Hardwick Hall

“ HARDWICK HALL may take rank among the more stately of the “homes of England.” Stately in its outer aspect, stately in its antique furniture and its interior fittings and appointments, and truly stately in its associations, it is one of the most historically interesting, and one of the most singular and picturesque, of the many “homes” whose countless stores of natural beauties and acquired treasures are, through the kindness and liberality of their owners, made accessible alike to peer and peasant ”

“ To those who wish to study the work of the Tudor period, Hardwick Hall is recommended as the place where the best specimens have been preserved. To Elizabeth, daughter of John Hardwick, born in 1520, and so poor that her marriage portion as the bride of the Earl of Shrewsbury was only thirty pounds, credit is given for the richness of this collection. She was a woman of great ability in the management of her estates, became very wealthy, and gave employment to many people. ”

“ Loe. She was the builder of Chatsworth and of Hardwick Hall. To him was confided the care of Mary Queen of Scots. He was succeeded by his son Gilbert, as seventh earl. This young nobleman was married before he was fifteen to Mary, [7] daughter of Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth. He left no surviving male issue, and was succeeded by his brother, Edward, as eighth earl, who, having married Jane, daughter of Cuthbert, Lord Ogle, died, without issue, being the last of this descent, in 1617. The title then passed to a distant branch of the family, in the person of George Talbot, of Grafton ”

“ The old Hall at Hardwick, of the ruins of which we give an engraving, was, in its palmy days, a place of considerable extent and beauty, and from its charming situation—being built on the edge of a rocky eminence overlooking an immense tract of country—must have been a most desirable residence. ”

“ The Cut-Velvet Room, leading from the dining-room, is a noble apartment, hung with tapestry, and containing a stately bed with plumes. Over the fire-place, in parget-work, as in other rooms, is a series of armorial bearings, among which again occur the arms of Hardwick, with supporters and coronet. Adjoining this is a charming dressing-room, hung with the most exquisite needlework in silk. Passing down the minstrels’ gallery from the dining-room to the drawing-room, some fine specimens of needlework, by the Countess of Shrewsbury, and by Mary, Queen of Scots, are carefully preserved in frames. ”

“ Hardwick and its surroundings belong essentially to those times, and to the people who moved prominently in them: the very furniture we see to-day pertains to that eventful era—for not only is the building itself of the period to which we refer, but so are even the “fittings;” the beds—for here is the very bed used by Mary, Queen of Scots, and covered with needlework, the work of her own fair hands ”

“ The first of the Hardwick family known was William, who married the daughter of Goushill, of Barlborough (which family of Goushill, in the time of Henry III., married the heiress of Hathersage, and whose heiress, in the sixteenth century, married Wingfield) , and by her had two sons, Roger and William, the latter of whom was living in the thirty-second year of Henry VI. Roger Hardwick, of Hardwick, married the daughter of Robert Barley, of Barley, and had issue by her, John, who succeeded him. ”

“ These, which are in a lozenge-shaped shield, are surmounted by an earl’s coronet, and have for supporters, two stags, proper, each gorged with a chaplet of roses, argent, between two bars azure. The arms are those of Hardwick of Hardwick, the maiden name of the Countess; the supporters, [129] which she had no right to assume, the family of Hardwick not being entitled to any, were assumed from the crest of that family, which, with a slight variation, formed those granted to her son, the first Baron Cavendish, of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire. ”

“ In the old hall, replaced by the new Tudor building, stood one of Hogarth’s most pretentious but worst pictures, “Paul preaching before Felix,” an ill-drawn and ludicrous caricature of epic work. The society paid for it. It is now rolled up and hid away with as much contumely as Kent’s absurdity at St. Clement’s when Hogarth parodied it.
The new hall of Lincoln’s Inn was built by Mr. P. Hardwick, the architect of the St. Katherine Docks, and was opened by the Queen in person in 1845. It is a fine Tudor building of red brick, with stone dressings. The hall is 120 feet, the library 80 feet long. ”

“ The history of the Stone Buildings is connected with that of the new hall and the library. Hardwick, one of the last of the school which might be connected with Chambers, the Adams, Payne, and other architects of the English Renaissance, was employed to complete Stone Buildings, begun by Sir Robert Taylor, before the end of the eighteenth century. Hardwick was at work in 1843, and his initials and a date, "P. H., 1843," are on the south gable of the hall. ”

“ At last Master Clement desisted. He stared with a fixed face at Master Hardwick who stared beyond him. “Thou impenitent old man—!” He rose and with a gesture dismissed the three in line. Will and Dorothy and the boy filed out, primed to discuss among themselves master’s impenitency. “I go now, Master Hardwick,” said the minister, “but I shall come again to-morrow, though I fear me thou art as utterly lost as any man in England!”
Aderhold accompanied him from the chamber into the hall. ”

“ By this lady John Hardwick, who died January 24, 1527, had issue, one son and four daughters, viz., John, Mary, Elizabeth, Alice, and Jane. John Hardwick, the last male representative of the family, who was only three years old at his father’s death, married Elizabeth, daughter of Philip Draycott, of Paynsley, but died without issue, leaving his sisters his co-heiresses. Of these, Mary married, first, Wingfield, and, second, one of the Pollards, of Devonshire, who was Gentleman Usher to the Queen; Alice married Francis Leech, of Chatsworth, and died without issue ”

“ 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. ”

“ Court chit-chat by, 171 et sqq.; entertains Leicester at Buxton, 180; his illness, 195; and his uncongenial home, 197 et sqq.; dissension with his father, 198 et sqq.; and his parents’ quarrels, 201 et sqq., 254 et sqq.; and the Shrewsbury tenantry, 215 et sqq.; 383and Elizabeth’s “deshabille,” 221–2; champions his stepmother, Lady Shrewsbury, 251–2; death of his son, 259; his monetary difficulties, 299, 348; his love for his stepmother, 314–15; succeeds his father, 324–5, 327; his portrait at Hardwick Hall, 324; quarrels with his brother Edward, 326; entertains the King, 340–1 ”

“ Kelly says, in the Teutonic form of the myth, the manes of their horses "dropped dew upon the earth, filled the drinking horns for the gods and the warriors in Odin's hall; and like them, white maidens, elves, and witches offer full goblets and horns to thankless mortals, who usually run away with the beaker after spilling its contents on the ground." ”

“ By the Earl of Shrewsbury the Countess had no issue, and he dying in 1590, she, “Bess of Hardwick,” became, for the fourth time, a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennet, “that perhaps never fell to the lot of one woman, to be four times a creditable and happy wife; to rise by every husband into greater wealth and higher honours; to have a numerous issue by one husband only; to have all those children live, and all by her advice be creditably disposed of in her lifetime; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty.” ”

“ Surrounded on all sides by charming scenery, and the richest and most abundant land, Hardwick stands in all its majesty and grace, and forms—both in the distance, when a first glimpse of its bold outline is gained from Brackenfield or other heights, or when viewed from nearer points—a striking feature in the landscape. When approached from one of the great centres for Derbyshire tourists, Matlock, the drive is of peculiar interest, and may be, with profit to the future visitor, briefly described. ”

“ If we regard them as the "frost giants" of the Scandinavian myths, it is by no means an inapt personification of the gigantic force exhibited by iceberg or glacier action.
A tradition in the neighbourhood of Stockport yet asserts that on the site of a ruined building, with the remains of a moat, called "Arden or Hardon Hall," on the southern bank of the river Tame, an ancient castle once existed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ High-Place Hall was undergoing repair; a lady was coming there to live shortly; all the shop-people knew it, and had already discounted the chance of her being a customer.
Elizabeth-Jane could, however, add a capping touch to information so new to her in the bulk. The lady, she said, had arrived that day.
When the lamps were lighted, and it was yet not so dark as to render chimneys, attics, and roofs invisible, Elizabeth, almost with a lover's feeling, thought she would like to look at the outside of High-Place Hall. She went up the street in that direction. ”

“ One forward citizen of Hardwicke had gradually moved his chair down the church alley, step by step, Sunday after Sunday, from one position of dignity to another still higher, until at last he boldly invaded the deacons' seat. When, in the year 1700, this honored position was forbidden him, in his chagrin and mortification he committed suicide by hanging.
The young men sat together in rows, and the young women in corresponding seats on the other side of the house. In 1677 the selectmen of Newbury gave permission to a few young women to build a pew in the gallery. ”

“ The suit was commenced a few days afterwards. Mr. Hardwick went to the county seat, some dozen miles distant, and secured the aid of an able lawyer, who gave him hope of prevailing and keeping his shop.
The affair necessarily created a great stir in the busy little town. As the cheerful clatter of the trip-hammer echoed along the stream on still evenings, and the fiery plume waved over the chimney, neighbors looked out from their windows, and wondered if the good blacksmith would, after so many years of honest toil, be stripped of his property and be reduced to dependence in his old age. ”

“ Hardwick was a heavy-built man, but he was no match for the youth, who all his life had been used to hard labor, and whose muscles, consequently, were like steel. He struck Hal many times, but the youth squirmed and twisted, and suddenly hit him a crack between the eyes that made him see stars. ”

“ Returning to the India office, again as under-secretary, in the following year, he moved in a lucid speech in 1904 the second reading of the Indian councils bill, setting up a department of commerce and industry (ibid. vol. cxl. cols. 498–502) . Those best qualified to form an opinion thought highly of his abilities.
In early life he was a bold rider in steeplechases. In 1898 he became principal proprietor of the ‘Saturday Review.’
Hardwicke, who was a man of much personal charm, died suddenly at his house, 8 York Terrace, Regent's Park, on 29 Nov. ”

“ Hardwicke was one of the handsomest men of his day, and, though of a delicate constitution, preserved by temperate living even in old age the elasticity and mien of youth. His personal advantages, which included a musical voice, enhanced the effect of his eloquence, which by its stately character was peculiarly adapted to the House of Lords. ”

“ But there was a man named Hardwick up to the 'cademy, an' he was a whacker. The boys called him Hardwhack, and I guess that kinder described him. Seems though he tuk a great dislike to Phil, cos he outspelled and outrecited everybody. He give him some terrible lickings, and I tell you didn't Alice Thompson riz right out of a sick-bed, and go down to the 'cademy, and give it to Hardwhack jest, you bet, before the hull school, for licking them boys, and she tuk Phil away. Sez she, 'Mr. Hardwick, I have been a teacher, an' I know that cruelty is not necessary. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Hardwick, who is a difficult man to deal with, sometimes comes through the shmall room, and out into the passage whin he doesn’t want to see anyone at all, at all, and goes out into the strate, leavin’ everybody waitin’ for him. Now I’ll put ye into this room, and if the editor tries to slip out, then ye can speak with him ”