poor, to whom she was wonderfully charitable. She was of a sweet agreeable temper, of a tender complexion, and wore herself out with pains and cares of her family and children, nursing them with her own milk.