Chapter I: Front Matter

BESS OF HARDWICK
AND HER CIRCLE

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

A LADY OF THE REGENCY
JOURNEYMAN LOVE
THE APPRENTICE
TALES OF RYE TOWN
THE LABOURER’S COMEDY
THE ENCHANTED GARDEN
THE EASY-GO-LUCKIES
THE STAIRWAY OF HONOUR
HAPPINESS

_Photo by Richard Keene Ltd. Derby, after the painting at Hardwick
Hall._

_Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury._
]

BESS OF HARDWICK
AND HER CIRCLE

BY
MAUD STEPNEY RAWSON

WITH THIRTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
INCLUDING A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE

London: HUTCHINSON & CO.
Paternoster Row ❧ 1910

TO MY HUSBAND

To you belongs, for many a reason, this, my first essay in history, which I have carried to its end with many misgivings, but with much delight in the matter itself.

The orthodox may be affronted at two brief incursions into fiction which they will find in it. Let them skip these judiciously, magisterially. For my own part, I needed consolation at times for certain hard and bitter facts of the history. Therefore, since the way was sometimes long, and the wind, in my imagination, very cold—as it whistled in and out of the ruins of those manors and castles where the Scots Queen and her married gaolers dwelt, or as it drove the snow across the splendid grey façade of Hardwick (to say nothing of the draughts of the sombre, public research libraries)—I first drew my Countess down from her picture-frame to marshal her household, and then lured her child and her child’s lover after her to gladden your road and mine.

And so I give you—besides all the thoughts which have gone to every scrap of writing I have ever done—these last, which curl and stiffen and again uncoil themselves about this hungry woman of Elizabethan days. Into her life and much-abused toil, we, who have neither gold nor heirs for whom to store it, can look together in love and pity.

Thus even while we rejoice over our diminutive home, may we never forget to give thanks to the spirit of those who built the great houses which nourish the little ones, and who, in place of the “scarlet blossom of pain” that grows at great door and little, shall give to us in the end the perfect English rose.

M. S. R.

LITTLE ORCHARD,
STREATLEY,
BERKS.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

All complete letters herein quoted have been put into modern spelling. These, with the exception of one or two fragments and when the source is not otherwise indicated, have been selected from the transcripts in Lodge’s _Illustrations of British History_, from the originals amongst the Talbot, Howard, and Cecil MSS.

The Author gratefully acknowledges the special permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire to include in this work reproductions of many of the fine pictures at Hardwick Hall, as well as a number of views of that noble building.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE RED-HAIRED GIRL 1

II. THE MISTRESS BUILDER 11

III. “A GREAT GENTLEMAN” 34

IV. HUBBUB 52

V. MAKE-BELIEVE 62

VI. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 75

VII. FAMILY LETTERS 99

VIII. A CERTAIN JOURNEY 119

IX. LOVE AND THE WOODMAN 133

X. AFTERMATH 145

XI. VARIOUS OCCURRENCES 161

XII. MY LORD LEICESTER’S CURE 175

XIII. THE DIVIDED WAY 193

XIV. “BRUITS” 211

XV. RUTH AND JOYUSITIE 223

XVI. VOLTE FACE 236

XVII. THE COIL THICKENS 251

XVIII. “FACE TO FACE” 266

XIX. HAMMER AND TONGS 279

XX. FADING GLORIES 308

XXI. HEIR AND DOWAGER 324

XXII. ARABELLA DANCES INTO COURT 337

XXIII. MY LADY’S MANSIONS 349

INDEX 365

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_

_To face page_

HARDWICK OLD HALL 2

SIR WILLIAM CAVENDISH 4

HARDWICK OLD HALL: THE GIANTS’ CHAMBER 6

SIR WILLIAM ST. LOE 16

GEORGE TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY 38

ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 38

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 64

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ APARTMENTS AND DUNGEONS AT TUTBURY,
FROM THE NORTH-WEST 66

WINGFIELD 70

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ BOWER, CHATSWORTH 72

WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY 80

THOMAS HOWARD, DUKE OF NORFOLK 86

THE MANOR HOUSE, SHEFFIELD 90

GILBERT TALBOT, SEVENTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY 100

LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF LENNOX 120

ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 178

QUEEN ELIZABETH 182

ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 198

GEORGE TALBOT, SIXTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY 202

MARY CAVENDISH, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 252

HARDWICK HALL, SHOWING ENTRANCE GATEWAY 258

STATUE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 310

QUEEN ELIZABETH (_by Zucchero_) 316

ARABELLA STUART AS A CHILD 330

ARABELLA STUART 332

HARDWICK HALL: THE PICTURE GALLERY FROM THE NORTH 336

WELBECK ABBEY 340

HARDWICK HALL: THE DINING-ROOM 342

JAMES THE FIFTH 344

TOMB OF ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 346

THE ENTRANCE HALL, HARDWICK HALL 348

BOLSOVER CASTLE 352

HARDWICK HALL: THE PICTURE GALLERY 354

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (_by P. Oudry_) 356

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ BED, HARDWICK HALL 358

HARDWICK HALL: THE PRESENCE-CHAMBER 360

HARDWICK HALL FROM THE WEST GARDEN 362

BESS OF HARDWICK

AND HER CIRCLE