BESS OF HARDWICK.*
IN the year 1520 according to Mrs. Rawson, in 1518 thinks the writer in the Dictionary of National Biography, Elizabeth Hardwick, the daughter of a small Derbyshire squire, was born. At the age of fourteen, if we are to adopt what seems the more probable chronology, she was taken into the family of a noble kinswoman, Lady Zouche, with a fortune of £26 13s. 4d. (say £200 of our money), "reddish hair and small eyes," and a quite uncommon faculty of getting on. Two years later she was a widow for the first time. A Derbyshire neighbour, Robert Barlow by name, had come up to London on a visit to Lady Zouche, had fallen sick under her roof, been nursed, it would seem, by the niece, recovered sufficiently to marry her, and died. The next nine years are a blank. At the age of twenty-seven the widow married Sir William Cavendish, scion of a Suffolk family, who had secured not a few prizes out of the abundant monastic spoil which enriched the courtiers and officials of the time. The marriage was an event of the first importance in English family history. It was blessed with eight children, six of whom survived, and was the fons a quo came various • Bess of Hardwick and her Circle. By Maud Stepney alW30/1. London: Hutchinson and Co. [16s. net.]
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noble races, the Devonshire Cavendishes and the Manvers Pierreponts among them. Lady Cavendish had now a worthy field in which to show her powers of management. She persuaded her husband to consolidate his property. Various scattered manors were sold, and Derbyshire estates were bought with the proceeds. Now, too, we have indications of what may be called this great lady's weakness,—she began to build. Chatsworth, which had been acquired from the Leech family, seemed a convenient centre, and the Cavendishes determined to settle there. But the mansion did not satisfy her Ladyship, and she resolved to rebuild; the dates are not given, and perhaps are not recoverable, but we may con- jecture the year 1550; nearly sixty years later she was building still. In 1557 Sir William Cavendish died. Widow- hood was not to her mind. Indeed, there were many things in which a husband of the right sort could help her. There was the management of her estates, in which, for all her capability, a man would often be useful, and there was the advancement of her children. She bad not long to wait. We are not told the exact date, but it was probably in 1559 that she married Sir William Saint-Loe, a soldier who had distinguished himself in the Irish wars. He was then Grand Butler of England and Captain of the Queen's Guard. His duties, therefore, often kept him at Court, and his wife, though she held the post of Lady of the Bedchamber, was commonly at Chats- worth. "My dear Chatsworth " is one of the affectionate terms which the third husband bestows upon her. The union did not last long. Again the date is wanting ; but we know that in 1568 Bess of Hardwick married for the fourth time.
This was the most splendid of her alliances. Her husband was George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. He was one of the wealthiest of English nobles, Knight of the Garter, and Lord- Lieutenant of the counties of York, Nottingham, and Derby. One not altogether desirable result of the marriage soon followed. The Earl was made custodian of Mary Queen of Scots, and though it was carefully provided that " the Queen may see the Countess, if she is sick, or for any other necessary cause, but rarely," the appointment was certain to bring with it no little trouble to wife as well as to husband. One instal- ment came soon enough. Tutbnry Castle was to be the Queen's abode, and had to be made ready for her. Ministers promised hangings and other necessaries, but did not send them, and the Countess had to use some of her own. Mrs. Rawson, who tells us that this is her first "essay in history," gives us a dramatic scene, under the title of "Hubbub," in which she pictures the confusion which prevailed while Tntbury was in course of preparation. Anyhow, the place was but ill prepared for the Royal guest or prisoner when she arrived on February 4th, 1568(9). The regulation about visits to the Countess broke down at once. "The Queen continueth daily resort unto my wife's chamber." In no long time Mary fell ill; the physicians recommended a thorough ventilation and cleaning of her apartments, and her removal, meanwhile, to Chatsworth. The situation soon became difficult. There was always financial trouble. An insufficient allowance, irregularly paid, probably did not really press hard on the Shrewsbury finances; but it was an undoubted annoyance. Then there were plots and counterplots. In 1571 these may be said to have come to a head. The Duke of Norfolk, the Scottish Loyalists, and Philip of Spain were all sources of danger. The keeper of a prisoner so skilful in intrigue did not escape suspicion,—practically the Countess played the keeper's part. One Hersey Lascelles, examined before the Council, " confesses "—so runs Burleigh's letter of October 13th, 1571—" that his dealing was not without knowledge of your Ladyship," Such a communication must have been not a little disturbing ; even more so must have been the task of interviewing Mary after the death sentence had been passed upon the Duke of Norfolk. She seems to have been somewhat wanting in tact ; but the situation was trying in the extreme. As time went on, the difficulties of the situation did not diminish. Elizabeth persisted in keeping the Shreweburys at the task, but took pains to show that she did not trust them. It must have been a welcome change when Lord Shrewsbury was relieved of his office. In Septem- ber, 1584, Mary was handed over to a new gaoler, Sir Ralph Sadler. Lord Shrewsbury was free, but, as Mrs. Rawson puts it, " at what a price His honour was undermined by his own family, his fortunes impaired by the Queen's penuriousness, his prime was past, his best given in return for apparently
naught." Such gratitude as his prisoner might feel— and he had really done his best for her—was a danger. Something more than two years later he was summoned to Fotheringhay to witness the execution of his .former prisoner. Not quite four years later he died (January, 1591). He was something over sixty years old; but in the sixteenth century this was old age. Unhappily the latter part of his life was greatly troubled by a quarrel with his wife, which became acute about 1585. It seems to have had the importance of a matter of State, for the Queen herself drew up terms of agreement between the two. A formal reconciliation took place; but peace lasted only a short time, and husband and wife were as far apart as ever when the end came. It is needless to go into the rights and wrongs of this unhappy affair. The dispute arose, as most disputes do, out of money matters. The Countess could never do enough for her children, she always wanted money for her building schemes—Chatsworth alone must have been a very quicksand for swallowing up money—and she had an ungovernable temper and a bitter tongue. Probably the duties of gaoler brought occasions of difference; anyhow, it was said that when the Earl was relieved of his office he expressed his thankfulness to the Queen by saying that she had delivered him from two devils,—Mary Queen of Scots and his wife.
The new Earl was " Bess of Hardwick's " son-in-law (married at fifteen to Mary Cavendish, one of " Bess's " three daughters). A quarrel soon broke out, property being again the proximate cause. Here again we have no need to pro- nounce a judgment; but all that we know of Earl Gilbert inclines us to side with the Dowager. The greater part of the seventeen years of life which yet remained to her she spent at Hardwick, where she could still indulge her passion for building,—it was the home of her birth, and she probably bought it from her brother James. The new hall was finished in 1597, and here she died in 1607, still busy with bricks and mortar. She would live, it was said, as long as she could build. The winter of 1606-7 was unusually severe. The old lady ordered the masons to make the mortar with ale, which would not freeze so readily as water. But the frost was too much for the ale; the work was brought to a, standstill, and the Countess died. No one can deny that there was something great about her ; we may even allow that she had a heart. In her old age this was given to her granddaughter, Arabella Stuart. The story of the relation between the two is not the least interesting thing in the volume. But, on the whole, " Bess of Hardwick" was not a lovable person.
Mrs. Rawson has made a very readable book out of her subject. It would have been better, regarded as a history, if it had been more amply furnished with dates. And it would be possible, were we so minded, to pick holes in the story. On p. 6 we are told that Mary Cavendish was the youngest of the three daughters ; on p. 157 she appears as the eldest.
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