CHAPTER XXIII

Chapter 238,648 wordsPublic domain

MY LADY’S MANSIONS

It is universally conceded by our nation that the French have a sense of the theatre which we shall never possess. The only set-off we can produce is a pre-eminent “sense of the house.” In France this has to a great extent died out. In French and in most continental cities the greater number of people live like pigeons in large cotes. It is the tendency of all towns, though in England the notion takes hold slowly. In the country the sense of the house is as strong as ever, with this change—that it is the day of the little house. Of the great house in its perfect sense as a home there are but few happy instances. It is the day of little things—little books, little songs, little pictures, little buildings, little frequent journeys, little incomes, and little sports. Above all, the little incomes! Little incomes laugh defiance at great houses. For great houses, as aforesaid, are great thieves. Bess and her Lord knew it, in the end, to their sorrow. Slowly English men and women have come to realise this, and not to aspire enviously to great houses. That notion was long a-dying, that obsession of the great house. Its long decline meant assuredly much that was tragic, wounding, self-torturing. Oh! those mistaken, ostentatious shams and pomposities of the early Victorian days when many a kindly, highly cultured, hypersensitive group of persons dwelt the lives of immured cabbages! And all this because of false pride, because of a penury they deliberately huddled round them, like a coward, who flings his cloak over his head so that he may not see even the opportunity for the courage which must go to the changed order of things.

And so the little incomes of to-day—the day of the triumph of the exploitation of limited resources—laugh at the great houses because the first have been forced to learn that trick of defiance side by side with the bitter lesson of monetary limitations which they share with the last. Yet behind their defiance is a great admiration of the big mansions. And behind the admiration, if they but guessed it, a great sense of indebtedness. For it is the little incomes, and not the little houses, which laugh at great mansions. 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. Some of these remain to us as dazzling show places, some few are also emphatically homes. Whether applied in the present to this most beautiful and intimate purpose or not, all the great mansions of Elizabeth Lady Shrewsbury were most truly intended for sweet daily uses. Two principal houses had she of her own—Hardwick and Chatsworth. Eight more George Talbot brought her—Wingfield, Sheffield, Rufford, Welbeck, Worksop, Tutbury, Bolsover. One smaller place he cherished for his old age, a little country house at Handsworth in the same county, and one more, as already explained, she in her old age founded—Owlcotes or Oldcotes—besides beginning the rebuilding of Bolsover Castle. Great houses indeed! Four of them, in especial, were widely sung and praised. How runs the curious old rhyme?

“Hardwicke for hugeness, Worsope for height, Welbecke for use, and Bolser for sighte. Worsope for walks, Hardwicke for hall, Welbecke for brewhouse, Bolser for all. Welbecke a parish, Hardwicke a Court, Worsope a pallas, Bolser a fort. Bolser to feast in, Welbecke to ride in, Hardwicke to thrive in, and Worsope to bide in. Hardwicke good house, Welbecke good keepinge, Worsope good walkes, Bolser good sleepinge. Bolser new built, Welbecke well mended, Hardwicke concealed, and Worsope extended. Bolser is morn, and Welbecke day bright, Hardwicke high noone, Worsope good night; Hardwicke is now, and Welbecke will last, Bolser will be and Worsope is past. Welbecke a wife, Bolser a maide, Hardwicke a matron, Worsope decaide. Worsope is wise, Welbecke is wittie, Hardwicke is hard, Bolser is prettie. Hardwicke is riche, Welbecke is fine, Worsope is stately, Bolser divine. Hardwicke a chest, Welbecke a saddle, Worsope a throne, Bolser a cradle. Hardwicke resembles Hampton Court much, And Worsope, Welbecke, Bolser none such.[88] Worsope a duke, Hardwicke an earl, Welbecke a viscount, Bolser a pearl. The rest are jewels of the sheere Bolser pendant of the eare. Yet an old abbey hard by the way— Rufford—gives more alms than all they.”

It is curious that Chatsworth, so famous in history, has no part in the rhyme. Save for an old engraving of it in the new, the present Chatsworth, no trace of the fabric of the second mansion, the house planned by William Cavendish the first, exists; and in the grounds no relic is to be found belonging to the date of Queen Mary’s imprisonment except a scrap of ivied ruin known as her “bower.”

What is the fate of the rest of the long list? Wingfield is an exquisite ruined fragment. The relic of that which was once Sheffield Castle is only to be found thickly embedded among the workshops and factories of a great smoke-belching town; and the whole property has passed to the dukedom of Norfolk.

Oldcotes, as we know, Bess Hardwick never finished, nor Bolsover, for that last duty fell upon her son, Sir Charles Cavendish, who “cleared away the loose cement and tottering stones and began to lay the foundation of the newe house at Bolsover,” only finished by his son, Marquis of Newcastle. Strangely enough, it is not this—the beautiful Elizabethan mansion, which witnessed now glorious pageants and now civil war—that remains for habitation, but a portion of the original stronghold. Says one descriptive writer: “The figure of Hercules, supporting the balcony over the principal doorway, is an appropriate symbol of the Castle’s strength. The fortress is habitable, and makes a very unconventional and picturesque residence, with its pillar parlour ornamented with old-fashioned devices; its noble Star Chamber lined with sombre portraits of the twelve Cæsars and ceilinged with blue and gold to represent the firmament at night; and its quaint bed-chambers, two of which are covered with pictures indicative of Heaven and Hades ... pictures ... of angels reclining on clouds, or wandering in delightful glades; and of angels of darkness, hideous ... and writhing in torment.” The which, says this chronicler, so affected the conscience of one inhabitant that he effaced them—“took a lime brush and ruthlessly wiped out both sinners and saints.” The ruin near this building must have stood finely “on the grand terrace to the south” in its heyday when the elasticity of good Bolsover steel spears and buckles was a household word in England.

Tutbury Castle lies a ruin by the Dove, unregretted, well detested by all who were ever immured there.

Welbeck—how true to the rhyme!—lasts and “will last”—“day bright,” a “saddle,” a place to “ride in,” a great “parish,” a home for use, for “good keepinge,”—in a word, an institution for posterity to wonder at. Such also is Rufford, one of the few great buildings which have escaped fire. Among the list of the disestablished monasteries it passed into the hands of the Talbots, who made good use of its Elizabethan gallery and its state chambers. On the other hand, the original manor house of Worksop—“the wise,” the “pallas,” the “throne,” was burnt down in 1761, was “decaide” very soon. Bolser the “maid” as aforesaid is now grown very grey, but is still lovely, the more wonderful in its isolation because of the ugly little new town below it. Welbeck “the wife” flourishes, has grown, is much increased.

Hardwick the “matron” endures. In her “hugeness,” in her character of spacious court and hall, in her seclusion and peace, her well-being, her riches and comfort, well warmed with the sun of prosperity, as at “high noone”—in her rôle as “chest,” as storehouse of unassailable fortunes, as a place “to thrive in,” Hardwick is the chiefest of all these houses, because, saving the church of All Saints at Derby, with the monument Bess Shrewsbury erected in it to herself, and the almshouses in the same town, it is the only thing of all her “workes” upon which her sole impress remains. Into this grey stone house, which bears her maiden name, has passed her extraordinary and very fine “sense of the home,” and the doggerel just quoted adds to that almost a portrait of herself. Time was when she wore stiff outstanding dresses, encrusted with network of jewels or bordered and lined with fur, like others who visited Court or the weddings and pageants of her circle. In the principal portrait of her, the one which hangs in the centre of the Cavendish group in the glorious Hardwick gallery—a stretch of 170 feet, of which the walls carry nearly two hundred portraits—she is, however, presented just in the character of matron and widow. Her child-bearing days were over, her schemes were many. One cannot read the rhymes quoted without feeling that when Hardwick is named in the jingle she herself passes in and out of the string of words, which in itself is like a ladies’ chain in a country dance. She is in black velvet with a rich quadruple necklace of pearls. Her chest, with gold and documents and household “stuff,” goes with her; we hear the jingle of her household keys, her ringing, authoritative voice, meet the glance of those clear, keen eyes, and follow the line of the thin, sensitive mouth, which could help that far-seeing brain of hers so much. That mouth could flatter, but it could also speak with terrible sharpness; it could repeat a good joke, a spicy scandal, or quiver with grief; it could say tender things—“my juwell and love, my dearest harte”—and it could bargain finely. “Hardwick is hard,” says the rhyme, and her lips seem to tighten to that phrase. She could certainly be both terribly hard and tender.

There is another smaller portrait of her, in her Countess’s coronet and an ermine tippet, which is rather more gracious in expression than the stiff, beruffed, matronly picture above mentioned. Close about her are her husbands—all save Barlow. Most comfortable of these is Sir William Cavendish, sturdy, bearded, and well-liking, in his furred robe and flat cap. Close by, and matching the figure of Arabella Stuart in sheer pathos, is that of the quiet, childless Grace Talbot, whom Fate so soon made the widow of the much-travelled Henry Cavendish. It is that of a dumpy little woman in black, holding in one hand a single pale eglantine—the flower of the Cavendishes. Her reddish-brown hair, her pale lips, a spinet of which the under portion of the open lid is faintly decorated with red-winged cherubs, and a dark green table-cloth, are the only scraps of colour in the sombre scheme. Her psalter, with diamond notation, lies open at the words “Sois moy seigneur ma garde et mon appuy, Car en toy gist toute mon esperance.”

In the same group one finds Burghley, rosy, astute, richly clad, a prince of dignitaries, than whom no statesman ever had richer experience of men and things, of power and place, of sovereigns and the royal caprice, who on the eve of death could still write to his first-born, over the trembling signature of “Your anguished father,” the words “Serve God by serving of the Queen, for all other service is indeed bondage to the devil.”

Very warm and full of life is the portrait of William Cavendish the younger, the Countess’s favourite son. To him in his right as first Earl and ancestor of the Dukes of Devonshire belongs, after his mother, the whole of this glorious gallery, typical of this magnificent house.

The end wall is given up to the portraits of the three English Queens. In the centre is Elizabeth, magnificent and monstrous, the clothes hiding the woman, the whole art of portraiture merged in the painter’s dogged intent to reproduce every detail of her jewels, her lace, and the birds, beasts, and reptiles with which her enormous, billowing dress is embroidered. On her right stands Queen Anne, very dull, complacent, and richly attired; on her left Queen Mary, solemn, handsomely robed, dignified. An opposite wall bears the other often-painted Mary, the Arch-Enigma, she whose personality, to my thinking, is so much more subtle and dominant than that of her magnificent English sisters. This is the famous Mary of Oudry’s brush, graceful, simple, subtle, the face diaphanous and elusive. There is an odd likeness between the motto she chose for her dais and that which the baby Arabella bears on the jewel pendent from her necklace: “Pour parvenir j’endure” is the legend. And both women bear witness to that determination in their faces, in their tragic fates. That and the old “En ma fin est mon commencement” ring in your ears as you turn from the gallery and from the beautiful presence-chamber with its wonderful coloured plaster frieze to the little bedroom dedicated to the relics of the Scots Mary. The curtains she embroidered, the coverings for the chairs, the tapestry, the very bed in which she slept and tossed and wept, are all proudly cherished. Mary never stayed at Hardwick, _pace_ Horace Walpole, nor possibly ever saw it. Nor was she ever housed at the old Hardwick, which stands now like a ghostly, ruined parent of the newer building, at right angles to it. The old house served “Building Bess” not only as model for her new hall, but furnished her, it is said, with actual material. It was, for those days, a good model that she took, and its high and countless windows made it hygienically a great improvement upon the gloom of Tutbury and Sheffield. No trace of superstition or pettiness has gone to the building, begun soon after she acquired the house—either by purchase or by legacy from her brother James Hardwick—some years before the death of her fourth husband, and completed seven years or so after it—that is in 1597. At first, says tradition, she seems to have intended to make her home at the older house and reserve the new one for ceremonial and entertainment, “as if she had a mind to preserve her Cradle and set it by her Bed of State.” The stones of that “Cradle” she eventually took for the “Bed,” and into that bed she literally wove all that was best of herself. Of mere personal feminine vanity she expresses little, of personal importance much. She was fond of her crest, and the modelled stags of her own family are devised to flatter her duly in an inscription (in the great drawing-room) to the intent that noble as is the stag, in all its animal perfection, its nobility is enhanced by bearing the arms of the Countess. She doted also on her initials. They are worked into the stone scrolling which adorns her four towers, into the main gateway, and into the low wall which flanks the square garden where you enter. They are repeated in the flower-beds. She must have loved signing her name also, for scarcely a scrap, it seems, of the household accounts concerning her buildings exists but bears evidence of her minute scrutiny. Here is her signature as it appears often repeated under such items as “thre ponde hyght pence,” or at the close of a letter thus:—

The Hardwick wages-book between New Year, 1576, and the close of December, 1580, with the list of her men—stone-breakers, gardeners, moss-gatherers, thatchers, wall-builders, ditchers—was made up by her once a fortnight and signed. Inside the house too are her initials, with the arms of her father, the stags and the roses of the Hardwicks, and into a famous inlaid table (brought, it is said, by her son Henry from the East) is woven the cryptic poetical motto of her father’s family:—

“The redolent smell of aeglantyne We stagges exault to the deveyne.”

This legend is to be faintly traced in the interior of the ruined old hall. With the exception of the Shrewsbury coronet and the initials, you find very little suggestion of the Talbots. Everywhere the arms of Hardwick predominate in panel, fireplace, and lock. They strike the eye the instant you enter the house by the great entrance-hall. Large and magnificent, they are set forth on the right wall: in heraldic language, “a saltire engrailed _azure_; on a chief of the second three cinquefoils of the field,” set in a lozenge-shaped shield and bearing the aforesaid coronet. The supporters are two “stags _proper_, each gorged with a chaplet of roses, _argent_, between two bars _azure_.” 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. The great entrance-hall runs to the height of two stories, and besides its panelling and old furniture has screens of tapestry. Just off the stairway on the left is the curious little chapel shut off from the landing by an open-work oak screen. Close by is a state bedroom, and adjoining it is a fine dining-room, whence a minstrels’ gallery leads to the wainscoted and tapestried drawing-room. The splendid presence-chamber, sixty-five feet long, thirty-three wide, and twenty-six high, is another remarkable feature, and besides its pictures and tapestry has the famous ancient frieze, already mentioned, in coloured plaster relief representing the Court of Diana. The choice of theme was, no doubt, out of compliment to the Queen, for her initials and arms are in this room substituted for those of the Countess, who, in spite of her dreams, never had the delight of receiving Elizabeth here.

In regard to the sheer details of furniture and tapestries the guide-books have sufficiently noted such items, and this is not the place for an inventory. But in the household lists, carefully catalogued and cherished, are noted “silver cloath of tissue and cloath of gold, velvet of sundry colours, needlework twelve feet deep, one piece of the picture of Faith and her contrary Mahomet, another piece with Temperance and her contrary Sardynapales.” And there are others “wrought with Flowers and slipps of Needlework,” while a “white Spanish rugg,” great chairs and little chairs, French stools, “a little desk of mother o’ pearl, a purple sarcanet quilt,” are duly noted, in addition to carpets and hangings galore storied with myth and legend. Good rich things over which to fight when it was a case of family quarrels! Many of these and the other famous tapestries with which the lovely house is crammed are being wisely guarded, and, where possible, delicately repaired, while taste and gracious sympathy with every object are turning the Hall into a place which is a perfect museum with the added grace of a house. The very ring—attached to the foot of the Countess’s writing-table—through which she slipped the leash of her dog, is still preserved.

Set high upon a fine hill in the centre of a park, encircled with rolling country, and facing east and west, the great, old windows of Hardwick look out above colonnades upon a new world. At no great distance are mines like those which have spoiled Bolsover and Worksop. The masons still labour at the stonework of Hardwick, for storms have worn the elaborate scrolling of those four proud towers, and the flagged pathway from gate to house-door is pitted and hollowed by frost and rain and the feet of generations. And still it stands, a monument and a living record of one who knew in her strange, active life much grief and much joy, who loved flattery and self-assertion and the struggle for individual development, and yet could write in letters of stone over the door of her presence-chamber: “The conclusion of all thinges is to feare God and keepe His commaundements.”

She had the great secret of living almost to the last in the “high noone” of her desires. When the western sun bathes her façade she lives again, walks again upon her terrace and under her colonnades. And with her goes that great procession, pathetic and vital, of her “workes”—her children, her friends, her buildings, her household gods, her intrigues, her dazzling dreams, her bargains—and all of them seem to have a part in the music of that duet of notions ever running in her head—“of bricks and mortar to yield grandeur, of human beings to yield wealth.”

She has been turned into ridicule by Horace Walpole, whose flippant vulgarity nevertheless acknowledged her magnificence. She was called shrew by a pompous bishop, but she had too much brain for a shrew. She could certainly scold—“like one from the banke”—but so could her royal mistress. In these two Elizabeths there is, after one allows for the difference in their actual circumstances, a strange likeness. Both were violent natures; both, in spite of their extraordinary sense of dignity, had a strong dash of the hoyden. Both had immense vitality, relished life intensely, loved to play with schemes. Both were obstinate, affectionate, vindictive, pugnacious, essentially women of their era, a type to which Elizabeth herself set the measure and called the tune. While the sum of all sorrow is the same, their sorrows differed in detail. 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. In body and soul she represented that spirit of individualism set in an epoch of intrigue, sensation, change, uncertainty, wide and violent contrast, in days of large treasons and international piracy, of high feeding and large ideas, of scented gloves, masks, doublets, and ill-managed kitchen heaps, of plot and counter-plot, of Court splendour and national drama.

Tobie Matthew, Archbishop of York, preached a fine funeral sermon upon this “costly Countess,” in which she was likened to the ideal virtuous woman of Solomon, while Hunter, on the other hand, ironically suggests that Massinger based his character of Sir Giles Overreach upon her. Lodge has termed her violent, treacherous, tyrannical. Such in many ways was the nature of England’s Elizabeth. Yet both women were makers and builders, often blind, always resourceful, achieving immense results in their several capacities. And since the royal symbol of the one is the stately Tudor rose, so also shall the lovely “redolent aeglantyne” of the motto of the other entwine and weave through the ages the memory of all that was finest in the amazing Lady of Hardwick. With that sweet savour—regarding it as the final evaporation of her complex, rampant, thorny, vital nature—let all harsher thoughts of her now be chased away.

INDEX

Adderley, Mr., 108

Alsope, Hugh, 17

Alva, Duke of, 40, 76, 92–3

Anjou, Duke of, 40, 76, 218, 221, 272, 317

Anne Boleyn, 28, 121

Anne of Cleves, 122

Anne of Denmark, 341–2, 344, 356

Appleyard, 92

Argyle, Earl of, 39

Arran, Earl of, 39, 123

Arundel, Earl of, 314

Barlow, Antony, 108

Barlow, Robert, 3, 355

Beale, Robert, 228, 231 _et sqq._, 268, 293

Bedford, Countess of, 188

Bedford, Earl of, 188

Bell, William, 92–3

Bentall, 256 _et sqq._

Beresford, Henry, 282 _et sqq._, 289, 290

Beton, Andrew, 232

Beton, Archbishop, 232

Beton, John, 81, 232

Beauchamp, Lord, 340

Bolsover, 35, 43, 204, 347, 351 _et sqq._

Bolton, Castle, Mary Queen of Scots at, 47, 49

Bonaparte, Napoleon, 35

Bothwell, Earl of, 68–9, 119, 127

Boughton, Elizabeth. _See_ Cavendish

Brackenbury, Richard, 327

Bruce, Mrs., 66

Burghley, Lady, 32, 101, 105, 128, 316

Burghley, Robert Cecil, Lord, 340–1

Burghley, Thomas Cecil, Lord, 188

Burghley, William Cecil, Lord, 23, 32, 38, 69, 79, 101, 104–5, 178, 183, 211, 257, 259, 302, 314, 316, 325; and Lady Catherine Grey’s marriage, 27, 30; and Mary Queen of Scots’ marriage, 29; letters written to, 30, 64–5, 80, 149, 150, 153, 208, 236, 239, 278, 329, 333; and Lady Mary Grey’s marriage, 31; and imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots, 47, 64–5, 70, 72, 97; visits Mary Queen of Scots, 80, 128, 228; letters from, 82, 161, 165, 188; and Lascelles, 82–3; and Norfolk’s death, 87; and the Norwich high treason trial, 92–3; his and Elizabeth’s distrust of the Shrewsburys, 110 _et sqq._; and Lady Lennox, 125, 153; and the Lennox marriage, 149, 150, 236, 239; Shrewsbury’s present of plate to, 161; and Lady Shrewsbury’s match-making, 165 _et sqq._; goes to Buxton, 187; and the accusation against Lord Shrewsbury, 249, 250; and the Shrewsbury quarrel, 26, 279 _et sqq._, 285, 290, 298; and Shrewsbury’s slanderers, 264; and the “Scandal Letter,” 271; and Mary Queen of Scots’ trial, 308–9; and Lady Arabella’s income, 329 _et sqq._; and Lady Arabella’s proposed marriage, 333 _et sqq._; his death, 340; his portrait at Hardwick, 356

Butts, Sir William, 92

Buxton, Mary Queen of Scots at, 110, 167, 171, 179

Caithness, Bishop of, 220

Catherine de Medici, 117

Cavendish, Anne, 6

Cavendish, Sir Charles, 6, 45, 242, 247–8, 254, 258, 264, 268, 275, 282, 284, 292, 296, 305, 337, 340–1, 348

Cavendish, Elizabeth. _See_ Lennox

Cavendish, Elizabeth, 6

Cavendish, Lady Grace, 6, 36, 44, 258, 355

Cavendish, Henry, 6, 36, 99, 107, 256 _et sqq._, 261, 284, 344, 346, 348, 355

Cavendish, Thomas, 4

Cavendish, Sir William, “Bess of Hardwick’s” second husband, 4 _et sqq._, 11, 355

Cavendish, William. _See_ Earl of Devonshire

Cecil. _See_ Lord Burghley

Chamley, Sir Hugh, 181

Chatsworth, 6 _et sqq._, 16, 72, 79, 80, 84, 91, 110, 120, 130, 152, 180 _et sqq._, 184, 205, 208, 214, 258, 284–5, 294, 296–7, 334, 341, 347

Cobham, Lord, 32

Cobham, Lady, 33, 42, 44, 118

Cooke, R., 256

Copley, Christopher, 293

Corker, Chaplain, 114 _et sqq._

Crompe, James, 10, 19, 22

Cumberland, Countess of, 188

Cumberland, Earl of, 188, 256, 301

Curle, 252, 257

Darcy, Lord, 32

Darnley, Henry, Earl of, 29, 39, 68–9, 119, 124 _et sqq._, 146, 153, 159, 176, 240

Derby, Earl of, 275, 314

Devonshire, first Earl of, 6, 10, 22, 294, 298, 334–5; and Lady Arabella Stuart, 239; and Mary Queen of Scots, 247, 268–9; and Hardwick Hall, 256, 258–9, 262, 287; Lady Shrewsbury’s love for, 329, 356; barony conferred on, 342; family’s jealousy of, 347; earldom conferred on, 348; and Chatsworth, 352; his portrait at Hardwick, 356

Dickenson, Gilbert, 298, 312

Dudley, Lady Amy, 175

Dudley, Lord Robert. _See_ Earl of Leicester

Dyer, Edward, 102, 104

Edward VI, 6 _et sqq._, 24, 122, 124

Elizabeth, Queen, 16–17, 20, 35, 121–2, 189, 233, 257, 260, 301, 307, 360; and Lady Catherine Grey’s elopement, 26 _et sqq._, 30; her suitors, 29, 221, 317; and Lady Mary Grey’s marriage, 31; and “Bess of Hardwick’s” fourth marriage, 36 _et sqq._; and the custody of Mary Queen of Scots, 39 _et sqq._; and Queen Mary’s expenditure, 63; courtiers’ opinion of, 64–5; and Mary’s release, 80–1; and Queen Mary’s attachment to the Duke of Norfolk, 75 _et sqq._, 85, 87; her suspicions of the Shrewsburys, 77 _et sqq._, 97–8, 110 _et sqq._, 212, 214 _et sqq._, 226 _et sqq._; and Norfolk’s trial and execution, 95–6; her affection for the Earl of Leicester, 73, 101, 105, 175 _et sqq._, 315; her favourites, 101–2, 277; and Lady Lennox, 125 _et sqq._, 145; and Elizabeth Cavendish’s marriage to the Earl of Lennox, 147 _et sqq._, 270; consigns Lady Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury to the Tower, 153; her allowance to Shrewsbury, 162; her depression, 162–3; visits the Countess of Pembroke, 163; Burghley’s loyalty to, 167–8; her possible successor, 174, 338; and Leicester’s visit to the Shrewsburys, 182 _et sqq._; her letter to the Shrewsburys, 183 _et sqq._; letter written to, 186; her fear of Queen Mary, 186–7, 211 _et sqq._; and the pageant at Whitehall, 225; Queen Mary’s appeals to, 230–1; and Lady Arabella Stuart, 239, _et sqq._; and Mary’s attack on the Shrewsburys, 242 _et sqq._; and the Shrewsbury slander, 263–4, 268; and the Shrewsbury quarrel, 267, 279 _et sqq._, 292 _et sqq._; the “Scandal Letter” to, 271 _et sqq._; her pursuits, 315–16, 362; her fondness for children, 327; and the provision for Lady Arabella, 329 _et sqq._; and Lady Arabella’s proposed marriage, 340; her portrait at Hardwick, 356

Essex, Countess of, 171

Fawley, Mr., 305

Fénélon, La Mothe, 147, 152, 191

Fletcher, Dr., Dean of Peterborough, 311–12

Fletewood, William, Recorder of London, 262, 269

Foljambe, Hercules, 255

Fowller, Thomas, 237

Gerrard, Judge, 92–3

Glasgow, Archbishop of, 238

Gresham, Sir Thomas, 188

Grey, Lady Catherine. _See_ Countess of Hertford

Grey, Lady Jane, 24, 125

Grey, Sir John, 30

Grey, Lady Mary. _See_ Keys

Grey, Lord Leonard, 14

Hall, John, 36

Hammer, Rev. Merideth, 263

Hardwick, Elizabeth (“Bess of Hardwick”). _See_ Countess of Shrewsbury

Hardwick, Elizabeth (mother of “Bess of Hardwick”), 13, 23

Hardwick Hall, 7, 8, 17, 258, 261, 325, 331–2, 334, 342 _et sqq._, 351–2

Hardwick, John (father of “Bess of Hardwick”), 1 _et sqq._, 7

Hatton, Sir Christopher, 102, 104, 272–3

Haydon, Sir Christopher, 92

Henry VIII, 5, 7, 14, 24, 120, 123–4, 179, 219

Henry of Navarre, 165

Herbert, Lady Anne. _See_ Talbot

Herbert. _See_ Pembroke

Hereford, Viscount, 76

Hertford, Countess of, 24 _et sqq._, 158, 175, 270, 339

Hertford, Dowager Countess of, 27–8

Hertford, Earl of, 25 _et sqq._, 153, 339

Howard, Hon. Francis, 101

Howard, Lord Thomas, 121–2, 153

Hunsden, Lord, 173

Huntingdon, Earl of, 76 _et sqq._, 86, 155–6, 181, 212

Jackson, Henry, 23

James I, 69, 76, 123, 127, 129, 130, 159, 160, 220, 240, 311, 332, 338, 340 _et sqq._

John of Austria, Don, 207, 223

Julio, Mr., 223

Katherine of Aragon, 121

Katherine Howard, 122

Katherine Parr, 123

Kennet, Bishop, 4

Kent, Earl of, 310

Keys, John, Serjeant Porter, 29, 31

Keys, Lady Mary, 29, 31, 158

Kighley, Anne. _See_ Cavendish

Killigrew, Sir William, 273

Knifton, Mr., 256, 313

Knollys, Sir Francis, 46, 48, 50, 71

Knollys, Lettice. _See_ Countess of Leicester

Kynnersley, Nicholas, 312

Lascelles, Hersey, 82 _et sqq._, 305

Leake, Elizabeth, 359

Leake, Sir Francis, 343

Lee, Sir Henry, 300 _et sqq._

Leicester, Douglas, Countess of, 101, 177

Leicester, Lettice, Countess of, 177, 259

Leicester, Robert Dudley, Earl of, 42, 94, 104, 125, 223, 227, 264, 303, 306–7; and Lady Catherine Grey’s marriage, 27; Queen Elizabeth’s love for, 29, 75, 101, 176, 183, 315; and the Norwich conspiracy trial, 92; his gaiety, 100–1, 178; and the Lennox marriage, 147 _et sqq._; letter written by, 170; chit-chat concerning, 171–2; his visit to Buxton, 174 _et sqq._; his insolence to the Queen, 177; Elizabeth’s letter concerning, 184 _et sqq._; and the Shrewsbury tenantry, 215–16; and Francis Talbot’s death, 230; and Bentall, 256 _et sqq._; death of his son, 259; and the Shrewsbury quarrel, 280, 292, 294; letter written to, 292; his death, 315–16

Lennox, Charles Stuart, Earl of, 6, 12 _et sqq._, 153, 157, 219, 270

Lennox, Matthew, Earl of, 123 _et sqq._, 159, 240

Lennox, Elizabeth, Countess of, 6, 213, 222, 273–4; her courtship, 131 _et sqq._; her marriage, 145–6; the Queen’s anger against, 147 _et sqq._, 153, 270; pathetic letter to her mother, 157–8; birth of her daughter, Lady Arabella Stuart, 158; letter to Queen Elizabeth, 160; her widowhood, 189; her death, 234 _et sqq._; the Queen’s allowance to, 329

Lennox, Margaret, Countess of, 118, 120 _et sqq._, 145 _et sqq._; letters written by, 150, 159, 175, 219, 237–8, 270

Lenton, John, 276

Leviston, Lady, 64

Lichfield, Bishop of, 317 _et sqq._

Livingstone, Lady, 66

Manners, Roger, 188

Manners, Lady, 305

Margaret Queen of Scotland, 24, 120

Mary, Queen, 12, 20, 120, 125, 356

Mary of Lorraine, 123

Mary Queen of Scots, 28, 110, 155, 162, 169, 193, 196, 208, 223, 292, 308; her marriage to Darnley, 29, 39; Elizabeth’s plotting against, 39 _et sqq._; her life as a prisoner, 47 _et sqq._, 63 _et sqq._, 85–6; her description of Tutbury Castle, 62–3; and the Duke of Norfolk, 68–9, 75 _et sqq._, 85; goes to Wingfield, 70–1; her ill-health, 72, 79, 81, 97, 230 _et sqq._; and Norfolk’s execution, 87 _et sqq._, 97; strict surveillance of, 95–6, 98; her misfortunes, 105, 119; her claims, 115; her fear of assassination, 117; and the Countess of Lennox, 125 _et sqq._; letter written by, 128; her reconciliation with the Countess of Lennox, 145–6, 159, 160; and the birth of Lady Arabella Stuart, 159; Lord Burghley and, 166 _et sqq._; at Buxton, 171; her friendship with Lady Shrewsbury, 174, 209; and Leicester, 176–7, 190–1; her reported escape, 207, 211 _et sqq._, 221; and Lady Arabella Stuart’s heritage, 220, 236 _et sqq._; her love of gaiety, 225–6; her diet, 228; her accusations against Lady Shrewsbury, 241 _et sqq._, 246 _et sqq._; the slander against, 245, 249, 250, 263 _et sqq._, 268 _et sqq._; her execution at Fotheringay, 266, 309 _et sqq._, 323, 337; her “Scandal Letter” to Elizabeth, 271 _et sqq._; her bower at Chatsworth, 352; her portrait at Hardwick Hall, 356–7

Matthew, Tobie, Archbishop of York, 363

Mauvissière, 242, 244 _et sqq._

Mendoza, Don Bernardino de, 278

Middleton, Antony, 93

Mildmay, Sir Walter, 293

Moray, Earl of, 39, 69, 75

Morton, James Douglas, Earl of, 159, 240

Norfolk, fifth Duke of, 177

Norfolk, Thomas, fourth Duke of, 68–9, 75 _et sqq._, 79, 82, 85 _et sqq._, 97, 105, 119, 190

Norris, Lord, 188

Norris, Lady, 171

Ogle, Cuthbert Lord, 45

Ogle, Jane. _See_ Shrewsbury

Osborne, Peter, 24

Oseley, Solicitor-General, 34

Owlcotes, 343, 351

Oxford, Earl of, 101, 105, 273

Paget, Lord, 46, 100, 275

Parker, Archbishop, 28

Parma, Duke of, 332

Pembroke, Catherine Countess of, 45, 163

Pembroke, Henry Herbert, second Earl of, 24, 45, 163

Pembroke, William Earl of, 45

Philip of Spain, 82

Pierrepoint, Sir George, 20–1

Pierrepoint, Sir Henry, 6, 20, 41

Pierrepoint, Lady, 6, 41

Poland, King of, 344

Portington, Roger, 301, 305

Raleigh, Sir Walter, 32, 344

Rawley, Sir Walter, 338

Robsart, Amy. _See_ Dudley

Rolson, 275

Roods, Mr. Serjeant, 257

Ross, Bishop of, 71, 79, 81, 129

Rufford, 35, 151, 199, 252, 327, 351

Rutland, Edward Manners, third Earl of, 254 _et sqq._

Ruxby, 275

Sackville, Lady, 126

Sackville, Sir Richard, 17, 126

Sadler, Sir Ralph, 86 _et sqq._, 265, 293

St. 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; her early life, 2; her early marriage and widowhood, 3; her second marriage to Sir William Cavendish, 4; her family, 5 _et sqq._, 12–13, 36; rebuilds Chatsworth, 7, 12, 23, 72, 91, 202 _et sqq._; instructions to her steward, 9, 10; death of her husband, 10; her third marriage to Sir William St. Loe, 13 _et sqq._; letters written to, 8, 17, 18, 19, 21, 40, 42, 45, 106 _et sqq._, 158, 181, 188, 193, 197–8, 202, 254, 286; letters written by, 9, 22, 183, 194, 239, 290, 298, 329, 333; death of her husband, 23, 32; and Lady Catherine Grey’s marriage, 27, 30; her suitors, 32–3; her fourth marriage to Earl of Shrewsbury, 34 _et sqq._; and Mary Queen of Scots’ imprisonment, 46–7, 50–1, 63 _et sqq._, 86 _et sqq._, 95–6; and Author’s interlude at Tutbury Castle, 52 _et sqq._; at Wingfield Manor, 70 _et sqq._; and Queen Elizabeth’s suspicion of, 72–3, 77 _et sqq._, 97, 111; and Henry Lascelles, 83 _et sqq._; and Mary and Norfolk, 87 _et sqq._; her business instincts, 114, 119; Mary’s attitude to, 117; and her daughter Elizabeth’s marriage, 132, 145 _et sqq._; her imprisonment in the Tower, 153 _et sqq._, 161; released from the Tower, 156; the birth of her grandchild, 158–9, 173–4; her love of match-making, 165 _et sqq._; restored to Elizabeth’s favour, 170; entertains Leicester at Chatsworth, 182 _et sqq._; her social importance, 193; her household needs, 196; and Gilbert Talbot, 197; family quarrels, 200 _et sqq._; the dissension between the Earl and, 200 _et sqq._, 213–14, 251, 260 _et sqq._, 279 _et sqq._, 312–13, 318 _et sqq._; and her love of building, 203, 214; her grief at her grandchild’s death, 208–9, 213; presents to, from Mary, 209; the tenantry and, 215 _et sqq._; and the rights of Lady Arabella Stuart, 220, 236, 239 _et sqq._, 328 _et sqq._, 333 _et sqq._, 343, 345; and Elizabeth’s flattery, 222; and Mary Queen of Scots’ illness, 233; and the death of her daughter, Lady Lennox, 234 _et sqq._; and Mary Queen of Scots’ complaints of, 241 _et sqq._; and the Shrewsbury scandal, 245 _et sqq._, 268 _et sqq._; and Gilbert Talbot’s monetary affairs, 254 _et sqq._; division of her property, 258, 284–5; and Queen Elizabeth as peacemaker, 267–8, 283, 290, 292 _et sqq._, 312; appears before the Lords of the Council, 268 _et sqq._; and the “Scandal Letter,” 271 _et sqq._; and the Earl’s financial proposal, 296 _et sqq._; appeals to Burghley, 298; Bishop of Lichfield and, 318 _et sqq._; her characteristics, 322, 354–5, 361 _et sqq._; quarrels with Gilbert and Mary, 324, 326; builds Owlcotes, 343, 348; her serious illness, 344, 346; her death, 347; her mansions, 349 _et sqq._; her portrait at Hardwick, 354

Shrewsbury, George Talbot, sixth Earl of (“Bess of Hardwick’s” fourth husband), 241; his ancestry, 34–5; honours bestowed on, 35; his marriage to “Bess of Hardwick,” 36 _et sqq._; his enormous correspondence, 38; letters written by, 42, 45, 78, 97, 106, 108–9, 111, 115, 165, 186–7, 193, 208, 234, 259, 279, 281, 286, 299, 305; his charge of Mary Queen of Scots, 40–1, 43, 45 _et sqq._, 95, 180, 231; his allowance for Mary, 63, 113–14, 162; and Mary’s life at Tutbury, 64 _et sqq._; at Wingfield, 70 _et sqq._; his illness, 72–3; Queen Elizabeth’s complaints of, 76–7, 97–8, 111 _et sqq._, 156, 226; and Queen Mary’s health, 81, 96; and the attack on his wife, 82 _et sqq._, 97–8; and Duke of Norfolk’s trial, 86–7; letters written to, 99 _et sqq._, 109, 290, 301, 318; his characteristics, 113, 246, 254; and the priests’ accusation, 114 _et sqq._; and Elizabeth Cavendish’s marriage, 147 _et sqq._; and his wife’s imprisonment, 153 _et sqq._; his present to Burghley, 161–2; and his son’s proposed marriage, 166 _et sqq._; his expenditure, 169, 227–8; and Leicester at Buxton, 171; entertains Leicester at Chatsworth, 182 _et sqq._; his parsimony, 196, 201, 299; disagreements with his children, 198, 251 _et sqq._; disagreements with his wife, 200 _et sqq._, 213, 251 _et sqq._, 258 _et sqq._, 312 _et sqq._; and Mary’s reported escape, 207, 211; and his grandchild’s death, 208–9; Mary’s friendliness towards, 209; pleads to Queen Elizabeth, 212; difficulties with his tenants, 214 _et sqq._; and his grandchild Arabella, 220; wishes to visit the Queen, 230; death of his son Francis, 230, 259; and Mary’s ill-health, 231 _et sqq._; and the death of Lady Lennox, 234–5; the slander against, 245, 249, 250, 262 _et sqq._, 267 _et sqq._; and Mary Talbot, 254 _et sqq._; his dislike of Chatsworth, 258–9; released from his charge of Mary, 266; visits Elizabeth, 266–7; and Elizabeth as peacemaker, 267, 278, 296 _et sqq._; his monetary disputes with the Countess, 284 _et sqq._; and Elizabeth’s partiality for the Countess, 292 _et sqq._; and Elizabeth’s profession, 295, 315; Elizabeth’s decision, 296 _et sqq._; reproves Mary Talbot’s extravagance, 299, 300; Sir Henry Lee and, 299 _et sqq._; his lonely old age, 307–8, 315–16; summoned to Fotheringay, 307; and execution of Mary Queen of Scots, 309 _et sqq._; Bishop of Lichfield’s advice to, 318 _et sqq._; his death, 322 _et sqq._

Shrewsbury, Gilbert Talbot, seventh Earl of, 6, 43, 106, 127, 157, 164, 228, 283, 286, 308; his marriage, 36, 44–5; letters written by, 99, 117, 171, 197, 199, 202, 215, 254, 314, 346; his varied duties, 99, 223; letters written to, 109, 299; and his first child, 111; and the priests’ accusations against his father, 114–15, 117–18; 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._; and 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; and Lady Arabella Stuart, 342; quarrels with his stepmother, 343

Shrewsbury, Jane, Countess of, 45

Shrewsbury, John Talbot, first Earl of, 34–5

Shrewsbury, Mary, Countess of, 6, 11, 157, 252, 299, 314, 324, 337, 346, 348

Sidney, Sir Philip, 225

Simier, 272, 277

Skargelle, George, 226

Skipwith, Henry, 17

Smith, Sir Thomas, 103, 173

Snagge, Serjeant, 314

Somerset, Duke of, 25

Southwell, Francis, 103

Stafford, Sir Edward, 332

Stanhope, Sir Thomas, 204, 206, 252–3, 327

Steele, 257

Story, Dr., 92–3

Stuart, Esmé, Lord d’Aubigny, 220, 240, 339

Stuart, Lady Arabella, 213, 312–13, 315, 348, 355; her birth, 158–9, 173; her rights, 219, 220; the allowance for, 228, 240, 329 _et sqq._; death of her mother, 234; and her succession to her father’s earldom, 236–7; Mary’s bequest of jewels to, 237–8; appeals to Elizabeth on behalf of, 238–9; Lady Shrewsbury’s ambitions for, 241, 244, 322, 328, 338; proposed alliances for, 276, 332 _et sqq._, 339, 344; her postscript to Lord Burghley, 331; goes to Court, 337 _et sqq._; her betrothal to William Seymour, 339; her arrest, 339, 340; appointed State Governess, 341; summoned to Lady’s Shrewsbury’s bedside 344–5

Suffolk, Duchess of, 131, 151

Sussex, Earl of, 101

Sussex, Countess of, 171

Talbot, Lady Anne, 45, 163

Talbot, Lady Catherine. _See_ Pembroke

Talbot, Lord Edward. _See_ Shrewsbury

Talbot, Lady Francis, 305, 325

Talbot, Lord Francis, 45, 99, 162, 224, 228, 230, 259, 280, 325

Talbot, Lady Grace. _See_ Cavendish

Talbot, George. _See_ Sixth Earl of Shrewsbury

Talbot, George, 200, 208

Talbot, Gilbert. _See_ Seventh Earl of Shrewsbury

Talbot, Henry, Lord, 45, 189, 294–5, 301, 308, 325, 348

Talbot, Lady Jane, 45

Talbot, John. _See_ First Earl of Shrewsbury

Talbot, Mary. _See_ Countess of Shrewsbury

Talbott, John, 333

Throgmorton, Sir Nicholas, 92–3

Thurlby, Bishop, 94

Thynne, Sir John, 32

Topcliffe, Richard, 264; his letter to Lady Shrewsbury, 188

Tutbury Castle, 35, 351, 353; Mary Queen of Scots at, 40, 47 _et sqq._, 62 _et sqq._, 76 _et sqq._, 171; Author’s Dramatic Interlude at, 52 _et sqq._

Walpole, Horace, 357, 361

Walsingham, Sir Francis, 23, 78, 103, 165, 171, 173, 183, 209, 223, 264, 267–8, 275, 281 _et sqq._, 297

Warner, Sir Edward, 27

Warwick, Ambrose Earl of, 185, 188

Watts, Archdeacon, 93

Welbeck Abbey, 35, 254, 258, 341, 351 _et sqq._

Wharton, Lord, 188

White, Nicholas, 64

Wilson, Dr., 102–3, 105

Wingfield, Mr., 37

Wingfield Manor, 35, 286, 297 _et sqq._, 312, 334, 351; Mary Queen of Scots at, 70 _et sqq._, 265, 268

Winter, Sir William, 173

Wood, Dr., 326

Worksop Manor, 35, 197, 340, 351 _et sqq._

Wortley, Sir Richard, 325

Zouche, Sir John, 195

Zouche, Lady, 2, 3

Footnote 1:

Collins’ _Noble Families_.

Footnote 2:

The Marquis of Dorset.

Footnote 3:

State MS.

Footnote 4:

? Almoner.

Footnote 5:

Avoid = clear out.

Footnote 6:

Lady Jane Grey.

Footnote 7:

State MS.

Footnote 8:

According to Leland, “Halamshire beginneth a ii. mile from Rotheram. Sheffield iii miles from Rotheram, wher the lord of Shreusbyre’s castle, the chefe market towne of Halamshire. And Halamshire goeth one way vi or vii miles above Sheffield by west, yet as I here say, another way the next village to Sheffield is in Derbyshire. Al Halamshire go to the seesions of York and is counted as a membre of Yorkshire. Aeglesfield and Bradfeld ii townelettes or villages long to one paroche chirche. So by this meanes (as I was enstructed) ther be but iii paroches in Halamshire that is of name, and a great Chapelle.”

Hunter sums up these three parishes as Sheffield, Ecclesfield, and Hansworth, with the chapelry of Bradfield.

Footnote 9:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 10:

None = own. Probably an abbreviation of “mine own.”

Footnote 11:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 12:

His disaffected tenants at Bolsover.

Footnote 13:

Construction.

Footnote 14:

When Lady Catherine Grey was imprisoned in the Tower for her secret marriage with the Earl of Hertford she took amongst her belongings some pet monkeys. These played havoc with the hangings, not in first-rate condition, with which, by Elizabeth’s order, the cheerlessness of her prison apartments was mitigated.

Footnote 15:

The famous scandal-letter about the Countess of Shrewsbury from Mary to Elizabeth, to which reference follows later.

Footnote 16:

Blank in the MS.

Footnote 17:

Of Norfolk.

Footnote 18:

A servant of the Shrewsburys.

Footnote 19:

Daughters of William, Lord Howard of Effingham.

Footnote 20:

Blank In the MS.

Footnote 21:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 22:

In the light of after events this is a somewhat rash offer!

Footnote 23:

Corker had apparently eaten his words in a whining counter statement.

Footnote 24:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 25:

His death took place in 1575, but Mary did not hear of it till a year later.

Footnote 26:

Leader, _Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity_.

Footnote 27:

The Cavendish motto, meaning “Secure by taking care.”

Footnote 28:

_Mary Queen of Scots: Her Environment and Tragedy_, by T. F. Henderson.

Footnote 29:

State Papers—Domestic, quoted by Miss Strickland.

Footnote 30:

State Papers—Domestic.

Footnote 31:

Blank in the original, as given in Lodge’s _Illustrations of British History_.

Footnote 32:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 33:

Explain or set aside.

Footnote 34:

Lady Grace’s letter.

Footnote 35:

The Queen had a small palace here, in Northamptonshire.

Footnote 36:

Gilbert Talbot had apparently fallen out of favour. The matter is, however, so unimportant that no explanation remains of it.

Footnote 37:

His three wives were: Amy or Anne, daughter and heir to Sir John Robsart; Douglas, daughter of William Lord Howard of Effingham and widow of John Lord Sheffield, by whom he had one son, Sir Robert Dudley; and Lettice Knollys, daughter of Sir Francis Knollys and widow of Walter Earl of Essex. Amy Robsart died suddenly at Kenilworth, and he did not even attend her funeral; Lady Sheffield he repudiated because of his passion for Lettice Knollys, whose death took place under suspicious circumstances. He declared his son by Lady Sheffield to be illegitimate, and she, though married to him, was so frightened by his attempt to remove her by poison, in order that he might wed the widowed Countess of Essex, that, though legally bound to him, she became the wife of Sir Edward Stafford, of Grafton.

Footnote 38:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 39:

Her husband died of consumption within two years of the hasty and romantic wedding at Rufford Abbey.

Footnote 40:

Hallamshire knives, or “whittles,” were famous, and the Earl often sent gifts of sets to his friends in these early days of the development of Sheffield cutlery.

Footnote 41:

Creighton takes the view that this was Elizabeth’s elaborate method of flogging the couple at Chatsworth for luring Leicester to Chatsworth, and that she highly disapproved of the visit.

Footnote 42:

Ambrose Earl of Warwick, to whom Lord Leicester bequeathed his estates, only making his own son, Robert Dudley, heir in the second place.

Footnote 43:

In sending her thanks for Leicester’s entertainment Elizabeth apparently despatched also to Shrewsbury a separate letter embodying her old suspicious fears.

Footnote 44:

Could this be the Earl of Warwick, who, as suggested in Elizabeth’s skittish letter just quoted, had been invited to Chatsworth with Lord Leicester?

Footnote 45:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 46:

Letters of Mary Queen of Scots, quoted by Leader.

Footnote 47:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 48:

The Earl and Sir John Zouch, a kinsman of the Countess, were contesting the right to sell some Derbyshire lead mines.

Footnote 49:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 50:

_Ibid._

Footnote 51:

Goodrich Castle, in Herefordshire; also one of the Shrewsbury properties at this date.

Footnote 52:

His little son.

Footnote 53:

The mouth of a coal-pit.

Footnote 54:

Probably “detailing” or “appealing to.”

Footnote 55:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 56:

That is, clearly a plot against Shrewsbury.

Footnote 57:

The Duke of Anjou, Elizabeth’s new suitor, whom she called her “Frogg,” while his ambassador, Simier, who so nearly, in his own opinion, secured for his master the bride of his ambitions, was known at Court as the “Monkey.”

Footnote 58:

Leader.

Footnote 59:

Evidently his elder brother Francis Talbot, who was probably about to visit his parents.

Footnote 60:

Quoted in Creighton’s _Elizabeth_.

Footnote 61:

Ellis’s _Letters_ (Lansdowne MSS.).

Footnote 62:

Ellis’s _Letters_.

Footnote 63:

Labanoff.

Footnote 64:

_Ibid._

Footnote 65:

Ellis’s _Letters_.

Footnote 66:

Labanoff. _State Papers_, Mary Queen of Scots.

Footnote 67:

I have translated this freely. Mary means the tissue of treachery, the fabrications of the Countess during their acquaintance.

Footnote 68:

The Queen.

Footnote 69:

Labanoff. This translation is the one given by Leader.

Footnote 70:

Steele.

Footnote 71:

Vol. CCVII State Papers.

Footnote 72:

This “dyarium” is reprinted by Wright, Vol. II, _Queen Elizabeth and her Times_.

Footnote 73:

The day after Michaelmas.

Footnote 74:

Ere.

Footnote 75:

Letter to Liggons, May 18, 1586. State MSS. Mary Queen of Scots.

Footnote 76:

Labanoff.

Footnote 77:

Killigrew was a deadly enemy of Mary, for he had been sent in 1572 to Scotland by Elizabeth to propose the demand by the Scots of the surrender of Mary on condition that she should be executed.

Footnote 78:

Rolson was a gentleman pensioner of Elizabeth who betrayed his father, one of the conspirators who engaged in 1570 with the sons of the Earl of Derby in a plot to convey Mary out of Chatsworth through a window. She mentioned him four years later in a letter to “Monsieur de Glasgo” with the greatest abhorrence, both as filial traitor and as author of a design to poison her.

Footnote 79:

I.e. Of her keep and its cost.

Footnote 80:

The Act referred to is one passed in the reign of Richard II to punish the slander of high personages or officials.

Footnote 81:

State MSS.

Footnote 82:

By “A Catholic,” State MSS.

Footnote 83:

Hunter’s _Hallamshire_.

Footnote 84:

Blank in the MS.

Footnote 85:

Ellis’s _Letters_.

Footnote 86:

Ellis’s _Letters_.

Footnote 87:

Costello.

Footnote 88:

“None-Such”—one of the royal palaces at this time.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD. PLYMOUTH

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. P. 326, changed “prosperous except for their absurd expenditure” to “preposterous except for their absurd expenditure”. 2. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 3. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 4. Footnotes were re-indexed using numbers and collected together at the end of the last chapter. 5. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. 6. Superscripts are denoted by a caret before a single superscript character or a series of superscripted characters enclosed in curly braces, e.g. M^r. or M^{ister}.