Part 12

The “stagges” being, no doubt, the stags of the Hardwick arms. On each side of the tablet are the arms of Hardwick and Talbot impaled, &c. From this room a doorway in the tapestry opens into the picture-gallery, and another at the north end leads into the LIBRARY, over the chimney-piece of which is a splendid piece of sculpture, Apollo and the Muses; over the figures on one side are the arms of Queen Elizabeth, and on the other her initials, E. R., in a knot, and crowned. This fine group, found not many years ago in a case in one of the servants’ rooms at Chatsworth, is supposed to have been presented to the countess by Queen Elizabeth, and it has, therefore, been most appropriately brought and placed in its present position. In this room, among other interesting pictures, is a portrait of James V. of Scotland, when very young. It belonged to Queen Mary, and was taken with her from place to place. Passing through the library and the GREEN BED-ROOM, where the majestic state-bed and the tapestry are sure to excite attention, one of the most interesting little rooms in the whole building is gained:—

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ ROOM—a room which, it appears to us, the Countess of Shrewsbury prepared expressly for the reception of the furniture used by the truly unfortunate captive who had for so many years been a prisoner in charge of her and her husband, and in which, when finished, she placed her bed and other furniture, so as to preserve them as precious relics. On the panels of the wainscoting of the room are the initials of the countess, E.S., with the coronet and the date 1599; and on the door the same date twice occurs. The woodwork is “tricked” in arabesque patterns; over the door, on the interior side, are carved the royal arms of Scotland, with the order of St. Andrew, supporters, crown, &c., and the letters M. S., and the motto, IN · MY · DE · FENS. Around the whole is the inscription, MARIE · STEWART · PAR · LA · GRACE · DE · DIEV · ROYNE · DE · SCOSSE · DOVARIERE · DE · FRANCE. Over the fire-place, in parget-work, are the arms of Hardwick in lozenge, with coronet and supporters; the arms of Hardwick impaling Leake; and those of Cavendish, with a crescent for difference, impaling _argent_ a fesse _gules_. The bed—the very one in which the poor queen lay during a part of her captivity—is adorned with the work of her own hands, bearing her monogram. The counterpane, too, is an elaborate piece of needlework, said to be her own work; and some of the furniture is of the same period. We have engraved this historically interesting room as one of our illustrations.

Near this is the BLUE BED-ROOM, hung with tapestry, and containing a noble bed, hung with blue, to which needlework by Christian Bruce, Countess of Devonshire, has been transferred with much judgment and care. Over the chimney-piece is the “Marriage of Tobias.” Other bed-rooms adjoin, which it is not necessary to notice.

The PICTURE-GALLERY, the “great glory” of Hardwick, occupies the entire length of the building from north to south, on the upper floor of its eastern front. Its length is 170 feet, and its width 40 feet, including the recessed windows; its height being 26 feet. The walls of this superb gallery are hung with the finest tapestry, almost hidden, however, by the magnificent assemblage of portraits with which it is, as will be seen from our engraving, literally covered. The tapestry here is, as has been said, remarkably fine, and is very early, some of it bearing the date of 1478. It was brought from the old mansion and from Chatsworth. The gallery is lit by eighteen enormous windows, each 20 feet in height, on its eastern side, which is deeply recessed. In the centre of this side is a gorgeous canopy over the state seat, bearing the monogram of W.D., with a coronet; and on the western side are two gigantic chimney-pieces, reaching from the floor to the cornice, composed of Derbyshire black marble, alabaster, and other marbles, one bearing in the centre of its upper height a finely sculptured figure of Pity, and the other that of Justice. They are said to be the work of “Stephens, a Flemish sculptor, or of Valerio Vicentino.” The ceiling is of geometric design, in raised plaster-work; it gives that finish to the room which is wanting in other of the apartments. The upper portion of the walls, above the wainscoting and arras, is worked in panels and festoons.

The furniture is of the most costly and curious character, and in perfect preservation. Much of it, indeed, belongs to the time, or to a time not much later, when the house was constructed, and indicates the artistic feeling and manual dexterity of the foundress. Here are beds of state, with their curtains of black and silver; Venetian velvets and damascenes; “cloth of Raynes to slepe on softe,” and hangings “raied with gold;” hard cushions of blue baudekyn; high-seated chairs, covered with samit and powdered with flowers, yet most uncomfortable for use; screens of crimson velvet, covered with patterns worked in silver wires; couches, every portion of which is thickly overlaid with threads of silver and of gold; tables with legs twisted and turned about in the most picturesque manner; fire-dogs of gorgeous description; and a magnificent giant-glass, with the arms of Devonshire impaling Ormonde—these are among the beauties which greet the eye at every turn in its progress through Hardwick.

As we said at the commencement of this chapter, there is no place so likely as Hardwick to carry the mind back to those times which we have indicated and to which it belongs. One is unresistingly and forcibly carried by the imagination back to the time of Elizabeth, and while pacing along through these rooms, we are led, “in the mind’s eye,” to people them with the forms of those who lived and moved and had their being within its walls.

To the paintings in the picture-gallery and those scattered through the several rooms, the dining-room more especially, we can but make slight reference. They count some hundreds of the finest and most historically interesting portraits of which any mansion can boast. To enumerate them would occupy a dozen of our pages: we must, therefore, be content to say that among them are original portraits of Queen Elizabeth; of Mary, Queen of Scots; of Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia; of Arabella Stuart; of the foundress of the building, “Bess of Hardwick,” afterwards Countess of Shrewsbury; of Kings Henry VII. and Henry VIII.; of Georgiana, the “Beautiful Duchess” of Devonshire; of Robert Boyle, the philosopher; of the seventh and unfortunate Earl of Derby; of Lord Treasurer Burleigh; of Queen Mary; of Sir William St. Loe, third husband of “Bess of Hardwick;” of George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury; of Henry VII. and Henry VIII., cartoons by Holbein; of James V. of Scotland, and his queen; of Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury; of Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury; of Lady Grace Talbot; of several distinguished members of the Clifford family; of Queen Catherine of Arragon; of Christian, Countess of Devonshire; of Lady Jane Seymour; of Elizabeth, Countess of Devonshire; of the first Duke of Ormond; of Rachel, Duchess of Devonshire; of Edward Russell, Duke of Bedford; of John, first Duke of Rutland; of Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel; of William, Lord Russell; of the Marchioness of Hartington; of Queen Anne; of Frederick, Prince of Wales; of King William III.; of King George III.; of King James I.; of Sir Robert Walpole; of Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam; of the Princess of Orange; and of most of the noted men of the time; of numerous celebrities of the Cavendish family and their alliances; and of Thomas Hobbes—“Leviathan Hobbes,” or “Hobbes of Malmesbury,” as he is called.

From the leads of Hardwick Hall, which are gained by a spacious staircase, the upper rooms of the towers are reached, and a magnificent view of the surrounding country is obtained.

Having described HARDWICK HALL as it now exists, and given a brief history of the noble family of Cavendish to whom it belongs, we resume the subject, to speak of the older mansion, now in ruins; of the Hardwicks to whom it belonged; of the marvellous daughter of that house, “Bess of Hardwick,” and her alliances; and of AULT HUCKNALL, the parish church, and its many monuments, among which is that to the great philosopher, “Hobbes of Malmesbury,” who lived and died at Hardwick.

And, first, as to the family.

The family of Hardwick is one of considerable antiquity in the county of Derby, although now extinct, and was for several generations settled at Hardwick, from which place, indeed, it is probable the name was assumed.

In 1203 the manor of Hardwick was granted by King John to Andrew de Beauchamp, but in 1288 it was held of John le Savage—who owned the neighbouring manor of Steynsby, and was probably of the same family as the later Savages, of Castleton and other places—by William de Steynsby, by the annual render of _three pounds of cinnamon and one pound of pepper_. The grandson of William de Steynsby, John Steynsby, died seized of the manor in 1330. It afterwards passed into the hands of the Hardwicks, and was held by them until it passed to the Cavendishes by the marriage of the heiress to Sir William Cavendish. 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. John Hardwick, of Hardwick, married Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Bakewell, of Bakewell, one of the co-heiresses of which family married Linacre before the year 1400. By her he had issue, a son, John Hardwick, who, marrying Elizabeth, daughter of — Pinchbeck, of Pinchbeck, was, in turn, succeeded by his son, John Hardwick, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Leake, of Hasland, a younger branch of the Leakes, Earls of Scarsdale. 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; Jane married Godfrey Bosville of Gunthwaite; and Elizabeth (“Bess of Hardwick”) married, first, Robert Barley, of Barley; second, Sir William Cavendish; third, Sir William St. Loe; and fourth, Gilbert, Earl of Shrewsbury. The Francis Leech just named, who married “Bess’s” sister Alice, was the last of his family. He sold Chatsworth to Agard, who resold it to the second husband of “Bess,” Sir William Cavendish, by whom it was rebuilt in almost regal magnificence.

Elizabeth Hardwick was, it will have been seen, one of the co-heiresses of her father, and ultimately heiress to her brother, from whom she inherited Hardwick and other estates. She was a most remarkable, clever, and accomplished woman, and one of the most successful, in her many marriages, in her acquisition of property, in the alliances of her family, and in the erection of magnificent mansions; and no account of Hardwick would be complete without, at all events, a brief notice of her extraordinary and brilliant career. When very young—indeed, it is said, when scarcely fourteen years of age—Elizabeth Hardwick became the wife of Robert Barley, of Barley (or Barlow), in the county of Derby, son of Arthur Barley, of Barley-by-Dronfield, by his wife, Elizabeth Chaworth. This young gentleman, who was devotedly attached to his young and charming wife, died within a few months after their marriage, leaving his possessions to her. By this short marriage there was no issue. Remaining a young, indeed childlike, widow for some twelve years or thereabouts, she then married Sir William Cavendish, as detailed in our former chapter, and so brought to him the possessions of the Hardwicks, which she had inherited from her father and brother, as well as those of the Barleys, acquired by her first marriage. By Sir William Cavendish she had a family of three sons and three daughters, viz., Henry Cavendish, of Tutbury, ancestor of the Barons Waterpark; Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, created Baron Cavendish of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire, and ancestor of the present Ducal house of Devonshire; Sir Charles Cavendish, of Bolsover Castle, ancestor of the Barons Cavendish, Viscounts Mansfield, Earls, Marquises, and Dukes of Newcastle; Frances, wife of the Duke of Kingston; Elizabeth, wife of Charles Stuart, Duke of Lennox, and mother by him of Arabella Stuart; and Mary, wife of Gilbert, seventh Earl of Shrewsbury.

Sir William Cavendish died in 1557, and his lady was thus a second time left a widow. A few years later she married her third husband, Sir William St. Loe, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, “owner of a great estate, which,” as Bishop Kennett says, “in articles of marriage she took care should be settled on her and her own heirs, in default of issue; and, accordingly, having no child by him, she liv’d to enjoy his whole estate, excluding his former daughters and brothers;” thus adding his property to the already immense possessions she had acquired in her own right and by her two former marriages. The death of Sir William left her for the third time a widow; but she was soon after wooed and won by George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who had not long before lost his countess, Gertrude Manners, daughter of the Earl of Rutland. Before she would consent, however, to be united to the first peer of the realm, she stipulated that he should give his daughter to her eldest son, and that Gilbert Talbot, his second son (the eldest being already married) should espouse her youngest daughter. These family nuptials were solemnised at Sheffield on the 9th of February, 1567-8; her daughter being at the time not quite twelve years old, and her husband being under fifteen. Gilbert Talbot became seventh Earl of Shrewsbury.

The history of the events of her life while Countess of Shrewsbury is that of the kingdom at large; for it was during this time, from 1568 to 1584, that Mary, Queen of Scots, was confided to the care of the earl and his lady, and by them was kept a close prisoner. Into these annals—known by every student of English history—it is not our province now to enter. Suffice it to say, that the wearisome task, imposed by a rigorous and arbitrary sovereign, was executed with a zeal and with a diligence that were worthy a far better cause. In 1568 the earl received from his royal mistress the intimation of the trust she was about to confide to him, and on the 20th of the following January, 1569, the order for removing Mary from Bolton to Tutbury was made. Here the poor captive was received by the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury; and here, kept a close prisoner, she remained for several months, passing her time as best she might in needlework. “I asked hir grace,” says White, “sence the wether did cutt of all exercises abrode, howe passed the tyme within? She sayd that all the day she wrought with hir nydill, and that the diversitie of the colours made the worke seme lesse tedious, and contynued so long at it till veray payn made hir to give over; and with that layd hir hand upon hir left syde and complayned of an old grief newely increased there.” In June the earl removed her to Wingfield Manor, in Derbyshire, now, like Tutbury itself, a splendid ruin; and later on in the same year back again to Tutbury. In 1570 Mary was removed to Chatsworth, and from thence to Sheffield, also now a ruin. Here she remained, occasionally staying at Chatsworth for some length of time. In 1584 she was again removed to Wingfield, in 1585 to Tutbury, and in the following year to Chartley, to Fotheringhay, and that fatal block, which will ever remain a dark blot on the escutcheon of “good Queen Bess.” It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance, touching the captivity of Mary under the constableship of the Earl of Shrewsbury, that the places belonging to him where she was confined, Sheffield Castle and Manor, Tutbury Castle, Wingfield Manor, and Chartley (as well as Fotheringhay, where she was executed), have all fallen to ruin, while Chatsworth and other places which belonged to the countess still flourish.

It is not certain, although there is every probability that such was the case, that Mary was ever at Hardwick. There can be but little doubt she spent, at all events, a few days there; but this would, of course, be at the old Hall, as will be shown later on.

The Earl of Shrewsbury, about whom strange rumours regarding his conduct and intentions towards his captive at the time of his discharge from his trust were afloat, and over whom a female domestic, Eleanor Britton, had gained an injurious ascendency, afterwards, in consequence, living a not very happy life with his second countess, died in 1590; and thus “Bess of Hardwick” became, for the fourth time, a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennett, “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.”

The countess, besides being one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and captivating women of her day, was, without exception, the most energetic, business-like, and able of her sex. In architecture her conceptions were grand; while in all matters pertaining to the Arts, and to comforts and elegancies of life, she was unsurpassed. To the old Hall of her fathers, where she was born and resided, she made vast additions—indeed, so much so as almost to amount to a recreation of the place; and she entirely planned and built three of the most gorgeous edifices of the time—Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes—the first two of which were transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. “At Hardwick she left the ancient seat of her family standing, and at a small distance, still adjoining to her new fabric, _as if she had a mind to preserve her Cradle, and set it by her Bed of State_,” as Kennett so poetically expresses it.

Her “Bed of State”—the present Hall, erected by her—we have already described. Her “Cradle”—the old Hall, wherein she was born and nursed, but which is now in ruins—we shall describe presently.

The latter part of her long and busy life she occupied almost entirely in building, and it is marvellous what an amount of real work—hard figures and dry details—she got through; for it is a fact, abundantly evidenced by the original accounts, remaining to this day, that not a penny was expended on her buildings, and not a detail added or taken away, without her special attention and personal supervision. Building was a passion with her, and she indulged it wisely and well, sparing neither time, nor trouble, nor outlay, to secure everything being done in the most admirable manner. It is said, and it is so recorded by Walpole, that the countess had once been told by a gipsy fortune-teller that she would never die so long as she continued building, and she so implicitly believed this, that she never ceased planning and contriving and adding to her erections; and it is said that at last she died in a hard frost, which totally prevented the workmen from continuing their labours, and so caused an unavoidable suspension of her works. Surely the fortune-teller here was a “wise woman” in more senses than one; for it was wise and cunning in her to instil such a belief into the countess’s mind, and thus insure a continuance of the works by which so many workmen and their families gained a livelihood, and by which later generations would also benefit.

Besides Hardwick, Chatsworth (for which a good part of the old Hall at Hardwick was, at a later period, removed), Oldcotes, and other places, the countess founded and built the Devonshire Almshouses at Derby, and did many other good and noble works. She died, full of years and full of honours and riches, on the 23rd of February, 1607, and was buried in All Saints’ Church, Derby, under a stately tomb which she had erected during her lifetime, and on which a long Latin inscription is to be seen.

Of the countess—the “Bess of Hardwick,” who was one of the greatest of the subjects of that other “Bess” who sat on the throne of England—portraits are still preserved at Hardwick, and show that she must have been, as Dugdale says of her, “faire and beautiful.” Whatever faults of temper or of disposition she had—and she is said to have had plenty of both—she had good qualities which, perhaps, outbalanced them; and she, at all events, founded one of the most brilliant houses—that of Cavendish—which this nation has ever produced.

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. In it a long line of the ancestors of the countess were born, and lived, and died; and in it she too was born and lived, as maiden, as four times wife, and four times widow. In it, if Mary, Queen of Scots, was ever at Hardwick, she must have been received, and in it the larger part of the great works of its remarkable owner must have been planned. It was her “home,” and her favourite residence; and it is said that when she began to build the new Hall—which, as we have said, closely adjoins the old one—she still intended making the older building her abode, and keeping the new one for state receptions and purposes of hospitality. This plan, however, if ever laid down, was ultimately discarded, and the old mansion, after all the improvements which had been made in it, was in great measure stripped and dismantled for the requirements of the new Hall, and of Chatsworth.

A tolerably good idea of the extent of the ruins of the old Hall will be gained from our engraving, which shows, perhaps, its most imposing side, with the green sward in front. In its interior, several rooms, in a more or less state of dilapidation, still remain, and can be seen by the visitor. The kitchens, with their wide chimneys, and the domestic offices on the ground-floor, amply testify to the almost regal hospitality which must at one time have characterized the place; while the chambers, the state-rooms, and the other apartments for the family, testify to the magnificence of its appointments.