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If
prosperity and success in life are to be regarded as the measure and
standard of happiness few individuals can be said to have been morworthy
to be styled happy than Elizabeth Countess of
Shrewsbury, a lady better known t history as 'Bess
of Hardwicke.,* It is not give to every
woman, however nobly born and well mated, to marry, as she did, four
husbands in succession, and on each occasion
that she went to the altar to rise higher and
higher both inwealth and in social position.
It was her lot also to
have children by one of her husbands only, and
to see these children all married to the highest
and the noblest in the land; and, finally, it
was given to her to erect three at least of the
most magnificent private mansions in this
island-the princely Chatsworth, the stately
Hardwicke Hall, and Oldcotes, all magnificent
mansions in the county of Derby.
This lady was born the
second daughter and eventually heiress of John Hardwick, or Hardwicke, of
Hardwicke, Derbyshire, whose estates in that county she inherited on the
death of her brother. She first saw the light of day in or about the year
of grace 1516. Not much is known of her early education and training; but
from the very first she would seem to have shown a spirit of independence
and an indomitable courage which must have marked her out as no ordinary
person. At the early age of fourteen she became the wife of Robert Barley,
Esquire, of Barley, in Derbyshire, whose large estates she inherited under
a deed of settlement. In the course of a few months she was left a widow,
and in that state she remained for a period of twelve years, when she was
married, as his third wife, to Sir William Cavendish, father of the first
Earl of Devonshire, and the possessor of vast estates in different parts
of the kingdom, a large portion of which had been acquired as grants of
forfeited church lands in the reign of Edward
VI. To Sir William Cavendish this
remarkable lady brought not only Hardwick and
the other possessions of her own family, buy also those of the Barleys,
which she had acquires under her first marriage. So great was the
affection of Sir William for her that, at he sold his estates in the
southern parts of England, in order to purchase lands in Derbyshire, where
her own friends and kindred lived. Also,
on her further persuasion, he began the erection
of the noble mansion of Chatsworth which he did
not live to finish, as he died in the fourth year of the reign of Queen
Mary, hawing had by his late wife a large
family.
After a few brief years of widowhood 'Bess
of IIardwicke' married, as her third
husband, Sir William St. Lo, Captain of the Guard
to Queen Elizabeth. By this marriage her already
extensive possessions were augmentedd by the
whole of the estates of her husband which were settled upon her and her
heirs. On the death of Sir William, she was a
third time left a widow; but soon after she
married, as his second wife, George, sixth Earl
of Shrewsbury, whom she survived. With this last marriage there was
a stipulation that the earl's eldest daughter, the Lady Grace Talbot,
should wed her eldest son (by her second marriage) Sir Henry Cavendish,
and that his second son, Gilbert Talbot (who eventually succeeded to the
Earldom of Shrewsbury), should marry her
youngest daughter, Mary Cavendish. This amicable family arrangement was
duly carried out at Sheffield in the month of February, 1587-8, the
younger of the two couples being at the time only about fifteen and twelve
years of age respectively. The Earl of Shrewsbury died in 1590, leaving
his countess in the full enjoyment of all her worldly possessions, of
which she would appear to have made good use, if that expression can be
applied to her love of grandeur and propensity for building. According to
Walpole's 'Anecdotes of Painting,' there is a
tradition in the family of Cavendish that a fortune-teller had once told
this imperious lady that 'she would never die
while she was building:' and that,
'accordingly, she bestowed a great deal of the
wealth she had obtained from three of her four husbands in erecting largo
seats at Hardwicke, Chatsworth, Bolsover, and Oldcotes,
and, I think, at Worksop; and died in a hard frost, when the workmen could
not labor.'
The character of
'Bees of Hardwicke' is thus set forth by Lodge
in his 'Portraits of Illustrious Persons': ` She
was a woman of masculine understanding and conduct; proud, furious,
selfish, and unfeeling. She was a builder, a buyer and seller of estates,
a money-lender, a farmer, and a merchant of lead, coals, and timber. She
lived to a great old age, and died in 1607 immensely rich, and without a
friend.'Old Fuller writes of her as
'a woman of undaunted spirit'; while upon her
monument she is described as 'beautiful and
discreet: She had, as already stated, children by only
two of her four husbands, namely, Sir William Cavendish, who thus
became the founder of the famous family of Cavendish.
The estate of Hardwicke
is situated about six miles from Chesterfield, and the house stands on
high ground in a noble deer-park, full of trees which were not young in
the days of the Tudors, perhaps even in those of the Plantagenets. At the
time of the Conquest it formed part of the manor of Steynesby, which was
granted to Roger of Poicton. By King John it was transferred to Andrew de
Beauchamp, and in the middle of the thirteenth century it passed to
William de Steynesby, whose grandson, John, died possessed of it in 1330.
Shortly afterwards it passed to the family of Hardwick, or De Hardwicke,
who gave to it their name, and in whose possession it remained for six
generations, their pedigree closing with Elizabeth Hardwicke, the wife of
Sir William Cavendish, and the subject of this chapter. Hardwicke, with
its princely domains, has continued in the possession of her lineal
descendants, through the family of Cavendish, to their representative, His
Grace the Duke of Devonshire and Baron Cavendish of Hardwicke, the present
noble owner.
'Hardwicke,' writes Mr. S. C.
Hall, in his 'Baronial Halls,'
'has for a very long period derived romantic
interest from the popular belief that it was one of the prisons of the
lovely and persecuted Queen of Scots. It is, however, certain that,
although for a time in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, she never
was immured at Hardwicke, her prison having been one of the earl's
'strong castles at Sheffield," where she passed
twelve weary years in "melancholy and grief;' in "sickness and despair,"
the victim of unceasing suspicion, "in the hopeless monotony of sedentary
employment, with an impaired constitution and a restless mind," and
treated with so much severity by the countess as to extort from the more
humane earl, in one of his petitions to the Queen, a complaint against his
"wyked and malysious wyfe."'
Hardwicke, according to
the authority here quoted, appears to have been built subsequently to the
death of Mary; 'but,' adds the writer, 'there is
little doubt that the room called "The Queen's Room," in memory of the
unhappy lady, was furnished with the bed and other furniture removed
hither from Chatsworth, where she was for some time a prisoner.' According
to Lysons, the house 'exhibits a most complete
specimen of the domestic architecture which prevailed among the higher
ranks during the reign of Queen Elizabeth;' and it remains in its original
state, 'with little or no alteration.'
The poet Gray, adopting
the popular error, pictures it as so primitive in character that 'one
might think that the Scottish Mary was but just walked down into the
park;' and Mrs. Radcliffe, who gives a lengthy description of the mansion
in her 'Tours of the Lakes' (published in 1795),
notes the 'proud, yet gentle and melancholy look
of the queen as she slowly passed up the hall,' and contrasts it with the
somewhat obsequious, yet jealous and vigilant air' of my Lord
Keeper Shrewsbury.
There is no necessity
to describe Hardwicke Hall at length, as it is better known to English
tourists than almost any other great show-house in the Midland district.
It is a magnificent structure in the Elizabethan style, massive and firm
in construction, whilst solemn grandeur is the great characteristic of the
stately pile. Its general form is square, with a high square tower at each
corner, and with large medallioned windows; indeed the windows are so
extensive as to have given risen to a local adage--
'Like Hardwicke Hall,
More windows than wall.'
Round the top is a parapet
of open work in which frequently appear the initials of the founder' E.S,'.,
silent 'memorials of the proud dame's vanity.'
The older Hardwicke
Hall, which 'Bess of Hardwickes' mansion
superseded, still stands only a few hundred yards off, a deserted ruin;
but it certainly must have been a more comfortable dwelling-house than
that by which it was superseded. In the walls high up may still be seen
marble mantelpieces carved with stags' heads, the heraldic bearings of the
Cavendishes, but they look as if they would fall with the next winter's
storms.
It is only necessary to add that the tomb of Bess of Hardwicke is
to be seen in the southern aisle of All Saints' Church, Derby. It is a
large and magnificent structure of its kind, which would be perhaps best
described as Jacobean, made of marble and alabaster, and rich in carving
and heraldic bearings. It was designed by herself some years before her
death, and she would frequently visit the church to watch its progress
towards completion.
* See
above, pp. 67
Chapters From the Family Chests, 1887
Chapters From the Family Chest |
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