Read Ebook: Bess of Hardwick and Her Circle by Rawson Maud Stepney

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1093 lines and 117419 words, and 22 pages

"Francis, I have spoken with your master for the deals or boards that you wrote to me of; and he is content that you shall take some for your necessity by the appointment of Neusante, so that you take such as will do him no service about his building at Chatsworth. I pray you look well to all things at Chatsworth till my aunt's coming home, which I hope shall be shortly, and in the meantime cause Broushawe to look to the smithy and all other things at Penteridge. Let the weaver make beer for me forthwith, for my own drinking and your master's; and see that I have good store of it, for if I lack either good beer or good charcoal or wood I will blame nobody so much as I will do you. Cause the floor in my bedchamber to be made even, either with plaster, clay, or lime: and all the windows where the glass is broken to be mended: and all the chambers to be made as close and warm as you can. I hear that my sister Jane cannot have things that is needful for her to have amongst you: If it be true, you lack a great of honesty as well as discretion to deny her anything that she hath a mind to, being in my house; and then assure yourself I cannot like it to have my sister so used. Like as I would not have any superfluity or waste of anything, so likewise would I have her to have that which is needful and necessary. At my coming home I shall know more, and then I will think as I shall have cause. I would have you give to my midwife from me, and from my boy Willie and to my nurse from me and my boy, as hereafter followeth: first to the midwife from me ten shillings, and from Willie five shillings: to the nurse from me five shillings, and from my boy three shillings and four pence: so that in the whole you must give to them twenty-three shillings and four pence. Make my sister privy to it, and then pay it to them forthwith. If you have no other money, take so much of the rent at Penteridge. Tell my sister Jane that I will give my daughter something at my coming home: and praying you not to fail to see all things done accordingly, I bid you farewell. From London the 14th of November.

"Your Mistress, "ELIZABETH CAVENDISH.

"Tell James Crompe that I have received the five pounds and nine shillings that he sent me by Hugh Alsope.

"to my servant Francis Whitfield, give this at Chatsworth."

Upon this scene of household importance and intimate family life, making, if not for happiness in the fullest sense of the word, at any rate for prosperity and success, fell for a second time upon the married life of Bess Hardwick the great shadow. Sir William Cavendish, so accomplished in business, so doughty a husband, so excellent a host, died in 1557.

His wife made a note of the event in her own hand:--

"Memorandum, that Sir William Cavendish, Knight, my most dear and well beloved husband, departed this present life on Monday, being the 25th day of October, betwixt the hours of 8 and 9 of the same day at Night, in the year of our Lord God 1557, the dominical Letter then C. On whose soul I most humbly beseech the Lord to have mercy, and to rid me and his poor children out of our great misery.

"ELIZABETH CAVENDISH."

This was probably the greatest grief of her life, and all her after energies were spent in furthering the welfare of her Cavendish children.

Now followed a period of widowhood, during which no substantial or interesting episodes bring the lady's name to the front. But she did not lose her hold over society and the Court. Nor did she lay aside her wise, worldly habits. She was still the grand dame--dispenser of charities, recipient of Court letters, mistress of masons and woodmen and grooms, resting securely upon her hoard like the dragon in German legend, assuring herself and the world, "I lie and possess, and would slumber." But hers was not the nature to be quiescent very long. And she had incentive enough to action. She had six children to further in the world. Daughters must be married, sons must be brought into the charmed circle of the Queen, to run the gauntlet of suspicions, favours, and coldnesses from her and bear the jealousy and competition of others till the right opportunity came for advancement. Moreover, there was Chatsworth to complete--alone. At thirty-seven, gifted with excellent good looks, an indomitable will, and a constitution robust and healthy, it was not the moment for such a woman to permit either her schemes or her zest in life to collapse. So she keeps to her road, moving no doubt daily between the old Chatsworth and the new, the beloved fabric which for her was at once the mausoleum of her greatest happiness, the eloquent witness of her aspirations for her children, and a lasting memorial of her Cavendish ambitions. So one beholds her working onward, building for the future, impatient no doubt of the present. Fully accustomed now to take command of her life and affairs, she controls every item of the building of her new house. One can picture her easily enough walking or driving to and fro, while she issues commands for the felling of wood, signs orders for the selling of coals and stone, for the transplantation of trees, the manufacture of hangings, the transport of Derbyshire marbles, the employment of artificers in mosaic, and plaster and wood. She had built six Cavendishes, bone of her bone, flesh of her flesh, and now she was building a great and perfect house for them and theirs. In it she would reign, so long as she lived, supreme. One pictures her again and again--a vigorous, vital woman, in proper and dignified weeds, with shrewd and genial face in which the lines of intrigue and sorrow had not yet deepened, moving amongst her army of workmen, fully conscious of the country life about her, though possibly not playing for a while a very active part in it. But the old zest of living, the old desire of the world, the joys of which she had tasted only at brief intervals during the babyhood of her six children, were ineradicable. She had acres and gold, she needed a helpmeet more than many women. No country gentleman of sufficient importance presented himself for whom she would think it worth while to give up the pretty delight of being addressed as "my lady." In this dilemma Fate brought her face to face with Sir William St. Lo.

Later there is mutiny and rumour of sore disruption in the English-Irish army. Young Captain St. Loe's men forgather with discontented spirits, and the whole of his stalwart retinue of three hundred, "men of high courage and activity," revolts so badly that, though he and his captains are cleared of all blame, it is necessary to "bend the ordnance" on the mutineers and proceed against them in "battle array." Little wonder that the men, henchmen and yeomen, doubtless, of Gloucestershire, hated the campaign. Even Lord Leonard himself shared the destitution of the privates and was pinched for the lack of a loaf. "And so," he goes on after his comment on the price of bread, "I among others lay in my harness, without any bed, almost famished with hunger, wet, and cold."

Fortune and personality carried William St. Loe onward. In the forties of the sixteenth century he appears as seneschal of Waterford, and complains bitterly of the way in which he is hampered in office by the Lord Chancellor in Ireland. The contention of his official companions, however, as given in a letter to the Court, describes him as "a good warrior, but unfit to administer justice." Military disorder is stated to be the result, and if the complainants only "had the disposal of the farms Seyntlow now has" things would be very different. It is suggested that he is turning into a regular freebooter.... And so on.

However this may be, we find the gentleman in 1557 not only safely established in England, but holding important Court posts with high-sounding titles. He is at once Grand Butler of England and captain of the Queen's Guard. In these capacities Bess Hardwick, as Lady Cavendish, must have already met him. Had she not married him and had he lived long enough, she might have been committed to his tender mercies and guardianship in a very different sense. But at present her genius for intrigue only threw her into the apparently pleasant fetters of marriage. This "Grand Botelier," this dashing swashbuckler who now rode at the head of the royal guards, and was in constant touch with the governor of the Tower, with the interior of which building she made acquaintance later, took her as his second wife. The whole thing seems to have been most amicable, affectionate, and excellent--amicable and affectionate on his part, excellent from her point of view. It did not interfere with his important duties; it did not necessarily nail her to the Court. Above all, it did not interfere with her building. Indeed, it gave her the more heart to it because the good captain would now assume by her side the duties of Derbyshire host. Moreover, he could help her materially in her building. She did not need his advice about architecture of course. But she saw that she could draw under her hand the dues of his manor in Gloucestershire for the glory of the Cavendishes and the surer foundation of her own comfort. The fine dashing soldier had children. Yet this was no serious block in her way. She might arrange it all, while leaving them not destitute but dependent on her wise financial dispositions. The marriage was duly solemnised and gave satisfaction. The Queen approved of my Lady St. Loe, and the more so because the latter did not wish to monopolise her bridegroom. There was enough at the Derbyshire estate to amuse her, and Sir William's letters to her kept her advised of things "about" the Queen's Majesty. Scottish affairs were brewing hotly. Elizabeth was but newly a queen. There were processions and enactments, enquiries, and excursions at Court. Bess Hardwick held the post of Lady of the Bedchamber, and naturally took the keenest interest in all that went on. Except through letters, reliable news did not filter at all to the wilds of the Peak and its lovely dales. But Sir William loved her and appreciated her deeply. In his affectionate letters he identifies her quaintly and sweetly with her house. "My honest, sweet Chatsworth" is one of the expressions. Elsewhere she is "My own, more dearer to me than I am to myself," and in another letter he has seized her enthusiasm for management and construction, for he calls her "My own good servant and chief overseer."

Occasionally Bess wanted her "grand botelier" to herself, and it must have been hard for Sir William to tear himself away from the rich security and ease of the house. One of his letters from Court shows that he is in trouble with his Queen for delayed return.

"She hath found great fault with my long absence, saying she would talk with me farther and that she would well chide me. Whereunto I answered, that when her highness understood the truth and the cause she would not be offended. Whereunto she says, 'Very well, very well'; howbeit, hand of hers I did not kisse."

A portrait which hangs in the great gallery at Hardwick shows the writer of the following letters in his habit as he lived--a kindly fellow, but at this period not a man of power.

"My own, more dearer to me than I am to myself, thou shalt understand that it is no small fear nor grief unto me of thy well doing that I should presently see what I do, not only for that my continual nightly dreams beside my absence hath troubled me, but also chiefly for that Hugh Alsope cannot satisfy me in what estate thou nor thine is, whom I regard more than I do William Seyntlo. Therefore I pray thee, as thou dost love me, let me shortly hear from thee, for the quieting of my unquieted mind, how thine own sweet self with all thine doeth; trusting shortly to be amongst you. All thy friends here saluteth thee. Harry Skipwith desired me to make thee and no other privy that he is sure of mistress Nell, with whom he is by this time. He hath sent ten thousand thanks unto thyself for the same: she hath opened all things unto him. To-morrow Sir Richard Sackville and I ride to London together; on Saturday next we return hither again. The queen yesterday, her own self riding upon the way, craved my horse; unto whom I gave him, receiving openly for the same many goodly words. Thus wishing myself with thyself, I bid thee, my own good servant and chief overseer of my works, most heartily farewell: by thine who is wholly and only thine, yea and for all thine while life lasteth. From Windsor the fourth of September by thy right worshipful master and most honest husband master Sir

"WILLIAM SEYNTLO, esquire.

"Commend me to my mother and to all my brothers and sisters, not forgetting Frank with the rest of my children and thine. The Amnar saluteth thee and sayeth no gentleman's children in England shall be better welcome nor better looked unto than our boys. Once again, farewell good honest sweet.

"Myself or Greyves shall be the next messenger.

"To my own dear wife at Chatsworth deliver this."

"WILLIAM SEYNTLO.

"My cousin Clarke saluteth thee, who was by me at the writing hereof.

"To my own good wife at Chatsworth deliver this.

In this letter he complains of the heavy charge for his hired Court apparel.

"My honest sweet Chatsworth: I like the weekly price of my hired court stuff so evil that upon Thursday next I will send it home again, at which day the week endeth. I pray you cause such stuff as Mowsall left packed in a sheet to be brought hither by the next carrier: there be hand towels and other things therein that I must occupy when I shall lie at Whitehall. My men hath neither shirt nor any other thing to shift them until that come. Trust none of your men to ride any your housed horses, but only James Cromp or William Marchington; but neither of them without good cause serve speedily to be done. For nags there be enough about the house to serve other purposes. One handful of oats to every one of the geldings at a watering will be sufficient so they be not laboured. You must cause some to oversee the horsekeeper for that he is very well learned in loitering.

"The Queen hath found great fault with my long absence saying that she would talk with me farther, and that she would well chide me. Whereunto I answered that when her highness understood the truth and the cause she would not be offended. Whereunto she said 'Very well, very well.' Howbeit hand of hers I did not kisse.

"The Lord Keeper hath promised me faithfully to be at both days' hearing; and that if either law or conscience be on my side I shall have it to my contentment. Vaughan is come unto town, but not yet Bagott. Stevens and we shall go through on Friday night next, at which time his brother will be here, who hath disbursed seven hundred of the twelve hundred pounds. I have an extreme pain in my teeth since Sunday dinner. Thus with aching teeth I end, praying the living to preserve thee and all thine. Written at London, against my will where I am if other ways our matters might well be ended, this 24th of October:

"Your loving husband with aching heart until we meet,

"WILLIAM SEYNTLO.

"If you think good, lease your fishing in Dove unto Agard. We are the losers of suffering it as we have done.

"To my loving wife at Chatsworth give this with speed."

This next letter is from Sir George Pierrepoint in gratitude of her kindly offices. His family was afterwards closely connected with that of Bess of Hardwick, for her eldest daughter married Sir Henry Pierrepoint.

"Right worshipful and very good Lady: after my heartiest manner I commend me to your Ladyship: even so pray you I may be to good Mr. Seyntloe: most heartily thanking you both for your great pains taken with me at Holme, accepting everything in such gentle way as you did; which doth and will cause me to love you the better while I live if I were able to do you other pleasure or service; and the rather because I understand your Ladyship hath not forgotten my suit to you at your going away as specially to make Mr. Sackville and Mr. Attorney my friends in the matter between Mr. Whalley and me, wherein he doeth me plain wrong only to reap trouble and unquiet me. But I trust so much in God's help, and partly by your Ladyship's good means, and continuance of your goodness towards me, that he shall not overthrow me in my righteous cause. And touching such communication as was between us as at Holme, if your Ladyship and the gentlewoman your daughter like or be upon sight as well as I and my wife like the young gentlewoman, I will not shrink from it I said or promised; by the grace of God who preserve your Ladyship and my Master your husband long together in wealth, health and prosperity to his pleasure, and your gentle heart's desire. From my poor house at Woodhouse the 4th of November 1561, by the rude lusty hands of your good Ladyship's assuredly always to command.

"GEORGE PIERREPOINT. "To the right worshipful and my singular good Lady, my Lady Sentloo at London this be delivered."

This other letter is highly typical for the good lady's literary style and her attitude towards her employees. It is to James Crompe, her man of affairs.

"Crompe, I do understand by your letters that Wortly saith he will depart at our Ladyday next. I will that you shall have him bound in an obligation to avoid at the same day, for sure I will trust no more to his promise. And when he doth tell you that he is any penny behind for work done to Mr. Cavendish or me, he doth lie like a false knave: for I am most sure he did never make anything for me but two vanes to stand upon the house. I do very well like your sending sawyers to Pentrege and Medoplecke, for that will further my works: and so I pray you in any other thing that will be a help to my building, let it be done. And for Thomas Mason, if you can hear where he is, I would very gladly he were at Chatsworth. I will let you know by my next letter what work Thomas Mason shall begin at first, when he doth come. And as for the other mason which Sir James told you of, if he will not apply his work, you know that he is not the man for me; and the mason's work which I have to do is not much, and Thomas Mason will very well oversee that work. I perceive Sir James is much misliked for his religion; but I think his wisdom is such that he will make small account of that matter. I would have you tell my aunt Lenecker that I would have the little garden which is by the new house made a garden this year. I care not whether she bestow any great cost thereof; but to sow it with all kinds of herbs and flowers and some pieces of it with mallows. I have sent you by this carrier three bundles of garden seeds all written with William Marchington's hand; and by the next you shall know how to use them in every point.

"From the Court the 8th of March,

"Your mistress, "E. SEYNTLO."

The "Aunt Lenecker" was a Leake and sister of Lady St. Loe's mother. She seems to have lived for some years with her niece, possibly since her first widowhood.

Nothing very exciting happened to the St. Loe couple in their short married life. When not at Court they paid visits, were entertained, or entertained their own visitors, as scraps of correspondence show. 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. In 1567 she was slandered by Henry Jackson, an ex-scholar of Merton College, Oxford, the tutor of her children. Instantly the matter went to the Council, and the Council wrote in September to the Archbishop of Canterbury. "Lady St. Loo, widow, having retained as schoolmaster Henry Jackson ... is disturbed by scandalous reports raised against her family by him; you are to examine the matter thoroughly and speedily with the assistance of the Solicitor-General Mr. Oseley and Mr. Peter Osborne or other Ecclesiastical Commissioners, that the lady's good name may be preserved; if he has unjustly defamed her he is to be severely punished," runs the digest of the draft in the State MS. And immediately upon the conclusion of the examination the Queen herself intervenes on behalf of the lady "who has long served with credit in our Court," and forthwith she commands the punishment of the wicked clerk: "extreme punishment, corporal or otherwise, openly or private, and that speedily."

Besides the danger of slander there was the trap of intrigue. Up to the present Bess Hardwick had kept clear of mischief, but, native curiosity apart, she could not, as Lady of the Bedchamber, help being often the recipient of the secrets of her friends. The romantic love story of Lady Catherine Grey, who held a similar Court post to herself, brought her into a tight place. For the benefit of those who do not recall the tale it shall be set forth again here.

One morning--surely as crisp and heartening a day as could be desired for such a purpose--the Queen's Majesty went to Eltham in Kent to hunt. My Lady Jane and my Lady Catherine stayed behind. When all was quiet they left the Palace "by the stairs at the orchard" and strolled quietly "along the sands." Those sands led to the Earl of Hertford's house in "Chanon Row." He was waiting for his lady; he did not even leave her to call the priest. That was the Lady Jane's errand. There is something very delightful about this incident, and the steady chaperon's part undertaken by the Earl's sister. The priest came, the wedding took place. After the brief ceremony there could not be much dalliance or entertainment. It was not yet the time to give the secret to the world. The ladies must reach the Palace again before hue and cry could be raised. They did not go back by "the sands," probably because the tide had risen. They went back by boat. The Earl did not accompany them. But he led his bride and his sister to the boat which waited for them at the foot of the water-stairs of his house. He assisted them in--it must have been very hard to let go the hand of the woman so newly pledged to him--and the shallop went quietly on its way and delivered its fair passengers at the Palace stairs without exciting comment. A little later the two ladies were demurely seated at dinner "in Master Comptroller's chamber." Probably neither of them played that evening much of a table part.

The bride was left to bear the onus of the affair. After a few stolen meetings the Earl went to France. And presently the world began to point and stare. The report grew, but no one seemed able to credit it. At the close of August, 1561, the Earl's mother wrote to Cecil mentioning the rumour, denying all knowledge of it, and hoped that the wilfulness of her unruly child, Hertford, would not diminish the Queen's favour. On the same date Sir Edward Warner, Lieutenant of the Tower, wrote to the Queen stating that he had questioned Lady Catherine as to her "love practices," but she would confess nothing. It is said that Lady St. Loe burst into tears when Lady Catherine made confession to her. Probably the older woman knew what was in store for them both. The royal warrant to Sir Edward Warner not only required him to "examine the Lady Catherine very straightly how many hath been privy to love between her and the Lord of Hertford from the beginning," but continues: "Ye shall also send to Alderman Lodge, secretly, for St. Low and shall put her in awe of divers matters confessed by the Lady Catherine; and so also deal with her that she may confess to you all her knowledge in the same matters. It is certain that there hath been great practices and purposes; and since the death of the Lady Jane she hath been most privy. And as ye shall see occasion, so ye may keep St. Low two or three nights, more or less, and let her be returned to Lodge's or kept still with you, as ye shall think meet."

After poor Lady Catherine took Lady Loe into her confidence, she made frantic application for help to Lord Robert Dudley--not yet Earl of Leicester--so high in the Queen's good graces. In this there is sheer drama as well as pathos--this confession and piteous appeal from the young and comely lady of quality, whose only fault was that she had married for love, to the handsome, pampered, arrogant cavalier, the Queen's darling. Lady Hertford went to his very chamber in Court to implore him to stand between her parlous state as prospective mother and the Queen's anger. Yet nothing in such contingencies could divert Elizabeth's fury, or make her act in a humane fashion. Lord Hertford was summoned to England to undergo trial with his wife, and very soon both were committed separately to the Tower. But before this could be done the farce of a public enquiry had to be played. A commission was ordained, pompously headed by no less a person than Archbishop Parker. The accused were requested to produce, within a given time, witnesses of their marriage. That they failed to do this is extraordinary. The priest seems to have disappeared, and Lady Jane Seymour appeared unable to find him or to assist in furnishing the required evidence. But as this couple could not satisfy the Commission in time they were sentenced to be imprisoned during the Queen's pleasure. "Displeasure" would be the correct word. For Elizabeth knew little but vanity and vexation of spirit at this period. The very word marriage must have been a red rag to her. With the strong vitality and virility of her father warring within her against the heritage of the feminine instincts of her mother, Anne Boleyn, with countless suitors and innumerable flatterers to encourage and keep at bay alternately, with one eye fixed on Mary of Scotland and another on the "devildoms of Spain," her life just now was a constant turmoil. Her whole entourage was forced to share in it. She would not decide upon a consort to help her; she belittled the estate of marriage one day and dallied with it the next. No wonder that poor Mr. Treasurer Cecil wrote as he did on the eve of the New Year of 1564. Schemes matrimonial whirled round him like the winter snow. Elizabeth was being wooed by a French monarch and an Austrian Emperor at the same moment; the Lennox family and Mary of Scotland were working to achieve the marriage of the latter with Darnley, and the Lady Mary Grey, fired no doubt by her sister's intrigue and sick of loneliness, had actually surreptitiously married John Keys, the Serjeant Porter to the Queen. Meanwhile the Earl and Countess of Hertford were in the Tower. In addition, the Queen was putting up her beloved Dudley, now Earl of Leicester, to oppose Darnley as a possible consort for Scottish Mary. Shrewd old Cecil shows, however, that she is only half-hearted about it: "I see the qn M^ very desyroos to have my L. of Lecester placed in this high degree to be the Scottish Queen's husband, but whan it commeth to the conditions which are demanded I see her then remiss of her earnestness."

He concludes wearily enough:--

"This also I see in the Qn Ma^, a sufficient contentation to be moved to marry abrood, and if it is so may plese Almighty God, to leade by the hand some mete person to come and lay hand on her to her contentation, I cold than wish my self more helth to endure my yeres somewhat longar to enjoye such a world here as I trust wold follow: otherwise I assure yow, as now thyngs hang in desperation, I have no comfort to lyve."

My Lady St. Loe, as confidante, was forced to weather the storm and endure reprimand. The married lovers, meanwhile, dragged out their days in durance. Their son was born in the Tower. In vain they languished, pined, and implored the intercession of friends. In 1562 the Earl was allowed a little more ease. Husband and wife managed to meet again. Another child was born to them, and my Lord was duly fined fifteen thousand pounds by the Star Chamber, for this event was construed into a new State offence. In 1563 the dreaded plague caused Elizabeth to remove her poor love-birds from the Tower. Lady Catherine went to the house of her uncle, Sir John Grey, in Essex, and he was roused to uttermost compassion and distress by her wretched mental and physical condition. It was in mid-Lent that he wrote to Cecil emphatically and ironically:--

"It is a great while me thinkethe, Cousin Cecile, since I sent unto you, in my neices behalf, albeit I knowe, you are not unmindful of her miserable and compfortlesse estate. For who wantinge the Princes favor, maye compt himselfe to live in any Realme? And because this time of all others hathe ben compted a time of mercie and forgevenes I cannot but recommende her woefull liffe unto you. In faithe I wolde I were the Queen's confessor this Lent, that I might joine her in penaunce to forgive and forget; or otherwise able to steppe into the pulpett to tell her Highness, that God will not forgive her, unleast she frelye forgeve all the worlde."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet