Bess of Hardwick

“ Elizabeth [on her knees, clinging to her mother’s gown] . Lady mother ... I mislike it....
Bess [disengaging herself] . “It,” “it”? What is “it”? He is a pretty young man, and his blood runs high like Darnley’s. But God be thanked ’tis a wiser fool than his brother. Now remember to carry yourself as a Cavendish should. Be cautious! Make no false step. I go to cosset and posset the mother. S’death, I would I were in your shoes, Bet, to run into the woods instead of tiptoe round a sick-chamber. ”

“ As for disfavour at Court, he could, as a strong and powerful private gentleman, take up his stand and keep up his vast property, though Elizabeth might wreak her annoyance on the young Cavendishes and Talbots. Had he summed up the courage to decide the matter after his own heart he would have lost nothing in the world’s esteem, been far better off in pocket, and possibly the barque of the Shrewsburys would have escaped the shoals and rocks of domestic bickerings, which in later middle-life led to such woeful wreckage of the vessel and the magnificent family crew. ”

“ Portraits and “divers tokens” have passed between the children. Bess is as sure of her power now as she was in the days when she boasted that she could both assist Mary to escape and herself elude retribution. Robust, rich, prosperous, swelled with her dreams, she counts herself unassailable. Her mood of excitement tempts her, however, further than her caution. Mary has spoken to Mauvissière of “rumours,” reports so serious that they have reached even to Scotland and France. She is sure that the Countess and her son Charles, once her sworn servants, 245are the source of these. ”

“ Her sister-queen was too crafty to permit that. Shrewsbury, who found Mary calm and, at the outset, bearing household inconveniences cheerfully—hopeful that they were but temporary—gave her a little leash here and there. She evidently insisted on seeing Bess Shrewsbury. “The Queen continueth daily resort unto my wife’s chamber, where, with the Lady Leviston and Mrs. Seaton, she useth to sit working with the needle, in which she much delighteth, and in devising of works; and her talk is altogether of indifferent and trifling matters without ministering any sign of secret dealing and practice.” ”

“ They must have had traffic already with the great family of Talbot—which, besides Sheffield Castle, owned so many large seats in Derby and Nottingham—and both of them naturally held intercourse with “Mr. Secretary Walsingham” and “Mr. Treasurer Cecil.”
When Sir William St. Loe died—tolerably soon, alas!—Bess Hardwick had gone far with her building, social and actual. Her third widowhood found her richer, bolder, better known at Court, and able to play her part in an ever-widening circle of the powerful and prosperous.
Such a lady would naturally make enemies. ”

“ The Earl was in receipt of all outside information in regard to Scotland and the English Court. It was patent that no help for Mary could come from James, well primed since his cradle by the lords who hated his mother. Bess Shrewsbury’s glorious dream of a throne for Arabella stared at her now as a somewhat sickly vision. The only hopes for the child were from an influential marriage. ”

“ At thirty-seven, gifted with excellent good looks, an indomitable will, and a constitution robust and healthy, it was not the moment for such a woman to permit either her schemes or her zest in life to collapse. So she keeps to her road, moving no doubt daily between the old Chatsworth and the new, the beloved fabric which for her was at once the mausoleum of her greatest happiness, the eloquent witness of her aspirations for her children, and a lasting memorial of her Cavendish ambitions. So one beholds her working onward, building for the future, impatient no doubt of the present. ”

“ These were dramatic days which Bess of Shrewsbury witnessed. Letters were intercepted, coffers suddenly searched in the Scots Queen’s apartments, there were incursions of men with “pistolets,” constant dismissals of the Queen’s people, sudden dismissal, even, of the Countess’s own servants. But the gaps at the board were immediately filled by Huntingdon and his retinue, for whom the Shrewsburys were expected to provide without any increase of allowance, on the score that the present numbers of the household did not exceed those at Wingfield and elsewhere. ”

“ Is it not by virtue of the past life and compassion of the great houses that the little ones achieve their beauty in miniature, and, lastly, their sweet appropriateness to the usages of modern life? The great house begat these little ones of to-day—no hovels, but decent homes—which spring up all over England and Scotland and Ireland—in the hollows or heights of downs, in richly watered places, on ridges, by the fringes of woods, upon the sea flank—creeping up almost impudently to the very skirts of the great “places” which have passed into the traditions of history. ”

“ The new Hardwick, the present hall, was not actually finished till seven years after the Earl’s death, and there and at the older house the Dowager and the semi-royal grandchild spent many years together. The former was, as has been instanced, busy betimes with making matches for the child. After the disappointment about 332Lord Leicester’s little son, the old ambitious spirit flares up gloriously in the proposal that Arabella, who was just ten years old, should marry James of Scotland. ”

“ Again and again she tries to act as go-between, and at odd times secures favours for one or the other—a barony for William Cavendish, a bride for his son. At intervals she visited her grandmother, but generally with a view to making peace between Gilbert and the hostess of Hardwick. To him she wrote in a very touching manner after a visit to the old lady: “I found so good hope of my grandmother’s good inclination to a good and reasonable reconciliation betwixt herself and her divided family that I could not forbear to impart to your Lordship with all speed. ”

“ On either side of her hangs a portrait of James VI as a little boy. In one he carries a hawk—symbol of the passion for sport which seems to have been, save for his obstinacy, his only strong point; in the other he is in correct fashionable dress and plumed cap, and wears a tiny sword—symbol of the courage he never possessed, and forerunner of the full-grown weapon which he could carry with swagger, but dared not use on his mother’s behalf. Even as his little presence hedges Arabella in this gallery on both sides, so in life his position dominated hers most cruelly in years to come. ”

“ Their children must amuse one another. In five days the close companionship between Charles and Elizabeth could not but grow, fostered by the cleverness of the girl’s mother. Free to go and come in gardens and woodland, young and lithe, eager to escape from rules and duties and tutors, to forget sad things—Elizabeth Cavendish, the grim details of Sheffield Castle, its alarums and excursions, Charles Stuart, the tragedies of his family—they wooed each other readily. ”

“ Hardwick House eventually became the portion of the red-haired daughter, some say through the will of her brother, who apparently died without heir. But for the moment the Cavendishes needed a fine house for domesticity on a large scale and old Chatsworth did not suffice them. Elizabeth Cavendish had plenty to do in founding her family. These were great and busy times for the great lady. Shoulder to shoulder husband and wife worked at their building, at their estate, at the management of their tenants, their parks and palings, their farms and holdings. ”

“ To these supporters the lady had no right because her family had none. But she assumed them, turning to account the stag of her family crest. Her son William adopted a variation of this, and in the Devonshire arms of to-day we again find the wreathed stags proper, while the shield bears three harts’ heads. In the Mary Queen of Scots bedroom you will find in plaster work again the Hardwick arms, but also those of Cavendish and of the Countess’s mother, Elizabeth Leake. Needless to say, the house is built in the grand manner. ”

“ Therefore, you have cause to think yourself happier than others, for I know not what she is within this realm that may compare with you either in living or goods; and yet you cannot be contented. The reconciliation that her Majesty moved betwixt us was—that I should take a probation of your good behaviour toward me for a year, and send you to Wingfield upon my charges, to which I yielded (being much pressed by her Highness) with these conditions: that I should not bed nor board with you ”

“ A fiendish delight lurks behind every suggestion aimed at the person and amours of Elizabeth. Even these, taking into account the ghastly suspense of her imprisonment and the wreckage of her mental balance, might be forgiven to Mary. But the statement suggesting Elizabeth’s betrayal of her State secrets to a mere envoy like the Frenchman Simier, while admitting him to the grossest intimacy, is too wickedly sane in its vindictiveness to be forgivable. In her most impulsive, most overwrought moments Lady Shrewsbury would never have dared to suggest a thing so base or so impossible. ”

“ The only redeeming feature is the steadfast loyalty of Henry Cavendish—heir to a portion of the Rufford and Langeford estates—to his stepfather. Gilbert adroitly urges his own poverty and his wife’s “necessite,” but is sharply silenced. Shrewsbury is very jealous of his heir’s long absence at the hated Chatsworth, but at the same time promises to defray the fees of the physician attending Mary—the redoubtable Mary Talbot.
This lady is the true outcome of her mother. Bess Shrewsbury was accustomed to speak of her many building enterprises as her “workes.” ”

“ At Court she was the close companion of Lady Jane Seymour, daughter of the Duke of Somerset. This Lady Jane had a brother, no less than the Earl of Hertford. What more inevitable than a love affair between him and Catherine? There were sorrows enough in the background of her history, slavery enough—despite pageant and hunting and the comings and goings of great persons from foreign courts—to endure at the hands of the energetic, alert, excitable, witty, jealous royal mistress. Little by little the love story wove itself in the manner of every love tale. ”

“ Loe, Sir William, 13 (“Bess of Hardwick’s” third husband) , 13 et sqq., 23, 286 Scrope, Lord, 48, 112 Seaton, Mrs., 64 Seton, Mary, 66–7, 232–3, 242–3 Seymour, Lady Jane, 28 Seymour, William, 339, 340, 342 Sheffield, Lady. See Countess of Leicester. Sheffield Castle, 35, 281; Mary Queen of Scots at, 73 et sqq., 85 et sqq., 95 et sqq., 110 et sqq., 171, 193, 231 et sqq. Shrewsbury, Edward Talbot, eighth Earl of, 43, 45, 169, 189, 308, 325–6, 340, 348 Shrewsbury, Elizabeth Countess of: her birth, 1; 378her early life, 2; her early marriage and widowhood, 3 ”

“ You, Fiddler—drown the chatter with your music, if music you must make. Her Ladyship comes. You—boy, go to the bed-chambers above and help to carry down the napery which she will give you. Oh! there is more to accomplish than any hands can do. The stables are not yet ready, two of the scullions are drunk and must go, the carpenters are short of wood for the mending of the walls of my Lord’s guardroom, the roof of the dining-hall leaks, and the roll of canvas for the wall behind the dais, which is mossy and wet, has not come from France. ”

“ Simultaneously with this disappointment came sharper sorrow—the death of Francis Talbot. The event presented itself to Lord Leicester as worthy of one of those flowery, humbugging, sententious, idiotic letters of which he wrote so many in his crowded life. This unscrupulous idler, living on the fat of the land and overheaped with gifts and favours, presents a very odd picture as he conjures an afflicted, upright, and overburdened contemporary to count up his blessings: “The Lord hath blessed you many ways in this world, and not least with the blessing of children for your posterity.” ”

“ The idea of being kinsfolk to the future Queen excited them all, and even Mary forgot her offence about the cradle, and her jealousy of Bess, and ranked herself against her stepfather, influencing her husband, Gilbert, on whom the unfortunate Earl had hitherto leant. On his refusal to persecute his unfortunate captive beyond the orders from the Court, Bess of Hardwicke, emboldened by the support she had gathered from her children, passionately declared that it could only be because he was himself in love with the murtheress. ”

“ Daughters must be married, sons must be brought into the charmed circle of the Queen, to run the gauntlet of suspicions, favours, and coldnesses from her and bear the jealousy and competition of others till the right opportunity came for advancement. Moreover, there was Chatsworth to complete—alone. ”

“ Elizabeth of England, called to the immense sacrifice of her womanhood for England, fell back in private on petty vanities, and had her reward in the love of the larger public of her day and in the enlightened homage of posterity to her sacrifice and her statesmanship. Elizabeth Shrewsbury justly refused to sacrifice herself to the official burdens put upon her earl, unjustly refused to go shares with him in their common responsibilities, and so in her the “combat for the individual” ran to exaggeration, with its harvest of sheer bitterness and errors. ”