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Title: Bess of Hardwick and her Circle
Author: Rawson, Maud Stepney
Language: English
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CIRCLE ***
BESS OF HARDWICK
AND HER CIRCLE
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
A LADY OF THE REGENCY
JOURNEYMAN LOVE
THE APPRENTICE
TALES OF RYE TOWN
THE LABOURER’S COMEDY
THE ENCHANTED GARDEN
THE EASY-GO-LUCKIES
THE STAIRWAY OF HONOUR
HAPPINESS
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene Ltd. Derby, after the painting at Hardwick
Hall._
_Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury._
]
BESS OF HARDWICK
AND HER CIRCLE
BY
MAUD STEPNEY RAWSON
WITH THIRTY-EIGHT ILLUSTRATIONS
INCLUDING A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE
London: HUTCHINSON & CO.
Paternoster Row ❧ 1910
TO MY HUSBAND
To you belongs, for many a reason, this, my first essay in history,
which I have carried to its end with many misgivings, but with much
delight in the matter itself.
The orthodox may be affronted at two brief incursions into fiction which
they will find in it. Let them skip these judiciously, magisterially.
For my own part, I needed consolation at times for certain hard and
bitter facts of the history. Therefore, since the way was sometimes
long, and the wind, in my imagination, very cold—as it whistled in and
out of the ruins of those manors and castles where the Scots Queen and
her married gaolers dwelt, or as it drove the snow across the splendid
grey façade of Hardwick (to say nothing of the draughts of the sombre,
public research libraries)—I first drew my Countess down from her
picture-frame to marshal her household, and then lured her child and her
child’s lover after her to gladden your road and mine.
And so I give you—besides all the thoughts which have gone to every
scrap of writing I have ever done—these last, which curl and stiffen and
again uncoil themselves about this hungry woman of Elizabethan days.
Into her life and much-abused toil, we, who have neither gold nor heirs
for whom to store it, can look together in love and pity.
Thus even while we rejoice over our diminutive home, may we never forget
to give thanks to the spirit of those who built the great houses which
nourish the little ones, and who, in place of the “scarlet blossom of
pain” that grows at great door and little, shall give to us in the end
the perfect English rose.
M. S. R.
LITTLE ORCHARD,
STREATLEY,
BERKS.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
All complete letters herein quoted have been put into modern spelling.
These, with the exception of one or two fragments and when the source is
not otherwise indicated, have been selected from the transcripts in
Lodge’s _Illustrations of British History_, from the originals amongst
the Talbot, Howard, and Cecil MSS.
The Author gratefully acknowledges the special permission of his Grace
the Duke of Devonshire to include in this work reproductions of many of
the fine pictures at Hardwick Hall, as well as a number of views of that
noble building.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE RED-HAIRED GIRL 1
II. THE MISTRESS BUILDER 11
III. “A GREAT GENTLEMAN” 34
IV. HUBBUB 52
V. MAKE-BELIEVE 62
VI. PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT 75
VII. FAMILY LETTERS 99
VIII. A CERTAIN JOURNEY 119
IX. LOVE AND THE WOODMAN 133
X. AFTERMATH 145
XI. VARIOUS OCCURRENCES 161
XII. MY LORD LEICESTER’S CURE 175
XIII. THE DIVIDED WAY 193
XIV. “BRUITS” 211
XV. RUTH AND JOYUSITIE 223
XVI. VOLTE FACE 236
XVII. THE COIL THICKENS 251
XVIII. “FACE TO FACE” 266
XIX. HAMMER AND TONGS 279
XX. FADING GLORIES 308
XXI. HEIR AND DOWAGER 324
XXII. ARABELLA DANCES INTO COURT 337
XXIII. MY LADY’S MANSIONS 349
INDEX 365
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
_To face page_
HARDWICK OLD HALL 2
SIR WILLIAM CAVENDISH 4
HARDWICK OLD HALL: THE GIANTS’ CHAMBER 6
SIR WILLIAM ST. LOE 16
GEORGE TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY 38
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 38
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 64
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ APARTMENTS AND DUNGEONS AT TUTBURY,
FROM THE NORTH-WEST 66
WINGFIELD 70
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ BOWER, CHATSWORTH 72
WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY 80
THOMAS HOWARD, DUKE OF NORFOLK 86
THE MANOR HOUSE, SHEFFIELD 90
GILBERT TALBOT, SEVENTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY 100
LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF LENNOX 120
ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER 178
QUEEN ELIZABETH 182
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 198
GEORGE TALBOT, SIXTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY 202
MARY CAVENDISH, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 252
HARDWICK HALL, SHOWING ENTRANCE GATEWAY 258
STATUE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS 310
QUEEN ELIZABETH (_by Zucchero_) 316
ARABELLA STUART AS A CHILD 330
ARABELLA STUART 332
HARDWICK HALL: THE PICTURE GALLERY FROM THE NORTH 336
WELBECK ABBEY 340
HARDWICK HALL: THE DINING-ROOM 342
JAMES THE FIFTH 344
TOMB OF ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY 346
THE ENTRANCE HALL, HARDWICK HALL 348
BOLSOVER CASTLE 352
HARDWICK HALL: THE PICTURE GALLERY 354
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (_by P. Oudry_) 356
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ BED, HARDWICK HALL 358
HARDWICK HALL: THE PRESENCE-CHAMBER 360
HARDWICK HALL FROM THE WEST GARDEN 362
BESS OF HARDWICK
AND HER CIRCLE
CHAPTER I
THE RED-HAIRED GIRL
Among the hills and dales of Derbyshire, that great county of august
estates, there came into the world in the year 1520 a certain baby girl.
Her father, John Hardwick of Hardwick House, and her mother Elizabeth,
daughter of Thomas Leake of Hasland, in the same county, christened the
child Elizabeth, naturally enough after her mother. Like the great Queen
of England to whom she was senior, and with whom in after years she had
so much traffic of a highly dramatic kind, this Elizabeth has come down
to posterity under the shorter name of Bess.
Derbyshire, always a great county, was specially important in her day.
Far from London and Court it seemed like a little England within
England. Its great families wove its life step by step, its varied
landscape, its heights and dales rendered it an important strategical
centre in the event of rebellion, and the roughness and slough of
pack-road and cart-road made even local expeditions affairs of moment.
The little red-haired baby girl inherited from her native soil, from her
race, and from the neighbours about her all that sense of county
importance, that desire to found, establish and endow a great family
with great estates which her life developed to so remarkable a degree.
That consciousness of county importance was inevitable in those days
when families gave their names not only to their mansions, but to the
hamlets or village which clustered round them. Bess of Hardwick was
brought up amongst them all—the Hardwicks of Hardwick, the Barleys of
Barley (or Barlow), the Pinchbecks of Pinchbeck, the Blackwalls of
Blackwall, the Leakes, and the Leches. Not all of them were so very
opulent. The Hardwicks, though not rich, were of honourable standing as
county gentry, and the Barleys and Leakes were of the same social rank.
John Hardwick could not afford to give his daughters large dowries, and
consequently when my Lady Zouche, her aunt, took Bess into her household
in London the parents were probably glad enough to embrace such a social
chance for her. Up to this time she led naturally the life of the
ordinary young gentlewoman of tender years, said her prayers, learnt to
sew and embroider, and had seen something of the ordering of a household
and the disposal of country produce, while she heard and treasured up
such scraps of news as filtered through to her family and neighbours by
letters and travellers who came to the houses about her, or such rumours
as were bruited in the county town. She was but twelve years old when
she made her entry at once into my Lady Zouche’s house and into history.
We are told that she had reddish hair and small eyes, but no picture of
her remains to give any idea of her appearance at this moment when she
left her childhood behind her. Physique she must always have had, and
with it tenacity and tact in furthering her own prospects. She was of
the type in which the art of “getting on” is innate. London and my Lady
Zouche’s excellent social position gave her her first chance.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
HARDWICK OLD HALL
Page 2
]
There is almost a touch of Becky Sharp in the way that this young girl,
dowerless save for the forty marks of _dot_ allotted by John Hardwick to
each of his daughters, settled down in that household. There came to
London one of her Derbyshire neighbours—a youth of the Barley or Barlow
family, named Robert. Under Lady Zouche’s roof he fell sick and the
little niece helped to tend him. Whether he also fell in love, whether
Mistress Hardwick the mother was minded to “settle” one at least of her
girls early, or whether Lady Zouche was of a strong match-making
tendency does not appear. But a marriage between the niece and the guest
was arranged and quickly carried through. A strange pitiful affair it
must have been—that London wedding between the red-haired child and the
sickly young man—a ceremony trailing after it a sorry hope of happiness
in the midst of physicking and nostrums, weakness and watching, until
the death of the bridegroom before the bride had reached her fourteenth
year. His death left no apparent gap in my Lady Zouche’s household and
no mark upon history. But it bestowed on the child-wife the dignity of
widowhood, and such importance, plus her forty marks, as attached to any
property that Robert Barlow left her. The Barlows were not wealthy. Some
of them in after years were in sore straits for a living. The State
Papers show the existence of piteous letters from a certain Jane Barlow
who writes in January, 1583, to her father, Alexander Barlow, “from a
foreign land.” She is in extreme want, forced to borrow money to carry
on her “business,” and assures him that the meanest servant he has
“liveth in far better condition than she.” There is nothing to show that
the Barlows applied to their relation “Bess” in after years for help.
Such property as there was passed to her, and she travelled out of their
ken into richer circles.
In 1547, at the age of twenty-seven, a woman in the height of her powers
and the perfection of her womanhood, with considerable knowledge of the
world and a tremendous store of physical and mental vitality, she
secured a second husband and a man of considerable means—Sir William
Cavendish. He was the second son of Thomas Cavendish, and his family,
like that of Bess, took its name from its hamlet or manor. Says the
pompous Bishop Kennet of those days: “The Cavendishes, like other great
Families of greatest Antiquity derived a Name from their Place of
Habitation. A younger branch of the Germons, famous in Norfolk and
Essex, settled at Cavendish in Suffolk, and from that Seat and Estate
were soon distinguished by that Sirname.” Thomas Cavendish, like the
father of Bess, was “a well-to-do but undistinguished Squire,” but his
sons made names for themselves.
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the painting at
Hardwick Hall_
_By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
SIR WILLIAM CAVENDISH
Page 4
]
In 1539 his son William was appointed one of the auditors of the Court
of Augmentation. This Court, of which one at least of the members had
been employed as a commissioner for the surrender of religious houses,
was ostensibly founded to ensure the increase of the royal exchequer to
such a point as would enable the sovereign duly to establish and
strengthen the defences of the realm. Within a year Mr. Cavendish had so
well played his cards and acquitted himself that he received from Henry
VIII a grant of Church property—the lordships and manors of Northawe,
Cuffley, and Childewicke in Hertfordshire. In 1548, the year after his
marriage, he was further rewarded not only by the post of “Treasurer of
the Chamber to the King” which, we are assured, was “a place of great
trust and honour,” but the knighthood which brought his third wife the
title that raised her above the majority of her fellow-gentlewomen. He
did not bring her a virgin heart, for he had been twice married and
twice a widower without male heir. But he conferred on her important
social position, a great deal of land—additional prizes fell to his
share in the way of lesser glebe properties, abbeys, and rectories,
because his appointment in the royal exchequer kept him _au courant_ of
the places which were being given or going cheap in the market—and she
in her turn brought him the sons he doubtless so greatly desired.
Never surely did a couple settle down so whole-heartedly or so
harmoniously to the founding of a family, to the increase and
consolidation of their patrimony. As to the first—their offspring—Sir
William made a proud and careful list in writing, being, as Collins[1]
says, “A learned and exact Person.” He had in all sixteen children,
eight of whom were borne to him by “this beautiful and discreet Lady,”
as Collins describes Bess Cavendish.
The fact that his second wife’s name was also Elizabeth has at times
given rise to misstatements with regard to the place and date of his
third marriage, but he was careful to record this: “I was married to
Elizabeth Hardwick, my third wife, in Leicestershire, at Brodgate, my
Lord Marquess’s[2] House, the 20th of August, in the first yeare of King
Ed. the 6, at 2 of the Clock after midnight.”
Of the eight children of this marriage six survived. The others were
Temperance, “my 10 childe and the second by the same woman,” and Lucrece
the youngest. The surviving daughters were Frances Cavendish, the
eldest, married to Sir Henry Pierrepoint, of Holme Pierrepoint, Notts;
Elizabeth Cavendish, who espoused Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox; and
Mary, the youngest girl, who became the wife of Gilbert Talbot. Of the
three sons, the eldest, Henry Cavendish, who settled later at Tutbury
Castle, married Lady Grace Talbot; William Cavendish, who wedded
successively Anne, daughter of Henry Kighley, of Kighley, and Elizabeth,
daughter of Sir Edward Boughton, and to whom his adoring mother left
Chatsworth; and Charles. Frances Cavendish by her marriage became the
ancestress of the Earls and Dukes of Kingston, and (through a female
heiress) of the Earls Manvers, inheritors of the Pierrepoint property.
Her brother Henry, though he died young, was the ancestor of the Barons
Waterpark; while William, duly knighted in time, was the first Earl of
Devonshire and progenitor of that great ducal house. Mary, though her
husband was but a younger son of the Talbot race, became eventually
Countess of Shrewsbury on his unexpected accession to the title; while
Charles, besides a knighthood, secured as bride one of the twin
heiresses of the Barony of Ogle, by which means the possessions of
Welbeck Abbey and other great estates were insured to the Cavendishes.
All these matters, however, belong to the future. The present was
all-important to the welfare of Sir William and his lady. A fast growing
family must be provided for, and scattered estates meant waste of cost
and labour. The clear, keen eyes of the newly-wedded Bess looked far
into the future. She did not care for the notion of separation from her
own lands and the unwieldy business of dealing with her husband’s
estates in different parts of the South of England. At the time of their
marriage he had sold the aforesaid manors in Hertfordshire,
Lincolnshire, Cardigan, and Cornwall, in favour of others in Derbyshire,
Nottingham, and Stafford. The county instinct of his wife asserted
itself. Her heart was in Derbyshire where her own dowry was
concentrated. She desired the transfer of her bridegroom’s interests and
property thither. Her resolution and her vitality naturally carried the
day, and Sir William sold all the rest of his southern estates and
settled with her in a manor which had originally been built by her old
county friends the Leeches (or Leches) of Leech—Chatsworth.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
HARDWICK OLD HALL: THE GIANTS CHAMBER
(So called from the two colossal figures, dubbed Gog and Magog, in
raised plaster-work over the fireplace)
Page 6
]
Gradually her great hobby asserted itself—the desire to build—and this
constructive energy, as her story will show, went hand in hand with her
master passion, the love of power and possession, to the end of her
days. The mansion of the Leeches did not please her. It must be rebuilt
for the glory of the Cavendishes. Her knight yielded to the wish. They
set about the work quickly, living meanwhile, one supposes, in the
original mansion. Hardwick Hall, it will be remembered, was not yet
hers. John Hardwick, her father, had passed away in the nineteenth year
of Henry VIII. That reign was at an end, and the reign of Edward VI
drawing to its close. Hardwick House eventually became the portion of
the red-haired daughter, some say through the will of her brother, who
apparently died without heir. But for the moment the Cavendishes needed
a fine house for domesticity on a large scale and old Chatsworth did not
suffice them. Elizabeth Cavendish had plenty to do in founding her
family. These were great and busy times for the great lady. Shoulder to
shoulder husband and wife worked at their building, at their estate, at
the management of their tenants, their parks and palings, their farms
and holdings. The red-haired girl was in her element as matron and
comptroller and lady bountiful. Fortune smiled on her enterprise, and
when the crown of Edward VI descended to Mary of England, Sir William
Cavendish still held securely his valuable post in the Exchequer.
It is a fine English picture as one looks upon it, this married life of
the Cavendishes—knight and lady amongst their babies, enlarging their
county circle, increasing their county honours, holding intercourse with
Court and capital, with market and county town.
Here is a letter on domestic matters from Sir William to his lady
showing his trust in her management of their joint affairs:—
“To Bess Cavendish,
“My Wife.
“Good Bess, having forgotten to write in my letters that you should pay
Otewelle Alayne eight pounds for certain oats that we have bought of him
over and above twelve that I have paid to him in hand, I heartily pray
you for that he is desirous to receive the rest at London to pay him
upon the sight hereof. You know my store and therefore I have appointed
him to have it at your hands. And thus fare you well. From Chatsworth
the XIIIth of April.
W. C.”
And here is a characteristic letter from his good lady during her
absence from home in 1552 to her man of affairs, in which she soundly
takes him to task for discourtesy to her “sister Jane,” orders beer to
be brewed against her own return, and issues commands for building and
repairs:—
“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.”
CHAPTER II
THE MISTRESS BUILDER
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.
He was of excellent birth, and, like her second husband, a widower. His
family was, of course, originally Norman. State papers show that a
Margaret de St. Low or Laudo parted with certain rights in Cornish
property in the reign of Henry III. By the seventeenth century the
family seems to have concentrated in Gloucestershire, where it held the
manor of Tormarton, twenty-two miles south of the county town. “Livery”
of this manor, we read, was granted to William St. Loe by Elizabeth.
William and his brother John had fought bravely in Ireland against
Desmond. In 1536 the former—the family name is spelt variously as
Seyntlow, Seyntloe, and Santclo—is mentioned in despatches. There is a
vivid glimpse in various letters of an attack on the castle of “Carreke
Ogunell.”[3] Says Lord Leonard Grey, writing to Henry VIII in England,
“It was taken by assault by William Seyntloe and his men before scaling
ladders could arrive.” But the writer is not quite sure if the success
was due to “hope of fame or lack of victuals, for a halfpenny loaf was
worth 12d., but there was none to be sold.” The castle has marble walls
thirteen feet thick. It is the strongest Lord Leonard has ever seen. An
Englishman could take it at a rush, in spite of the fact that besides
being set in a fine moat, “in an island of fresh water,” the place was
guarded with watch towers of hewn marble. But Lord Leonard does not
think that any Irishman could have built it!
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.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the picture at Hardwick
Hall_
_By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
SIR WILLIAM ST. LOE
]
“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 (quoted in Hunter’s _Hallamshire_) in his habit
as he lived—a kindly fellow, but at this period not a man of power.
_Sir William Saint-Loe to Lady Saint-Loe._
“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[4]
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.”
_Sir William Saint-Loe to Lady Saint-Loe._
“My hap is evil, my time worse spent; for that my reward as yet is
nothing more than fair words with the like promises. Take all in good
part; and if I should understand the contrary, it would trouble me more
than my pen shall express. I have leave to come and wait upon thee, I
and my brother Clement, with two or three good fellows more: [we] had
been with thee by this day if it had not been for our —— matter, the
which I will not leave over rawly. I will forbear the answering of all
particularities in thy last letter written unto me, for that God willing
I will this next week be the messenger myself. Master Man came home the
night before the date hereof. He putteth me in great hope of the matter
you know of. Thus trusting that God provideth for us all things for the
best, I end; committing thee and all thine which are mine unto his
blessed will and ordinance. Farewell, my own sweet Bess. From Master
Man’s house in Redcross Street, the 12th of October, by him who dareth
not so near his coming home to term thee as thou art: yet thine
“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.
_Sir William Saint-Loe to Lady Saint-Loe._
“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 [of] 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[one] 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 [God] 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.
_Sir George Pierrepoint to Lady Saint-Loe._
“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 (though it were never so rudely
handled) 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 (as I take it is my conscience)
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[5] 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” (more correctly known as Lynacre) 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.
The Lady Catherine was the sister of Lady Jane Grey. By a curious
combination of circumstances—the exclusion given by the will of Henry
VIII to the posterity of Margaret of Scotland, the publication of the
will of Edward VI, and the non-repeal of certain Acts of Parliament—it
was judged that the right to the crown rested with the House of Suffolk.
To this great house Lady Catherine was the heir. She was formally
contracted in extreme youth to Lord Herbert, the son of the Earl of
Pembroke. But the wise Earl, in dread of the acute complications which
such a marriage might entail, arranged for a divorce. This probably
affected the lady but little. She was young, she was attractive and
romantic, she could meet cavaliers enough and to spare in the immediate
circle of the Queen. But, as all the world knows, her Majesty, while she
kept a dozen men languishing about her, was very loth to have any of her
ladies wed. Love affairs must be very secret, lest the parties incurred
her disfavour and the loss of benefits. As for Lady Catherine, her
birth, as has been shown, rendered her a mark for all manner of
suspicion. At Court she was the close companion of Lady Jane Seymour,
daughter of the Duke of Somerset. This Lady Jane had a brother, no less
than the Earl of Hertford. What more inevitable than a love affair
between him and Catherine? There were sorrows enough in the background
of her history, slavery enough—despite pageant and hunting and the
comings and goings of great persons from foreign courts—to endure at the
hands of the energetic, alert, excitable, witty, jealous royal mistress.
Little by little the love story wove itself in the manner of every love
tale. A community of interest, a series of assemblies which passed in
array her Majesty’s ladies before the eyes of her gentlemen, little
incidents which brought out the personalities of the two, mere
propinquity, a look here and a word there, did their work. The two were
soon secretly plighted, with the Lady Jane to share and shield their
dear secret. Many anxious moments must have gone to their councils. To
declare their troth would only be a signal for their instant separation.
The same result would arise if they humbly asked the royal permission to
be betrothed. To marry and fly would only savour of deep State
conspiracy. To marry and bide quietly and then face the astonished and
scandalous world with an air of “Indeed, and it is true. So part us you
shall not. And, moreover, ’tis our affair. Wherefore, fling your mud
elsewhere!” seemed the wisest way in the end, and also followed the line
of least resistance.
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 (Westminster) “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[6] 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^{ty} 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.”[7]
He concludes wearily enough:—
“This also I see in the Qn Ma^{ty}, a sufficient contentation to be
moved to marry abrood, and if it is so may [it] 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, (opportunitie so servinge) 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.”
This letter is worth quoting because it shows the prevailing attitude of
the Elizabethan courtier. No one who lacked the favour of the sovereign
could be accounted as one living. Lady Catherine, once under that heavy
cloud of disfavour, never emerged, but died broken and miserable within
six years of her unhappy marriage. Wherefore Lady St. Loe had chance
enough to learn her lesson, and was fortunate in that her share of the
affair was visited only by a cross-examination and warning. She was not
at all the sort of woman to brook being left out in the cold. She was
too wise, of course, ever to have engulfed herself in a marriage of this
sort, but in such a case, had she not managed to divert Elizabeth’s
anger by some master stroke of wit and diplomacy, she would certainly
not have languished of “woofull griefe” nor starved herself to death,
like Lady Catherine, for sorrow.
At such a time and in face of the fresh hubbub caused at Court by the
marriage of Lady Mary Grey (“an unhappy chance and monstruoos,” comments
Cecil, in a letter to the English Ambassador in France), the peace and
security of Chatsworth offered themselves as a happy refuge against all
complications. There is a grotesque humour in Cecil’s use of that word
monstrous, for Lady Mary was almost a dwarf, and Keys, whom Cecil calls
“the biggest gentleman in this Court,” had secured his post of Serjeant
Porter owing to his magnificent size and height. He was twice Lady
Mary’s age, and was a widower with several children. The Queen clapped
him in the Fleet, and condemned Lady Mary to confinement in the houses
of successive friends. The pair never met after their hasty wedding.
Thus, on all sides, Court was a place of “dispeace,” while in Derbyshire
Lady St. Loe had good neighbours, people of quality and substance, and
was safe within her parks and palings. She did not share her royal
mistress’s distrust of matrimony, for she was free to choose her next
lord, and there was no reason why she should remain a widow longer than
she could help.
It is not to be suggested for a moment that she had no suitors and that
she was not the subject of all kinds of matrimonial gossip. One Fowler
(subsequently committed to the Tower in connection with the discovery of
suspicious papers) opines in his “notes” that “either Lord Darcy or Sir
John Thynne are to marry my Lady St. Loe, and not Harry Cobham.”
Doubtless the Cobham match would have pleased her well, and she would
have been quite in her element in the place which afforded a seat and a
surname to that noble and splendid family upon whom the evil days of
Jacobean confiscation and the betrayal of Sir Walter Raleigh had not yet
fallen. A sister of Lord Cobham was married to Mr. Secretary Cecil, “and
the match would have been advantageous, but possibly my Lady, with her
deep insight into character, divined that the gentleman was not of the
steady stuff which makes for worldly security.” Moreover the best
matches are by no means to be found near the Court, and close at hand,
in the same county, lived one greater than the Cobhams, a man whom many
a maid and every widow would be proud to espouse. He was a widower, an
earl, the owner of seven seats, bearer of a high government post, and he
came of a long line of distinguished soldiers. Lady St. Loe went to work
wisely. She had the assistance of her dear gossip and contemporary, Lady
Cobham. No one could have acted the go-between more discreetly. Before
long the fashionable world had something to talk about in the
announcement of the fourth marriage of Bess Hardwick.
CHAPTER III
“A GREAT GENTLEMAN”
The fourth husband of “Building Bess” was no less a person than George
Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. Though the name does not appear in the
great roll of the prominent soldiers at the battle of Hastings, the
first Talbot—then Talebot—of whom anything noteworthy is recorded, won
the first title, a barony, for his family at the close of the career of
William the First. Thenceforward the Talbots march magnificently through
the history of England—great gentlemen, castellans, commanders,
governors, judges, lords-lieutenant. They wielded authority in Wales,
fought in France, Scotland, Ireland, Castile, occasionally fell under
suspicion of conspiracy, and emerged without hurt. Once and once only
was their pride humbled in the dust, when the hitherto invincible
tactics of John Talbot, the greatest general of his day, the chief glory
of all the Talbots before and since, were overcome by the generalship of
the Maid of Orleans. It must have hit the great general very hard to
find himself in prison on French soil for three long years at the hands
of a woman. Neither force nor strategy freed him, but mere money. He had
married a rich wife—heiress to all “Hallamshire,”[8] including the
castle of Sheffield. In 1432 he agreed to pay a large ransom, and
hurried back to England, bursting with purpose and revenge. Instantly he
raised a fresh force, rejoined the English army in France, and fought
with such terrible and triumphant results that his name, like that of
Bonaparte, figured for generations as a bogy with which to scare
fractious children. It was this tremendous campaign which won for his
race the great earldom of Shrewsbury.
George, the sixth earl, the great gentleman now dealt with, inherited
all the administrative qualities of his ancestors, though he was less
intimately associated with war than his father Francis. It was well also
that his duties should have been to a greater extent civil and defensive
than military and aggressive. For he had stepped into a great
inheritance, and his burdens, as householder and county magnate, were
stupendous. The manors and castles of Worksop, Welbeck, Bolsover,
Sheffield, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Rufford were all his. He came into
his own in 1560. The greatest gift he received in that year was the
Garter which the Queen bestowed on him. Five years later he was
appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the counties of York, Nottingham, and
Derby. Subsequently the post of High Steward in the place of the unhappy
fifth Duke of Norfolk was added to his honours. In the third year of his
lieutenancy the affair with Bess Hardwick was in full swing.
From both sides it was a reasonable and profitable alliance. He was a
widower with sons and daughters who needed mothering. Her children
needed a father. There was wealth enough to provide for all. Yet
possibly family dissensions might arise amongst the young folk. But
against this risk my lady had devised a splendid scheme of
protection—the intermarriage of some of the children. They were but
children, the two couples—Gilbert Talbot, the fifteen-year-old second
son of the Lord-Lieutenant and Mary Cavendish, and the bride’s son Henry
Cavendish, to whom Grace Talbot, the Earl’s daughter, was given as wife.
The aforesaid childish marriages were settled and carried through
forthwith. Shortly afterwards the wedding of their elders took place
with due magnificence, while the bride, besides her Cavendish and Barlow
properties, brought to her fourth husband the Gloucestershire estate of
St. Loe.
If the Cavendish epoch had been one of security and happiness, the
Shrewsbury epoch promised to be one of sheer brilliance and delight. It
is true there were one or two dissentient voices. Said a certain John
Hall, under subsequent examination upon his arrest for Scottish
conspiracy, that, though he served as a gentleman of the Earl’s
household for some years, he so misliked my Lord’s marriage with this
wife, as divers others of his friends did, that he resigned his post.
Yet the Queen and her circle approved. That was the main thing. The
following letter from a kinsman at Court emphasises the fact:—[9]
“May it please you to understand that Mr. Wingfield hath delivered your
venison to the Queen’s Majesty with my lord’s most humble commission,
and your Ladyship with humble thanks from both your honours for her
great goodness.
“[I] assure your Ladyship of my faith, her Majesty did talk one long
hour with Mr. Wingfield of my Lord and you so carefully, that, as God is
my judge, I think your honours have no friend living that could have
more consideration, nor more show love and great affection. In the end
she asked when my Lady meant to come to the Court: he answered he knew
not: then said she, ‘I am assured if she might have her own will she
would not be long before she would see me.’ Then said, ‘I have been glad
to see my Lady Saint-Loe, but now more desirous to see my Lady
Shrewsbury.’ ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘my Lady hath known my good opinion of
her; and thus much I assure you, there is no Lady in this land that I
better love and like.’ Mr. Batleman can more at large declare unto your
honour. And so with most humble commendations to my very good Lord, I
wish to you both as the Queen’s Majesty doth desire; and so take my
leave in humble wise. From St. John’s the 21st of October.
“Your honours to command,
“E. WINGFIELD.”
There was certainly nothing whatever in this marriage to upset
Elizabeth’s plans. Indeed, it really paved the way for her schemes and
made it easier for her to utilise not only the Earl’s wealth, his
authority and position, but all his country seats in turn for the
greater security of her life and throne.
My Lady Shrewsbury was forty-eight, my Lord had been but eight years an
Earl. Time had not yet marked on his face the lines of anxiety and care
which the next twenty-three years were to bring him. He was at the
zenith of his career, and the Queen hinted mysteriously that ere long
she would show him still more emphatic proofs of her trust and affection
in so splendid a servitor. It is in a very happy and devoted vein that
he writes love letters from Court just after marriage to his second
bride, in which he addresses her as “sweet none.”[10]
It is regrettable that these letters to his “none” are not more
numerous. Otherwise the Earl’s correspondence all his life was enormous,
and the masses of letters which mirror contemporary history and his
duties in connection with them are nearly all comprised in that rich
heritage of manuscript known as the Talbot Papers. Cecil is his constant
correspondent. As Lord-Lieutenant of three such great counties he would
naturally be kept _au courant_ of great happenings. Is there fear of
French invasion? Immediately the Lords of the Privy Council send him
instructions. He is to organise companies of demi-lances, to find horses
for them—“a good strong and well-set gelding and a man on his back meet
to wear a corselet and shoot a dagge” runs the specification. Did her
Majesty receive “letters out of Spain”? Copies of the same were sent to
the Earl “to the intent that you may thereby see what the humour and
disposition of those parties [i.e. the King of Spain and his emissary]
tend unto.” Did France goad Mary of Scotland into that unforgettable
offence—the adoption of the English royal arms? Then also must his
lordship be acquainted with the fact and its immense possibilities.
Presently active Scottish hostility seemed imminent, and the letter
which travelled to my Lord from Berwick to bid him have all his men in
readiness to move to the Border is cumbrously and theatrically endorsed
“Haste, haste, haste, haste, post haste with all possible haste.”
[Illustration:
_After a portrait at Rufford Abbey_
GEORGE TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY
]
[Illustration:
_After a portrait in the possession of the Duke of Portland_
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY
Page 38
]
The marriage of Mary and Darnley, the exciting news of the force raised
by the rebellious Earls of Moray and Arran against their Queen
immediately after the ceremony, the perilous position of Mary betwixt
her enemies—between Moray’s force on one side, secretly encouraged by
Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s forces, supplemented by two thousand Irish
and the Earl of Argyle’s company, on the other—the details of
field-pieces and “harquebusses,” all these events and matters passed in
review under the eyes of the splendid and cautious Earl of Shrewsbury.
Scarcely a day went by but some important paper or letter, official or
private, was put into his hands. At every turn he was helping to “make
history,” while he was a keen spectator of the Scottish drama up to the
point when Mary fled out of her own country to implore the aid and
protection of her sister sovereign.
It is now that the plot—Elizabeth’s plot which she had kept up her
sleeve—begins to peep out. The first authentic news of it apparently
went to the other Elizabeth, the newly made Countess of Shrewsbury, in
the following letter from the English Court. The signature is torn off,
but the correspondent has weighty news to tell, in spite of his
deprecatory attitude towards mere rumours:—
“My most humble duty remembered unto your honourable good Ladyship. If
it were not for my bounden duty’s sake I would be loth to write, because
there is so small certainty in occurrences, but (seeing I am bound to
write) it is but small that I see with my own eyes that is worth
writing, and therefore I am forced to supply by that I do hear; which I
write as I hear by credible report, otherwise I should not write at all,
and therefore if I do err it is pardonable. The news is here that my
Lord your husband is sworn of the Privy Council; and that the Scottish
Queen is on her journey to Tutbury, something against her will, and will
be under my Lord’s custody there.”
The rest of the letter is perhaps worth quoting, because it gives a
picture of public events and suggests such a spacious background for the
present life of Bess Hardwick. It deals with the war now beginning
between Spain and the Netherlands, owing to the barbarous treatment of
the latter by the Duke of Alva, and the commotion occasioned by it in
France.
“The report is that the Duke of Alva hath for the lack of money disarmed
the most part of his army; and they are not paid for that is past; but
rob and steal, and much molest the country. And being divers garrisons
at Maestricht of the Walloons the Duke sent to discharge them and sent
Spaniards in their place, who have shut the gates of the Spaniards and
refuse to deliver the town before they are paid their due.... In France
there is a great stir to let the Prince of Condé to join with the Prince
of Orange, so that the King divides his force, the Duke of Anjou to stop
the passage of the Prince of Condé, etc., etc.”
The letter ends with intimate details:—
“And so eftsoons Jesus preserve you and send my cousin Frances a good
hour and your honour a glad grandmother.
“Scribbled at London ... January, 1568.”
Evidently this “Frances” is the eldest daughter of the Countess, who
married Sir Henry Pierrepoint, and whose child is awaited.
Matters as regards the Earl of Shrewsbury did not move so fast as one
would expect. It was not till June of 1568 that the final orders reached
the Earl to make ready his “castle” of Tutbury for the reception of his
romantic royal prisoner. Mary was now at Carlisle, and the part which
the Earl was to play in her entourage as suggested in contemporary
letters has more the character of that of a prominent cavalier in a
princely retinue than that of a military gaoler. The description in the
French ambassador’s letter reads well:—
“A castle named Tutbury, which is only one hundred miles from
here”—London—“and is a very beautiful place as they say, especially for
hunting, in which, whenever it takes place, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who
has a portion of his estate in that neighbourhood, is ordered to give
her his company, along with other Lords and gentlemen thereabout.”
The Queen was feeling her way, slowly sounding the Shrewsburys’
relatives, careful always to assert her appreciation not only of lord,
but of lady. My Lord came to Court, and still her Majesty beat about the
bush.
The following letters[11] from the Earl belong to this epoch of the
lives of the newly wedded pair:—
“My dear none, being here arrived at Wingfield late yesternight from
Rofford, though very weary in toiling about, yet thinking you would be
desirous to hear from me, scribbled these few lines to let you
understand that I was in health and wished you anights with me. I picked
out a very good time, for since my coming from home I never had letters
but these this morning from Gilbert, which I send you. I mind to-morrow,
God willing, to be with you at Chatsworth: and in the meantime as
occurrences [befall] to me you shall be partaker of them. I thank you,
sweet none, for your baked capon, and chiefest of all for remembering of
me. It will be late to-morrow before my coming to Chatsworth, seven or
eight of the clock at the soonest: and so farewell, my true one.
“This 28th June.
“Your faithful husband,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
“My dear none, having received your letter of the first of December
which came in very good time, else had I sent one of these few remaining
with me to have brought me word of your health, which I doubted of for
that I heard not from you of all this time till now, which drove me in
dumps, but now relieved again by your writing unto me. I thank you,
sweet none, for your puddings and venison. The puddings have I bestowed
in this wise: [a] dozen to my Lady Cobham, and as many to my L. Steward
and unto my L. of Leicester: and the rest I have reserved to myself to
eat in my chamber. The venison is yet at London, but I have sent for it
hither.
“I perceive Ned Talbot hath been sick, and [is] now past danger. I thank
God I have such a none that is so careful over me and mine. God send me
soon home to possess my greatest joy: if you think it is you, you are
not deceived.
“I will not forget to deal with the Master of the Rolls for young
Knifton. He seems to be much my friend, and is now in dealing between
Denenge and me, for the lease of Abbot Stake, agreed upon by me and
Tamworth he should so do. He holds it at a thousand marks: and the
Master of the Rolls hath driven it to five hundred pounds, which
methinks too much for such a lease, yet because it lies so, as I am
informed, amongst Gilbert’s lands, I have made my steward to offer four
hundred pounds, and to get [delay] till the next term, because I would
have your advice therein. And for that I live in hope to be with you
before you can return answer again, you shall understand that this
present Monday in the morning finding the Queen in the garden at good
leisure, I gave her Majesty thanks that she had so little regard to the
clamorous people of Bolsover[12] in my absence. She declared unto me
what evil speech was against me, my nearness and state in housekeeping,
and as much as was told her, which she now believes with as good words
as I could wish, declaring that ere it were long I should well perceive
she did so trust me as she did few. She would not tell me therein, but
[I] doubt [not] it was about the custody of the Scottish Queen. Here is
private speech that Gates and Vaughan should make suit to have her, but
this day I perceive it is altered. I think before Sunday these matters
will come to some pass, that we shall know how long our abode shall be,
but howsoever it falls out, I will not fail but be with you before
Christmas, or else you shall come to me.
“The plague is dispersed far abroad in London, so that the Queen keeps
her Christmas here, and goeth not to Greenwich as it was meant. My Lady
Cobham, your dear friend, wishes your presence here: she loves you well.
I tell her I have the cause to love her best, for that she wished me so
well to speed as I did: and as the pen writes so the heart thinks, that
of all earthly joys that hath happened unto me, I thank God chiefest for
you: for with you I have all joy and contentation of mind, and without
you death is more pleasant to me than life if I thought I should long be
from you: and therefore, good wife, do as I will do, hope shortly of our
meeting, and farewell, dear sweet none. From Hampton Court this Monday
at midnight, for it is every night so late before I go to my bed, being
at play in the privy chamber at Premiro, where I have lost almost a
hundred pounds, and lacked my sleep.
“Your faithful husband till death,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“Wife, tell my daughter Maule that I am not pleased with her that she
hath not written to me with her sister: yet will I not forget her and
the rest, and pray God to bless them all.
“To my wife the Countess of Shrewsbury at Tutbury give this.”
The daughter “Maule” here named is evidently Mary. Besides Gilbert and
Grace Talbot, married as stated to the Cavendish daughter and son of
Lady Shrewsbury, the Earl’s children were Francis, the eldest (who
married Anne Herbert, daughter of William Earl of Pembroke, and did not
inherit, since he died in 1582); Mary, who married Sir George Saville,
Kt.; Catherine, who married Henry Earl of Pembroke; Edward, who married
Jane (elder daughter of Cuthbert Lord Ogle, co-heiress with the wife of
Charles Cavendish), and succeeded to his father’s title, after Gilbert,
as eighth earl; and Henry Talbot, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
William Rayner, and left two daughters.
The next letter from the Earl gives the Queen’s important decision:—
“My dear none, I have received your letter of the 8th of December,
wherein appeareth your desire for my soon coming. What my desire is
thereunto, I refer the same to your construsion.[13] If I so judge of
time, methinks time longer since my coming hither without you, my only
joy, than I did since I married you: such is faithful affection, which I
never tasted so deeply of before. This day or to-morrow we shall know
great likelihood of our despatch. I think it will be Christmas Even
before I shall arrive at Tutbury. Things fall out very evil against the
Scots’ Queen. What she shall do yet is not resolved of.
“As it chances, I am glad that I am here: for if I were not I were like
to have most part of my leases granted over my head: there is such suit
for leases in reversion of the Duchy. My park that I have in keeping
called Morley Park is granted in reversion for thirty years, wherein I
have made some stir. My good neighbour hath a promise of it, and if I
can get it put in I am about to get a friend of mine to put the forest
of the Peak in his book. I have offered a thousand pounds for a lease in
reversion for thirty years. I must pay Denege five hundred and forty-one
for his lease of Stoke. How money will be had for these matters assure
you I know not. I will make such means to Mr. Mildmay for the stay of
Tutbury tithe, as I will not be prevented: for it is high time, for
there was never such striving and prancing for leases in reversion as be
now at this present.
“My L. Steward hath been sick and in danger, but now well. My L.
Sheffield is departed this life; and my L. Paget just after. Your black
man is in health.
“Your faithful husband till my end,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“From the Court this Monday the 13th of December. Now it is certain the
Scots’ Queen comes to Tutbury to my charge. In what order I cannot
ascertain you.
“To my wife the Countess of Shrewsbury
at Tutbury give this.”
It was not till just the close of 1568 that Shrewsbury was certain of
his new duty and in a position to write that triumphant postscript.
Within a month, in the beginning of the New Year, he had taken over from
Sir Francis Knollys the task which was to prove so engrossing,
stupendous, so provocative of every imaginable complication, official
and domestic.
Imagine the excitement of my Lady at such a juncture! She knew the
Scottish Queen only by hearsay, and her curiosity must have been kept at
boiling pitch while her heart swelled with importance in the
anticipation of the additional chatelaine’s duties thrust upon her by
the august guest. She had known what it was to deal with a princess in
captivity, for she had been acquainted with Elizabeth before her
accession. The present matter was far more vital, more portentous. The
Queen who rode wearily from Bolton Castle to Sheffield and thence to
Tutbury must be humoured as Queen, served as queens are served, but a
network of rules were being prepared, not only for her own retinue and
the household, but for earl and lady.
The Earl, foreseeing all such domestic complications, had asked the
Council for directions as to the treatment of his prisoner.
“Remembrances for my L. of Shrewsbury” stands at the head of notes, in
his handwriting, all duly numbered. Of these No. 5 reads, “For my wife’s
access unto her, if she send for her.”
To this the reply in Cecil’s handwriting is, “The Queen of Scots may see
the Countess, if she is sick, or for any other necessary cause, but
rarely. No other gentlewoman must be allowed access to her.” The
remainder of the rules are strict enough, and the pleasant country-house
picture drawn by the French Ambassador, De la Forest, in the letter
quoted, is rudely effaced by these details. Shrewsbury is to be well
fortified by an array of facts against the Scottish Queen, lest her
pleading should win his sympathies and her captive condition arouse his
indignation too deeply. How the regulations at every turn reveal
Elizabeth of England—at once autocratic and apprehensive of her own
importance, at once trustful and suspicious! The document is so vital a
part of the household appanage of the Shrewsburys from this moment until
the close of their wardership that it is worth quoting in the concise
form in which, partly in the original and partly as abstract, it is
given in Leader’s admirable _Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity_.
“A memorial of certain thinges imparted by the Q. Matie to the erle of
Shrewsbery, for the causes following. Gyven at Hampton Courte, the
xxvjth day of January 1568, the xjth year of her Mates reign. The Q. has
chosen him in consequence of his approved loyalty and faithfulness, and
the ancient state and blood from which he is descended, to have the
custody of the Queen of Scots.
“The Earl is to treat her, being a Queen, of the Queen Elizabeth’s
blood, with the reverence and honour meet for a person of his state and
calling and for her degree. He must ask Lord Scrope and the Vice
Chamberlain [Knollys] about the ceremonies used by them towards her,
that ‘she may not find herself to be in the usage of herself abused, nor
by this removing to have her State amended.’
“Whatever honour he gives her he must take care that by no pretence she
finds any means to gain any rule over him to practise for her escape.
She must have no opportunity either to escape nor yet to practise with
anyone to help her to escape. He doubtless knows how important it is to
the Queen’s honour and reputation and quietness that Mary does not
depart without the Queen’s assent. No persons must be in conference with
her except those already placed about her as her ordinary servants, and
those who have special licence from the Queen. The latter for no longer
time than is mentioned in the licence.
“If any persons coming to visit the Earl or anyone in his household,
proffer to come to her presence, or to have conference with any
belonging to her, or if she invites them to come to her presence in the
house or abroad, under colour of hunting, or other pastime, he shall
warn them to forbear, and if needful use his authority to make them
desist, and send their names to the Queen.
“Persons coming out of Scotland to see her, if of degrees above that of
servants, or if noted to be busy men and practicers, must be remitted to
the Queen for licence. If they are mean servants or persons coming only
to have relief of her, he shall not be so straight towards them as to
give her occasion to say she is kept a prisoner, and yet he must
understand their errands and not suffer them to abide where she shall
be, or to hover about the country.
“He must make a view of all her ordinary servants when he first takes
the charge, and cause a household roll to be made of those necessary and
of those who were with her at Bolton. With the advice of the Vice
Chamberlain, he must reduce the number, omitting those who are
superfluous and who are fit rather for practices than service.... Her
diet must be kept at the former rate, and payments made by the clerk who
was sent for that purpose from the Queen’s household. He (my Lord
Shrewsbury) must consult the Vice Chamberlain as to the watching of the
house, as he knows her condition and the disposition of those about her.
The Queen intended her first to be placed at Tutbury Castle but as the
house is not fit, if she is nearer the Earl’s house of Sheffield than
Tutbury, she shall remain there till further orders. If she is at
Tutbury, it is left to the Earl’s discretion to allow her to remain, or
to remove her to Sheffield or any other of the Earl’s houses.
“Because it is thought that she will try to make the Earl think her
cause worthy of favour, and that she is not well used in being
restrained from liberty, the Queen has ordered, that beside the
knowledge which the Earl has of the presumptions produced against her
for the murder of her husband, and her unlawful marriage with the
principal murderer Bothwell, he shall also be informed of other
particulars too long to write here, that he may answer her and her
favourers. He may say, as of himself, that if she is known to utter any
speeches touching the Queen’s honour or doings, it may be an occasion to
publish all her actions, which once being done cannot be revoked, but
many things must follow to her prejudice.
“The Earl will be allowed wages for 40 persons at 6d. a day, to be used
at his discretion.”
As a matter of fact the house at Tutbury was certainly “not fit” for the
reception of any guest. The Shrewsburys made application to the Queen
for hangings and necessaries in the way of furniture; and these were
promised. But they did not arrive. Mary was growing obstreperous and
visited all her misery and annoyance on her present gaoler, Sir Francis
Knollys. He, poor man, was in despair, with his wife dying, and his
piteous requests for discharge from duty unheeded by Elizabeth. No
wonder he wrote at last to say that he would take the matter into his
own hands, “and as sure as God is in heaven, repair to Court, and suffer
any punishment that may be laid upon him, rather than continue in such
employment.”
And still the much-needed furniture was not in its place. At last my
Lady Shrewsbury, no doubt in desperation, took down such hangings as
there were at Sheffield, and with the help of the borrowed details set
to work to prepare Tutbury. A supplementary instalment of household
articles from Court helped to complete the necessaries. The journey from
Bolton began on January 25th, in morose, biting weather. It brought Mary
of Scotland to the single gate in the wall surrounding Tutbury on the
afternoon of February 4th, a Friday. The position of this place was fair
enough in the beautiful valley of the Dove, but it was not all the
French Ambassador imagined it, and my lady and her household were sore
put to it to make it habitable. The scene of commotion and bustle must
have palpitated with drama. With messengers bringing letters and the
rumours and counter-rumours which filtered through from the country folk
the ten days of Queen Mary’s journey southward must have been a period
of extraordinary tension for all immediately concerned. The condition of
that busy, expectant household at Tutbury under my Lady’s command is
best suggested in the imaginary dialogue overleaf.
CHAPTER IV
HUBBUB
_Scene_: The presence chamber of Tutbury Castle on a raw day of
February, 1569. A casement flapping in the wind. Crimson velvet
drapery lies on the floor, and two women squat there, stitching at
it. Beyond, through an open door, a suite of smaller rooms full of
furniture.
_First Sewing Woman._ You tug too much of the velvet over to you, Mary.
Let be, and be content with your share.
_Second Sewing Woman._ I only desire to help you, Richardyne. I scarcely
can hold my needle for the cold.
_1st S.W._ Then shut the window, you fool.
_2nd S.W._ Nay, fool I am not, though I be younger than you. For I did
not set the window open. It was the cook. Call him to fasten it.
_1st S.W._ The cook indeed! His part is to bake and stew, not hang out
of the casements.
_2nd S.W._ Will there be a great feast, do you think, when this Queen
comes?
_1st S.W._ There will be feasts every night.
_2nd S.W._ Lord! how happy it will be! They say she loves dancing.
_1st S.W._ Who told you this?
_2nd S.W._ The post that brought my Lord’s letter from Bolton. He knew,
for he spoke like a Scottish man.
_1st S.W._ Now I see why the fiddler has come from Chatsworth.
_2nd S.W._ Yes, to make music he has come. He begged my Lady so sore to
keep him here that she promised the poor wretch at last——
_1st S.W._ There he is, playing down by the kitchen.
_2nd S.W._ He is coming here. [_Gets up hastily and trips over the
velvet. Enter a youth with branches of laurel and ivy. He puts them on a
table, and is about to retire when the fiddler enters playing and
bowing._]
_The Youth._ What do you here, old scraping John?
_Fiddler._ More than you, fellow of discord, with idle arms.
_The Youth_ [_angrily_]. They are only waiting to pound thee.
_Fiddler._ I am my Lord’s servant more than you. He has many boys like
you who can stand and stare, but only one who can fiddle.
_The Youth_ [_advancing_]. Look to thyself. Thy catgut will not shield
thee much.
_Fiddler_ [_from behind the table_]. Help, help, Master Crompe!
_The Women_ [_rising and flinging the velvet over the chair_]. Help,
help—porter, cook, men, all of you!
_1st S.W._ [_to the youth_]. Boy, do not brawl in the presence chamber.
_2nd S.W._ No, no, it is foolish. We each must work to-day that we may
dance another day. And how can we dance if you break the fiddler’s head?
_The Youth_ [_furious_]. He is a lewd fellow, smooth and gentle to you
wenches, but a liar——
_Fiddler._ Master Crompe. He calls me a liar. [_Enter the Steward,
Crompe._]
_Crompe._ Stop your bellowing, all. You, Fiddler—drown the chatter with
your music, if music you must make. Her Ladyship comes. You—boy, go to
the bed-chambers above and help to carry down the napery which she will
give you. Oh! there is more to accomplish than any hands can do. The
stables are not yet ready, two of the scullions are drunk and must go,
the carpenters are short of wood for the mending of the walls of my
Lord’s guardroom, the roof of the dining-hall leaks, and the roll of
canvas for the wall behind the dais, which is mossy and wet, has not
come from France. [_Goes out shaking his head._]
_2nd S.W._ [_mimicking him_]. Lord, oh, Lord! the sky will tumble on our
heads.
_1st S.W._ Get back to work, girl. These velvets are for the Scots
Queen’s bedroom.
_2nd S.W._ Is that true? I will stitch hard if—Master Fiddler will play.
_Fiddler._ All work, not forgetting the business of eating, goes better
to music. [_Begins to play, walking up and down the room._]
_2nd S.W._ [_laughing_]. I cannot sew. There is an itch in my ankles.
_1st S.W._ Fudge!
_2nd S.W._ Do you think it is the plague that I have?
_Fiddler._ It means that you must dance and not sew.
[_2nd S.W., jumping up, gathers up her petticoats, and prances in
time. The Fiddler plays on, and the youth, entering with napery,
thrusts it on to the large table and joins the dance._]
_2nd S.W._ Faster, Master Fiddler, till feet are as hot as toasts.
[_In the middle of it, with a jingle of keys and a rustle of skirts,
enter my Lady of Shrewsbury with a long roll of paper in her
hands._]
_Bess_ [_in the doorway_]. Is this how my command is obeyed?
[_The music dies away with a trickle, the dancers fall back against
the wall._]
_1st S.W._ [_rises and curtsies_]. Richardyne’s feet were cold, my Lady,
and she danced to save them from blains.
_Bess_ [_drily_]. A mess of mustard were the quicker way, I think, to
cure _that_. [_To the youth._] And you—have you also frozen toes?
_Youth._ Y—yes, my Lady.
_Bess._ Then go and keep watch outside the castle gate in the wind. That
will warm you quick enow. You can play Jumping Joan all the while and
nobody to stop you. But so soon as you see a light upon the hill it is
the signal that the Queen has passed the woods and is close. [_Exit
Youth._] [_To the Fiddler._] Remember—you—you must not intrude if you
are to be suffered here. You must stay in the kitchens till you are
wanted.
_Fiddler._ My Lady, I went looking for you and thought to find you here
to know my duties.
_Bess._ Like enough! Make no noise till you are ordered. [_He turns to
go._] Stop! What tunes can you play?
_Fiddler._ A hundred and more—“The Derby Ram,” “The Nun’s Green
Rangers,” “The Unconscionable Bachelors,” “The Derby Hero,” “The
Bakewell”——
_Bess._ Silence! I do not desire to listen to your dictionary. How do
you call the air you played but now?
_Fiddler._ The title I know not, my Lady, but the song of it begins—
You have a lodging in my heart
For which you pay no rent.
_Bess._ Marry, and you chose that to greet the Queen?
_Fiddler._ It is for you to choose, my Lady.
_Bess._ Go to, go to. Back to the kitchens with your fiddle. I will
choose later. [_Enter Master Crompe._] Crompe, Crompe, did you hear what
he said—the name of his tune?
_Crompe._ Yes, my Lady.
_Bess._ He is an impudent fellow, Crompe.
_Crompe._ Innocent I trust, my Lady.
_Bess._ There was a wink in his eye, Crompe. [_Stamps her foot._] “You
have a lodging in my heart”—forsooth!—“For which you pay no rent!” Mark
that, Crompe. It mislikes me much. He should play that to my Lord
Treasurer at Court. An’ the next letter gives no surety of that I will
no more tear down my tapestries to furnish a prison-house.
_Crompe_ [_soothingly_]. My Lord has her Majesty’s promise in writing
that the furnishments shall be sent. And for the present we can make
shift.
_Bess._ Well, well, time passes and nothing is finished. [_Seats herself
at the table._] Bring me the ink, good Crompe, that I may check the
appointments in the Scots Queen’s chambers. [_Crompe goes out._] Crompe,
Crompe, who has littered this room with this green stuff?
_1st S.W._ I heard Mistress Elizabeth Cavendish command the branches to
be gathered for garlands.
_Bess._ Garlands?
_2nd S.W._ For the Queen’s welcome.
_Bess._ Idleness and foolery. Garlands! [_Catches sight of her daughter
Elizabeth in the doorway._] Bet, why do you bring confusion into my
plans?
_Elizabeth._ Lady mother, there were no flowers. I have sought in the
lanes, and there is no joy in them. And so I would twine the laurels and
ivy into chains and see the leaves shine in the firelight.
_Bess_ [_sharply_]. No time for garlands. There will be chains enough
truly. Go, fetch me this green stuff away. Throw it out of the window,
Crompe. Bet, fetch your needle and mend me yonder cushion. [_Goes to
door and calls._] Mrs. Glasse! Wenches! [_Women come running. Mrs.
Glasse, the housekeeper, follows with a bundle of linen._]
_Bess._ Listen to me, all of you. Here is my Lord’s tale of the things
which must be ready. As I read so do you answer, Mrs. Glasse. Thirty
pallets must be ready.
_Mrs. Glasse._ Only twenty have mattresses, my Lady.
_Bess._ Have you not five feather-beds, woman?
_Mrs. G._ Only three, my Lady. The two others have been taken for the
captain of the soldiers that is coming.
_Bess._ By whose order?
_Mrs. G._ I know not.
_Bess._ Take them away instantly and put instead the old mattress from
the old state-couch. The other five must make shift without mattresses.
_Mrs. G._ My Lady, there are not pillows for more than fifteen beds.
_Bess._ But yesterday I gave you out ten new ones.
_Mrs. G._ We still lack fifteen, save your Ladyship will allow those of
chaff to be used.
_Bess._ Use anything, all you can lay hands upon. Lord, Lord! all my
substance is swallowed, and still you cry “More pillows!” Beshrew me if
you do not eat pillows. Alice, are the ewers and basins in place?
_Alice._ Yes, m’lady, though one is cracked and two were broken early
this morning by my Lord’s hound, which sprang through the window, so
that I dropped them in my fright.
_Bess._ Lord! these people eat ewers as fast as pillows! Take away the
cracked one and put brass ewers for the other two. No, stay. Leave the
cracked one. They say this Queen’s folk have a crazy fancy for little
dogs and darlings. If we place them new pitchers, they will only break
those also.
_Alice._ Little French dogs...? Oh, they will be sport!
_Bess._ Hold thy idiot’s tongue. Pray Heaven they do not bring monkeys
also, like Lady Catherine Grey[14] when she went to the Tower. Kate,
where is the Queen’s coverlet? [_Girls bring it forward._] There is an
ugly darn in it. It shall be hidden with some gold lace. Fetch my Lord’s
old riding-cloak and rip the galloon quickly from it. Do not use the
broad, but the narrow. It will seem well enough. To work, to work!
[_Re-enter Crompe._]
_Crompe._ The cook and his fellows be ready, my Lady.
_Bess._ Let him come. [_Enter a procession of kitchen men with dishes._]
_Bess_ [_reading from the roll before her_]. A pair of capons stuffed
with chestnuts.
_Cook._ The garnishing has yet to be done, my Lady.
_Bess._ A brisket of pork.
_Cook._ Boy—bring it round.
[_A cook’s boy parades with the dish._]
_Bess._ Six carp—these should be served hot.
_Cook._ My Lady, they simmer slowly.
_Bess_ [_reading_]. A roast of beef.
[_Two boys parade it and pass on._]
_Bess_ [_going on with the list, while the dishes are presented in
turn_.]
Hare with little jellies.
Plover trussed and stuffed.
Wheaten cakes.
A mess of furmity.
A heron stewed. You dolts, this should be heated!
_Cook._ My Lady, my Lady—the ovens will heat it again quickly. I brought
it hither that your Ladyship should taste the sauce. [_Presents a spoon.
Bess tastes._]
_Bess._ I mislike the onion. And for a Queen, there is too much aniseed.
Mark that if the dish goes untouched.
_Cook._ My Lady, they say this Queen will bring her own
tasting-gentleman.
_Bess._ Surely, yes, surely. Who will she not bring? Her
tasting-gentleman to see she is not poisoned by you, Master Cook.
Swallow the insult and say your prayers and be sparing of your herbs in
future. You were always too set upon aniseed, and ’tis fit only for the
colic, to my thinking. Get on, get on with your dishes.... H’m! the
pasties ... here is only one of liver. I told Crompe to command two ...
two of liver and two of apples. [_The pasties are presented._]
_Bess._ Fifty loaves.
_Cook._ Thirty-eight are here.
_Bess_ [_angrily_]. Always something lacking, it seems. A plague, you
fellows! Understand me, Cook, if the castle goes hungry you shall go
more hungry, and your purse still more. Briskets, sallets, eggs,
cheeses—where are they? Crompe, here—take you the bill, and if anything
lacks you know who shall first go supperless. Not the Queen, and not
your master and lady. Nor the Queen’s folk either. But you, Crompe—do
you hear me? You!
_Crompe_ [_agitated_]. Yes, my Lady. Indeed, my Lady.... I have made
provision to your order ... for twenty persons.
_Bess._ Twenty? And I have told you forty....
_Crompe._ Thirty beds said Mrs. Glasse.
_Bess._ Mrs. Glasse knows nothing. Dare you scream ever to me of Mrs.
Glasse, Crompe? [_More quietly._] Listen, listen. The Queen brings five
gentlemen—hungry riding gentlemen; six gentlewomen—weary riding women.
God help us for their airs and graces, their wants and their want-nots!
And the gentlemen must have their men. God help us again! Three in
number these men. And the gentlewomen will bring two wives to wait on
them, and there will be fourteen servitors, three cooks. Crompe, cease
that arithmetic of your fingers, for it incenses me!—Four boys, ten
wenches and children——
_Crompe_ [_aghast, counting on his fingers behind his back_]. ’Tis
forty-eight without the children, my Lady.
_Bess._ Well, well, can I not add two and two as well as you, Crompe?
Does it help me if you stand there with a mouth like a porringer?
_Crompe._ But the children, my Lady!
_Bess._ And the horses, Crompe!
_Crompe._ Then there will be grooms also.
_Bess._ Oil your wits, Crompe, and think of the grooms. Man alive! if
you stand in that spot the world will take you for a root of mandragora,
to be torn out, howling, by dogs! Stir, stir! Do somewhat, or, if you
cannot of yourself, remember you have a mistress, my good fool!
[_Rustles out into the corridor._]
_Crompe_ [_aside_]. Who should ever forget it?
_2nd S.W._ [_jumping up, points through the casement_]. See, there is
something. A boy runs ... ’tis a post. My Lady, my Lady.
[_Re-enter Lady Shrewsbury._]
_2nd S.W._ My Lady ... there is a fire lighted on that hill, and a boy
comes running.
_Bess._ Then the Frenchwoman is upon us. For God’s sake leave your
stitching, and mend the rest with pins and nails as you best can! The
carpenter shall aid you. To the Queen’s bedchamber—quick, quick!
[_Drives them in front of her._] Crompe, you follow.... No—go to the
stables, the kitchens. Tell the men to bring more coals and bigger
logs.... [_Exeunt.... Her voice pursues the servants down the
corridors._] Pile high the fires! Higher! More logs! Have the torches
ready! Pile high the fires!
CHAPTER V
MAKE-BELIEVE
All the mighty fuss and preparation aforesaid sufficed only to make
Tutbury barely habitable. The airy, pleasant impressions of the French
Ambassador were literally castles in the air compared with the fastness
itself to which Mary of Scotland travelled. To begin with, her retinue
numbered sixty persons, and Heaven knows where they all slept that first
night. Mary’s own rooms were small enough, and she complained bitterly
of them and of the condition of the whole building. Here is her
description in a subsequent letter:—
“I am in a walled enclosure, on the top of a hill, exposed to all the
winds and inclemencies of heaven. Within the said enclosure, resembling
that of the wood of Vincennes, there is a very old hunting lodge, built
of timber and plaster, cracked in all parts, the plaster adhering
nowhere to the woodwork and broken in numberless places; the said lodge
distant three fathoms or thereabouts from the walls, and situated so low
that the rampart of earth which is behind the wall is on a level with
the highest point of the building, so that the sun can never shine upon
it on that side, nor any fresh air come to it; for which reason it is so
damp, that you cannot put any piece of furniture in that part without
its being in four days completely covered with mould. I leave you to
think how this must act upon the human body; and, in short, the greater
part of it is rather a dungeon for base and abject criminals than the
habitation fit for a person of my quality, or even of a much lower....
The only apartments that I have for my own person consist—and for the
truth of this I can appeal to all those that have been here—of two
little rooms, so excessively cold, especially at night, that, but for
the ramparts and entrenchments of curtains and tapestry which I have had
made, it would not be possible for me to stay in them in the daytime;
and out of those who have sat up with me at night during my illnesses,
scarcely one has escaped without fluxion, cold, or some disorder.”
As for the gay hunting parties which had been anticipated, the only
exercise allowed her was in a palisaded vegetable patch called by
courtesy a garden.
The first fortnight of that time must have placed a severe strain on the
temper and endurance of the autocratic chatelaine. She was not to have
access to the royal prisoner, she must obey the orders of her
gaoler-husband, himself constantly on tenter-hooks lest his cranky abode
should suffer sudden attack from Mary’s friends, lest sickness should
attack her, or quarrels be brewed between her motley household and his
own. My Lady Bess—for once—must keep herself well in the background and
still contrive provision for that big household. Doubtless it was she
who backed the Earl in his determination to secure at once an
understanding with the English Queen as to the household expenditure of
the prisoner. He put in a claim for £500 as a preliminary, and a weekly
allowance of £52 was arranged. Whether he received it remains to be
seen. Mary was not yet entirely a prisoner. That is to say she did not
realise herself as one. Her sister-queen was too crafty to permit that.
Shrewsbury, who found Mary calm and, at the outset, bearing household
inconveniences cheerfully—hopeful that they were but temporary—gave her
a little leash here and there. She evidently insisted on seeing Bess
Shrewsbury. “The Queen continueth daily resort unto my wife’s chamber,
where, with the Lady Leviston and Mrs. Seaton, she useth to sit working
with the needle, in which she much delighteth, and in devising of works;
and her talk is altogether of indifferent and trifling matters without
ministering any sign of secret dealing and practice.” So wrote my Lord
gaoler to reassure all at Court who might suspect him of insufficient
strictness. The fact is, a long and detailed letter to Sir William Cecil
from Nicholas White, the first visitor of importance who had spoken at
length with Mary at Tutbury, had sounded the alarm. “If I,” says this
gentleman, “might give advice there should be very few subjects in this
land have access to or conference with this lady. For, beside that she
is a goodly personage ... she hath withal an alluring grace, a pretty
Scottish accent, and a searching wit crowned with mildness. Fame might
move some to relieve her, and glory joined to gain might stir others to
adventure much for her sake. Then joy is a lively infective sense, and
carrieth many persuasions to the heart which ruleth all the rest. Mine
own affection by seeing the Queen’s majesty, our sovereign, is doubled,
and thereby I guess what sight might work in others.” This was the
impression she made on a young and gallant courtier loyal enough to
Elizabeth. Here, again, she is in the form of a veritable problem as
viewed by her first warder, Knollys, who delivered her into Shrewsbury’s
charge. Knollys also pours out his impressions to Cecil:—
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the picture at Hardwick
Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
]
“This lady and princess is a notable woman; she seemeth to regard no
ceremonious honour beside the acknowledging of her estate regal; she
sheweth a disposition to speak much, to be bold, to be pleasant, and to
be very familiar. She sheweth a great desire to be avenged of her
enemies, she sheweth a readiness to expose herself to all perils in hope
of victory, she delighteth much to hear of hardiness and valiancy,
commending by name all approved hardy men of her country, although they
be her enemies, and she concealeth no cowardice even in her friends. The
thing that most she thirsteth after is victory, and it seemeth to be
indifferent to her to have her enemies diminished either by the sword of
her friends, or by the liberal promises and rewards of her purse, or by
division and quarrels raised among themselves: so that for victory’s
sake pain and peril seemeth pleasant unto her: and in respect of
victory, wealth and all things seemeth to her contemptible and vile. Now
what is to be done with such a lady and a princess, or whether such a
princess and lady to be nourished in one’s bosom? or whether it be good
to halt and dissemble with such a lady I refer to your judgment.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ APARTMENTS AND DUNGEONS AT TUTBURY
Page 66
]
It did not take Shrewsbury and his lady long to realise what they had
undertaken to nourish in their bosom. The great thing was to distract
her with light and little things. Of these she had sufficient at first
to prevent her from much brooding in the intervals of writing her vivid
and endless letters to France, to Scotland, to Burghley, and to the
English Queen. Gentleman visitors being practically taboo, there
remained only the Countess of Shrewsbury as a set-off from Mary’s own
ladies. These were few—Mrs. Bruce and Lady Livingston, who was ailing,
while of the “four Maries,” whose beauty and grace helped to weave the
romantic legend of the vanished Court at Holyrood, there remained in the
royal service but one, Mary Seton. Her Queen took a special interest in
her, and was very dependent on her. Mary Seton surely knew her mistress
through and through. Her post must at times have been one of great risk
and mental torture. She was constantly in personal attendance, dealing
with the Queen’s wardrobe and dressing her hair—for in this, history
says, she was as clever as any skilled perruquier. Mary at first
scarcely had a rag to cover her. Two bits of black velvet and some
darned underclothing had been doled out to her, by Elizabeth, on her
arrival in England. Much scorn and merriment they surely caused in the
Scotch Queen’s closet! Clothing to wrap her, hangings—that veritable
“rampart” of tapestries of which Mary spoke in the letter quoted—were
necessary for her existence, and she would have her environment gracious
and artistic even if the tapestries were of sacking. With the aid, no
doubt, of Bess the chatelaine, some appearance of regality was contrived
and maintained—so the letters of the day show—as best might be. The
Shrewsburys had no objection to that. Everyone entered apparently on the
surface into the little game of make-believe which “this Queen here” (as
she is constantly described in letters from the houses in which she was
immured) played throughout the fifteen years of her life under the
Earl’s roof. For Mary was ever an arch-romanticist. This sense of
romance constituted two-thirds of her attraction. Both Queens were
playing waiting games, but Mary was determined to play hers effectively
in spite of all conditions. And thus we have that vivid picture of her
pretence court carried on under the eye of Bess Shrewsbury. The Scots
Queen, seated on her dais under her canopy bearing the elusive legend
“En ma fin est mon commencement,” issued her orders touching her
household, received eagerly all scraps of news which filtered through to
her and any visitors that were permitted. But the more interesting part
was that of the Earl’s lady, who stood as the social barrier between the
outer world, so full of stirring incident, and the mock court indoors.
How much to tell her Scottish majesty and how little, what gossip to
retail and what to suppress, was no light task for a talkative,
energetic lady, who knew the ins and outs not only of the English Court
but the character of its mistress. Mary was always good company.
Elizabeth gave her subjects plenty to talk about. One wonders, in the
light of a certain letter which Mary afterwards wrote to the Queen, how
far[15] Bess Shrewsbury allowed her tongue at this juncture to trip out
of sheer vivacity and desire to please her prisoner-guest. Just now,
however, it is too early to imagine intrigue in this direction. The
women could safely discuss clothes and the new fashion of doing the
hair. Mary Seton was acknowledged to be the best “busker of hair in any
country,” “and every other day she had a new device of head-dressing,
without any cost, and yet setteth forth a woman gaily well.” Mary loved
her wigs, her headdresses, embroidery, her little pets, and the
contriving of presents of needlework. With these Bess could sympathise.
On occasion she wanted French silks, and when Mary wrote to France a
list of goods which she desired, she would send for a length of silk for
my Lady, and a friendly transaction took place between the two. Truly a
charming relationship! And all the time Mary was not too bored, for she
was writing love letters to her new suitor—the Duke of Norfolk.
Let us take in the political situation for a moment. It was the spring
of 1569—just two years since the murder of Darnley, since when Mary had
the impression of a procession of violent events to wipe out of her
mind. Events since that horrible night had travelled at a wild speed.
Her abasement before Bothwell, her desperate game of bluff—that is to
say, her mad marriage with him, in spite of the opposition of all her
friends, while she yet wore her discreet mourning for the wretched
Darnley—her sudden awakening to bare realities, and the shock of the
knowledge that she had given herself wholly to a mere adventurer, and a
brutal one at that—these were some of the sinister facts over which, in
this solitude and stillness of her English life, she had time enough to
brood. Then came the final revelation of the almost wholesale perfidy of
her Scottish noblemen, and the three weeks of her ghastly third
honeymoon, which amounted to nothing but a preliminary imprisonment,
ending in the gross insults of the populace, which drove her distracted
on her way to the fortress of Lochleven. The detection and flight of
Bothwell, her Scottish imprisonment, her escape and her flight to
England—all these were part of the crimson pageant from which she had
emerged, shattered in body, soul-worn, to face the problem of her life.
Her baby boy was far from her in the hands of her brother and worst
enemy, Earl Moray, the traitor to whom the power of Elizabeth gave
approval as regent. But Moray himself had executed a _volte-face_. For
his own purposes he now assumed a highly moral and affectionate tone
towards his kinswoman. He advised this, her fourth marriage, on the
score that it was the best chance of wiping out the stigma which clung
to her in connection with her passion for Bothwell and her illegal union
with him. “Take a suitable and godly person to be your spouse and you
will at once assume a very high place in my excellent esteem” was
practically his attitude. Mary knew his power. Was not the villain in
constant intercourse with Cecil, Elizabeth’s right hand? She knew also
that marriage was the only way out of prison and back to her throne.
Three husbands had failed her. Even Moray conceded that she “had been
troubled in times past with children, young, proud fools, and furious
men”—the anæmic Francis II, Darnley, and Bothwell. As a woman she could
attract any man she chose. And the Duke of Norfolk was one of the
premier gentlemen of England, inclined to espouse her faith, and had
powerful friends among the nobles near the Border. The plan was
exciting. France and Spain must back her up in it. It was very difficult
to send and receive letters. No wonder that the strain of this secret,
with the bad weather and the difficulties under which the Tutbury
household laboured of securing sufficient provisions and sufficient fuel
to warm the cranky building, resulted in the illness of the prisoner.
After much letter-writing there came from Court the permission for
removal for which the Earl and Mary longed. The household was to take up
its abode now at Wingfield Manor. Away went my Lady ahead to put up the
curtains and see to the carpets and pallets and other upholstery, and a
week or two later away went the cavalcade after her. Her chatelaine’s
art and dexterity had freer play here. Wingfield Manor, in its ruins,
suggests a house of grace, comfort, and importance, well proportioned,
and soundly built in a stately manner. Even Mary, aware of its tolerably
fortified nature, its guardroom and dungeons, its massive keep and
earthworks, conscious of the nightly sentinels under her windows, could
call it “a fair palace.” And my Lady was surely in her element. It was
not exactly the rich domestic peace, the family life for which she or
her husband had bargained. They were forced to isolate themselves from
their children to a great extent, lest the comings and goings connected
with their own family should entice strangers or messengers of doubtful
character. But the eyes of England were upon the Earl and his lady.
Where Mary was there abounded romance, intrigue, and mystery. Spain,
France, Scotland, all were watchful, waiting for the least news. And
possibly the Queen’s command and the distinction conferred on the
Shrewsburys carried them far along the painful task on which they had
embarked. There is no doubt that Bess had a better time of it in the
bargain than her lord. The ultimate responsibility was his. Moreover,
his was a nature conscientious almost to a morbid degree. He was forced
to receive attacks without and within and to keep his head cool. He must
report himself in long letters to Mr. Treasurer, he must bear with the
complaints and entreaties of his captive. Mary was not so much of a
prisoner that she could not rush to his suite of rooms and upbraid the
authority by which her Scottish messengers were detained and her letters
examined. Her abuse and lamentation, defiance and tears were shared
alike by husband and wife. In reporting all this in detail to the Court,
he insists upon the necessity of his wife’s co-operation. In the same
breath he makes it piteously clear that the matter is not one for
diversion or satisfaction to either of them. In this picture he draws of
their joint life in such letters, Tutbury or Wingfield shelters not one
prisoner, but three. The royal lady is scarcely a moment out of their
sight or hearing. The only advantage of her constant invasion of my
Lady’s chamber is that the latter may watch her the more closely and
report more minutely upon her looks and words.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Valentine and Sons, Dundee_
THE RUINS OF WINGFIELD MANOR
Page 70
]
Already by this time the Shrewsburys could enter into the feelings of
Sir Francis Knollys when he longed to shake off his irksome duties. Had
the Earl foreseen the extent of the burden thrust upon him he would have
followed the example of his comrade-in-arms and begged for instant
release. All he could and did do, however, was to endure, while
protesting his loyalty.
There was excitement enough in store for everyone when Mary’s adviser,
the Bishop of Ross, was actually permitted to join the Wingfield
household. This was the signal for the crowding of Scottish folk to the
vicinity. These came constantly to pay their court to Mary, thereby
increasing all the domestic complications of Earl and lady, to say
nothing of the added cost in catering and stabling entailed by such
“traffic.” Nor did it help them that Mary should fall ill. After delays
two physicians were sent from Court, and besides insisting upon a
thorough ventilation and cleaning of her apartments they advised her
removal to yet another of the family mansions.
This time it was to Chatsworth that the cavalcade travelled. The busy
Countess had not yet completed her great scheme of building. Yet a part
of the then “new house” was sufficiently completed for use, and though
there was as yet no stately presence chamber here, nor ballroom, nor
great dining-hall, as at Wingfield, the surroundings were sylvan and
reassuring, and the little raised and moated garden where Mary would
take the air was far more agreeable than the tangled garden patch at
Tutbury. In May the change to the meadows by the Derwent must have been
delicious. By June 1st the visit was ended and away went the cortège
again, my Lady Bess included, back to Wingfield. The Earl, for the first
time since Mary’s arrival, took a few days’ leave of absence and again
went to Chatsworth. This brief absence immediately gave rise to trouble
and suspicious reports. While struggling with indisposition he hurried
back, and had just time to report that all was well at Wingfield when
ague and fever laid him low. His wife took command of the situation. His
condition was so critical that she wrote to Cecil asking that some
arrangement “for this charge” should be made in case he should grow
worse. Cecil took action at once, but before any change in the command
at Wingfield could be made the Earl was recovering, and his wife wrote
to reassure the Queen, through Cecil, and put in a word for her own
loyalty:—
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS BOWER, CHATSWORTH
Page 72
]
“Of my duty in all respects, God, that is my witness of my doings and
meanings, will defend me, I trust, against the evil that malice would
unto me. No enemy would I willingly refuse to be my judge in this case,
that hath power to think and speak truly, but most heartily do I thank
you for your right friendly admonition, knowing that I cannot too much
remember my duty, like as I would be no less sorry if I were not
persuaded that you did write only of good will, without all cause of
suspicion. I have hitherto found you to be my singular good friend, and
so I trust you will continue, which God grant I may requite to my
desire.”
Poor Shrewsbury did not recover quickly. He suffered mentally as much as
bodily all through this summer of 1569, and begged a few days’ grace to
visit the baths at Buxton. This was withheld and delayed, and, in
despair, he went without permission. Immediately the Queen was told of
it and instructed Burghley to pounce on him in a letter. Naturally he
hurried home full of abject apology, and, though he found the household
at Wingfield tranquil, was much annoyed at the insanitary state of the
manor in consequence of the number of people in and about it. A little
crowd of no less than two hundred and fifty persons now constituted the
entourage of prisoner, Earl, and Countess. In order to wipe off all
undesirables, he recommended another change of domicile—this time to his
estate of Sheffield.
The Earl possessed two manors here—the Lodge or Manor on the hill, and
the Castle in the valley above the meadows—now built over—where the Dun
and Sheaf joined their waters. This move was regarded as a most
excellent method for change and expansion. Both houses were habitable,
there was good fishing, and plenty of ground for exercise without going
out of bounds. Nothing was lacking now to hasten the departure save the
royal permission.
CHAPTER VI
PLOT AND COUNTERPLOT
The move to Sheffield was now abandoned because of the desperate
excitement aroused in Elizabeth’s mind by the disclosure of the love
affair which was brewing between Mary and the Duke of Norfolk. This
matter for some time was not entirely a secret. A certain number of
influential English nobles agreed with those of Scotland that such a
marriage would be an excellent solution of the entire Scottish question.
Even Leicester himself, adored of Elizabeth, joined his opinion to
theirs. And these gentlemen had drawn up a proposal to Mary of which one
clause runs, “Whether, touching her marriage with the Duke of Norfolk
which had been moved to her by the Earl of Moray and Lidington, she
would wholly refer herself to the Queen’s Majesty and therein do as she
would have her and as her Majesty did like thereof—willing that all
things should be done for her Majesty’s surety, which might be best
advised by the whole Council.”
Her reply to this document, especially to the clause quoted, was clear,
dignified, and highly emphatic. She did not doubt the English Queen’s
good faith, nor the friendship of her nobles, nor the goodwill and
liking of the Duke. She adroitly declared that she never regarded
marriage as a mere means to recover power and position, saying, “I
assure you that if either men or money to have reduced my rebels to
their due obedience could have ticed me I could have been provided of a
husband ere now. But I ... did never give ear to any such offer.” She
fully calculated what she would lose by this marriage in regard to all
her “friends beyond the seas.” The Duke of Alva was trying to secure her
co-operation in the invasion of England. She was coquetting with the
Duke of Anjou. She was writing to Rome. By the document she had signed
she laid aside all future schemes, while she could still nourish the
secret hope that, once restored to the Scottish throne in place of her
baby son, she would, in default of Elizabeth’s marriage, inherit the
throne of England. The whole matter was now on such a broad and amicable
footing that apparently nothing was wanting but the longed-for “Bless
you, my children” from the lips of Elizabeth.
By September this dream was rudely dispelled. Norfolk was summoned to
Court, roundly abused—Elizabeth, as one of her courtiers writes of her,
could “storme passinglie”—and poor Shrewsbury received a severe snub.
The Queen practically declared him a useless gaoler: “I have found no
reliance on my Lord Shrewsbury in the hour of my need, for all the fine
speeches he made me formerly, yet I can in no wise depend on his
promise.” Therefore she added two guards—the Earl of Huntingdon and
Viscount Hereford.
More household complications, more goings and comings, more trouble for
Earl and Countess! Afflicted with chronic gout and irritated in every
direction, Shrewsbury decided to make for Tutbury again. A tactless
royal order addressed to Huntingdon (whom Mary also hated) over the head
of Shrewsbury bred fresh discomfort and annoyance in the Castle. Things
were, however, gradually smoothed over. The jealousy between Mary’s
gaolers was allayed on the one hand by the news that the Queen’s
apprehensions were justified by the disappearance of the Duke of Norfolk
from Court, while the alarm of Mary was increased fourfold by the
cross-questioning to which she was subjected and the news of the sudden
arrest of her ducal lover.
These were dramatic days which Bess of Shrewsbury witnessed. Letters
were intercepted, coffers suddenly searched in the Scots Queen’s
apartments, there were incursions of men with “pistolets,” constant
dismissals of the Queen’s people, sudden dismissal, even, of the
Countess’s own servants. But the gaps at the board were immediately
filled by Huntingdon and his retinue, for whom the Shrewsburys were
expected to provide without any increase of allowance, on the score that
the present numbers of the household did not exceed those at Wingfield
and elsewhere. The irony of this, added to the suggestions that the Earl
had been too kind to his prisoner, and that his request to be allowed to
deal as before with Mary without the assistance of any other officer,
sprang from some person or persons “too much affectionated to her,”
created havoc in Shrewsbury’s mind. Of course he visited his anger on
his colleague Huntingdon in the form of morose hints. In that atmosphere
of wholesale suspicion he could not speak out except in a letter to
head-quarters. He knew that Elizabeth’s sinister expressions implied
suspicions of his Countess. It is difficult to understand exactly what
this lady was “after,” in the vulgar phrase, at this moment. For Mary,
with whom she had hitherto been on excellent terms, now distrusted her
also. She expressed this distrust _tout au plat_, as she would say, to
Walsingham in October, and told him not to attach any credit “to the
schemes and accusations of the Countess who is now with you.” Apparently
my Lady had left for the Court, and was there making good her case and
her husband’s. As likely as not she was furiously jealous of the
authority wrested from her husband in favour of Huntingdon, and
overwrought, like everyone else, by the acute tension of the situation.
Henceforward in the correspondence with Cecil sturdy disclaimers of
treason on the part of Earl and lady are always cropping up. The
following is from Shrewsbury to Cecil, October, 1569:—
“Sir,—I have received your letter, thinking myself beholden unto you for
your friendly care over me. I hear to my grief that suspicion is had of
over much goodwill borne by my wife to this Queen and of untrue dealing
by my men. For my wife thus must I say, she hath not otherwise dealt
with that Queen than I have been privy unto and that I have had liking
of, and by my appointment hath so dealt that I have been the more able
to discharge the trust committed unto me. And if she for her dutiful
dealing to her Majesty and true meaning to me should be suspected that I
am sure hath so well deserved, she and I might think ourselves
fortunate. And where I perceive her Majesty is let to understand that by
my wife’s persuasion I am the more desirous to continue this charge, I
speak it afore God she hath been in hand with me as far as she durst and
more than I thought well of since my sickness to procure my discharge. I
am not to ...[16] by her otherwise than I think well of.”
From the close of this year till the execution of the Duke of Norfolk in
1572 the history of George Talbot and Bess Hardwick is bound up with the
story of the tissue of conspiracies which wound itself about Mary. The
Norfolk plot, with which Mary was to be drawn out of prison, was a stout
rope woven of many strands; the net which Cecil constructed for his prey
was close-meshed and wide-spreading. There were constant alarums and
excursions for the Earl and his people. He succeeded in getting rid of
Huntingdon, but he was incessantly in fear of a rising of the northern
nobles to whom Norfolk had appealed for their armed support; and when
this fear was realised and the armed Earls arrived within fifty odd
miles of Tutbury a hasty removal was necessary. Coventry was the only
place which suggested itself until the hostile demonstration fizzled out
and Tutbury could be regained.
The new year found the household re-established there. While Mary, in
poor health, acted as though she had no inkling of conspiracy, while the
Duke of Norfolk and the Bishop of Ross, her adviser, were in the Tower,
miniature plots again disturbed the tenor of existence, and for once the
Earl was permitted to choose his own road, and to remove his captive
with bag and baggage to Chatsworth.
This was a pleasanter place than Tutbury for the inditing of love
letters, as Mary found. But her Duke was a broken reed. He wanted to
leave the Tower, and to Elizabeth he vowed he would not marry her rival.
The summer passed on and the conditions of imprisonment at Chatsworth
fluctuated from “straitness” to indulgence according to the suspicions
of Elizabeth and the reports of those who were jealous spies of the
Earl’s slightest actions. Things assumed a more hopeful aspect in spite
of the discovery of another minor plot to free Mary by letting her down
from one of the windows of the Countess’s spacious and elegant
house—still unfinished. Elizabeth about this time actually contemplated
Mary’s freedom and her re-establishment as a sovereign; whereupon a
treaty to this end was carefully discussed!
Negotiations came to such a pass that Mr. Treasurer himself was
empowered to travel to Chatsworth and confer with the prisoner. He took
his wife with him, and between business and pleasure the visit passed
off well. Cecil wrote a long and complimentary “leaving letter” on
behalf of himself and his wife, chiefly interesting in this connection
because it indicates how Lady Shrewsbury played her part as hostess.
“We have fully satisfied her Majesty with the painful and trusty
behaviour of my Lady your wife in giving good regard to the surety of
the said Queen; wherein her Majesty surely seemed to us to be very glad,
and used many good words, both of your Lordship’s fidelity towards
herself, and of the love that she thought my Lady did bear to her....
And thus I humbly take my leave of your Lordship and my Lady, to whom my
wife hath written to give her thanks for certain tokens whereof I
understood nothing afore she told me of them; and sorry I am my Lady
should have bestowed such things as my wife cannot recompense as she
would, but with her hearty goodwill and service, which shall always be
ready to her favour and mine also: assuring yourself that to my
uttermost I will be to your Lordship and to my Lady as sure in good will
as any poor friend you have.”
[Illustration:
_From an engraving by W. T. Ryall, after the painting by Mark Gerard_
WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY
Page 80
]
Like all the schemes of Elizabeth the aforesaid treaty hung fire.
Suspense and disappointment had their usual result upon Mary. Once more
she fell ill. Had she died on their hands Earl and Countess would have
been open to the worst suspicions. They found themselves always out of
pocket in regard to her maintenance; they were themselves, obviously,
more or less prisoners in their own house; they had begged to be
released from “this charge.” In an age when poisonings were rife and
assassinations common they would have been suspected by all parties of
all sorts of foul play. Mary’s loyal gentleman, John Beton, the
prægustator, must have had enough to do at this time in tasting the
dishes for the daily menus. Shrewsbury meanwhile kept a sharp look-out
and at once suggested change of air. Mary, in spite of the pain in her
side, symptom of a chronic malady, and one which always attacked her
when she was the least out of health, was only too ready to move. This
time the destination was Sheffield—the castle.
Matters grew worse and worse in regard to the captive in spite of all
these precautions. Down came the Bishop of Ross—now set at liberty—and
the Court physician, while all the world knew that for this illness
there was but one cure—liberty. Only intrigue kept Mary alive at the
close of 1570. The rest of the spring and summer of 1571 witnessed her
return to the proposals to the Duke of Norfolk, the co-operation of
Ridolfi, the preparations by her Scottish partisans, the crystallisation
of the plan of invasion by Philip of Spain. The whole toil of this great
enterprise was nullified by the curiosity of a mere merchant, an
innocent messenger chosen to carry a bag of money destined to further
the plot. He mistrusted the contents, carried the bag to head-quarters,
and inside were the incriminating letters which led to the second
imprisonment of Norfolk and the gradual unravelling of the conspiracy.
During the lengthy process of examining the many people involved there
were uneasy moments for all sorts and conditions of men. It was a most
uncomfortable time for the Shrewsburys. It was open to any of their
dismissed servants who were arrested to inculpate their former
employers, and the latter were probably prepared for such contingencies.
Yet a letter like the following would descend upon the Countess somewhat
like a bombshell. The man Lascelles mentioned in it was an ex-servant
under arrest, and when threatened with torture pleaded guilty to the
charge, giving as excuse that what he did was known to the Countess.
“It may please your Ladyship,
“Where of late Bryan and Hersey Lascelles having been before my Lords of
her Majesty’s Council, it appeareth directly by the letters both of the
Queen of Scots and of the Duke of Norfolk also, that Hersey, as he
confessess also himself has been a dealer sometimes with the Queen there
by the means of his brother’s being in service there; and yet that his
dealing was not without knowledge of your Ladyship, to the end, as he
says, that the same might always be known. I have thought good to
advertise your Ladyship thereof, and withal to pray you to let me
understand the truth of such matter as your Ladyship doth know of the
said Hersey Lascelles’ dealings from time to time as particularly as
your Ladyship can remember. And so I take my leave of your Ladyship.
“From London, the 13th of October, 1571.
“Your Ladyship’s at commandment,
“W. BURGHLEY.
“To the right honourable and my very good Lady, the Countess of
Shrewsbury. Haste, haste, haste.”
A nice letter to receive on a serene autumn day! Carefully worded and
dignified though it is, it opens up vistas of suspicion and treachery.
The Countess was away, and her lord had to bear the first brunt of it
alone. Perhaps this was just as well, as it gave him a chance of
clearing their honour independently. For, of course, he recognised in it
an urgent official document. The reading must have cost him a bad
quarter of an hour. There was no time to be lost in again asserting his
wife’s integrity. A few seconds of miserable suspense would possibly
ensue ere his trust and loyalty conquered all fears, and he sat down to
write first to his wife, enclosing the letter from Court, and then to
tell Burleigh that some serious misconstruction must have been placed on
the fact that he always empowered his lady to interest herself in such
persons as Lascelles and his doings, the better to keep her spouse
apprised of Mary’s plots: “I willed my wife to deal with him and others
to whom the Queen bears familiar countenance, so as the better to learn
her intentions.” To this he adds a diplomatic postscript, assuring
Burleigh that this letter is penned independently of any collusion with
his wife.
The Countess, fenced in by consciousness of innocence, backed by the
sense of possession, and seated in the heart of her own pleasant estate,
rich now in the burnished glory of autumn, writes _en grande dame_ from
Chatsworth on October 22nd:—
“Your letters touching Henry Lassells came to my hands after my husband
had answered them. I doubt not you are persuaded of my dutiful service,
but lest you should think any lack of goodwill to answer, I thought it
meet to advertise you of my whole doings in the matters.
“As soon as I had intelligence that this Lassells had some familiar talk
with the Queen of Scotland, and that my Lord thereupon had laid watch to
his doings, this Lassells belike suspecting of my knowledge thereof,
desired that he might offer unto me some special matter touching that
Queen, with great desire that I should in no wise utter it, for, saith
he, she hath most earnestly warned me not to tell you of all creatures.
I then hoping to hear of some practice, answered him that he might
assure himself not only to be harmless, but to be well rewarded also at
the Queen Majesty’s hands, and of my Lord, if he would plainly and truly
show of her doings and devices, meet to be known. Then he told me with
many words that she pretended great goodwill unto him, and of good
liking of him, and that she would make him a lord, but, saith he, I will
never be false to the Queen’s Majesty, nor to my Lord, my master.
Further than this I could not learn of him. Then I warned him to
remember his duty and to beware of her, and that she sought to abuse
him, and that I knew for certain that she did hate him. He said then
that he would take heed, and advertise me of all that he could learn.
After this he came to me again, and told me of her familiar talk as
before, and of no further matter, saving that he said that he told her
how he marvelled that she could love the Duke,[17] having so foul a
face, and that she answered that she could like him well enough, because
he was wise. Then I warned him again more earnestly than I did before,
and told him of her hatred towards him. Then he seemed to credit me.
Albeit a while after he desired me by his letters to certify him how I
knew she hated him, for, saith he, if she so do she is the falsest woman
living. Then my Lord and I perceiving his mind so fondly occupied on her
and knowing him to be both vain and glorious, and that he was more like
to be made an instrument to work harm than to do good, my Lord
despatched him out of service, as he hath divers others upon suspicion
at sundry times. This came to my knowledge about Candlemas, next after
the Northern rebellion, and he was put away about Easter following. I
never knew of any dealing between the Queen and the Duke of Norfolk,
either by Lassells or anyone else. If I had I trust you think I would
have discovered it.”
It is not surprising that the Earl’s wife kept aloof for a while and
preferred Chatsworth just now. Sheffield was a regular dungeon: the
Scottish Queen was only allowed to take an airing on the leads. No
domestic cheerfulness was possible, no social intercourse, and every
letter sent or received was a source of anxiety.
Both for the sake of social decency and because of the necessity to
impress the always scandalous world with her conjugal devotion, the
Countess however returned presently to the fortress and took up her
share of the daily burden of wardenship.
Her presence was more than ever necessary now. The Duke of Norfolk’s
trial was fixed for a date early in the New Year, and the Earl’s
assistance thereat was indispensable, for he was made Lord High Steward
of England in the place of the arraigned nobleman. The command at
Sheffield was therefore temporarily assigned, not to Huntingdon this
time, but to Sir Ralph Sadler. He arrived, the Earl left for London, and
Bess Shrewsbury remained to keep a hand upon the situation and play her
own cards. She did this incessantly till her husband’s return.
Circumstances gave her most excellent opportunities for making a good
impression on Sadler. It was her business to walk on those leads of the
now vanished castle with the prisoner and to carry her daily such news
as it was considered well to communicate. There was very little variety
in the days. When the weather was bad Mary kept to her rooms. When it
improved she took her airing, but had not much refreshment for her eyes.
There was little to do on the leads but stroll to and fro, gazing at
Sheffield Lodge on the hill, or at the water and meadows below. And for
the ear there was nothing beyond music on the virginals to charm it, no
sounds to distract the country silence, except the opening and closing
of the castle gates, and the roll of the drum at six o’clock morning and
evening, when the watches were set and the password given.
[Illustration:
_From the picture in the possession of the Duke of Norfolk_
THOMAS HOWARD, DUKE OF NORFOLK
Page 86
]
To all who are students of the latter years of Mary’s life the letters
of Sir Ralph Sadler, written during this time, must be familiar. His
whole attention is naturally concentrated on the interesting captive,
but here and there we get side glimpses of Lady Shrewsbury and her power
as a kind of self-ordained lady of the bedchamber to Mary.
The news of Norfolk’s death sentence was not long in coming. The Earl of
Shrewsbury himself had to pronounce it with true and bitter tears, and
Cecil, now Lord Burghley, at once wrote to Sheffield. A fact so
important must be communicated to Mary at once. It was due to her both
as Norfolk’s accomplice and as a prisoner of quality. It was highly
important that the effect of it on her should be gauged and duly
reported. For this sweet errand the Countess was chosen. A previous
announcement had, however, reached her, and took the wind out of the
Countess’s sails. What a situation! She found the Queen “all bewept and
mourning,” and had the doubtful taste to ask “what ailed her.” Mary,
with great dignity and pathos, replied that she was sure that the
Countess must already know the cause and would sympathise, and she
expressed further her intense grief lest anything she had written to
Elizabeth on behalf of Norfolk had brought him and her other friends to
such a pass. The Countess had common sense, and her rejoinder was
logical and undoubtedly correct, but she need not have hit quite so hard
as in her reply, quoted by Sadler. For a woman of imagination—and
imagination of a practical kind Bess Shrewsbury certainly possessed—it
was a cruel answer, and not the least part of the cruelty was the
scathing condemnation of one who she knew might have been Mary’s
husband. It seems to have crushed Mary. She could bear no further
discussion of the matter, and withdrew into herself to nurse her sorrow.
“And so like a true lover she remaineth, still mourning for her love,”
wrote Sadler, much touched by her attitude. This letter of his is
graphic enough to be quoted in full:—
“Please it, your Lordship,
“The posts whether they work or play have their hire, and therefore I
spare not their labour though I have none other occasion than to
advertise your L. that all is well here concerning this charge, and that
yesterday I received your letters of the 17th of this present (for which
I most heartily thank your L.), together with a brief discourse of the
Duke’s arraignment and condemnation, which I forthwith imparted unto my
Lady of Shrewsbury to the end she might take occasion to make this Queen
understand of the same; and also I gave it out to the gentlemen in this
House both what number of the Nobility did pass upon his trial, and also
that his offences and treasons were such, and so manifestly and plainly
proved, that all the noble men did not only detest the same, but also
without any manner of scruple objected by common consent everyone of
them did pronounce him guilty. Which, being put abroad here in the house
after this sort, was brought unto the knowledge of this Queen by some of
her folk which heard it, before my Lady came unto her, for the which
this Queen wept very bitterly, so that my Lady found her all to be wept
and mourning, and asking her what she ailed, she answered that she was
sure my Lady could not be ignorant of the cause, and that she could not
but be much grieved, to understand of the trouble of her friends, which
she knew did fare the worse for her sake, for sure she was that the Duke
fared the worse for that which she of late had written to the Q.
Majesty; and said further that he was unjustly condemned, protesting
that as far as ever she could perceive by him or for anything she knew
he was a true man to the Queen her sister: but being answered by my Lady
that as she might be sure that whatsoever she had written to the Q.
Majesty could do the Duke neither good nor harm touching his
condemnation, so if his offences and treasons had not been great and
plainly proved against him those noble men which passed upon his trial
would not for all the good on earth have condemned him. She thereupon
with mourning there became silent, and had no will to talk any more of
the matter, and so like a true lover she remaineth still mourning for
her love. God, I trust, will put it into the Queen Majesty’s heart so to
provide for herself that such true lovers may receive such rewards and
fruits of their love as they have justly deserved at her Majesty’s
hands.
“All the last week this Queen did not once look out of her chamber,
hearing that the Duke stood upon his arraignment and trial, and being
troubled by all likelihood by a guilty conscience and fear to hear of
such news as she hath now received. And my presence is such a trouble
unto her that unless she come out of her chamber I come little at her,
but my Lady is seldom from her, and for my part I have not since my
coming hither so behaved myself towards her as might justly give her
occasion to have any such misliking of me: though indeed I would not
rejoice at all of it, if she had any better liking. But though she like
not of me yet I am sure this good lady and all the gentlemen and others
of this house do like well enough of me: which doth well appear by their
courteous and gentle entertainment of me and mine. My Lord hath a costly
guest of me, for I and my men and 36 horses of mine do all lie and feed
here at his charge, and therefore the sooner he come home the better for
him. Trusting his L. be now on the way and therefore I forbear to write
to him. But if he be there, it may please you to tell him that all is
well here, and that my Lady and I do long to see his L. here. And as I
doubt not she would most gladly have him here, so I am sure she cannot
long for him more than I do, looking hourly to hear some good news from
your L. of my return. And so I beseech Almighty God to preserve and keep
you in long life and health, and to increase you in honour and virtue.
From Sheffield Castle the 21st of January at night 1571. With the rude
hands of
“Your L. to command as your own
“R. SADLER.
“To the right honourable and my very good lord, my Lord of Burghley,
of the Queen Majesty’s Privy Council.”
[Illustration:
_From a print in the British Museum_
SHEFFIELD MANOR HOUSE
Page 90
]
Never was the contrast between the two principal ladies in Sheffield
Castle so marked as at this moment. Mary mourns for Norfolk, for the
ruin of her hopes, for the treaty of freedom which now can never be
carried through. Bess sails about the castle aware of everything at
Court and at home; the posts bring her affectionate letters from the
Earl, while her children and his flourish under their respective tutors.
Chatsworth is still a-building, and she signs orders for stone and wood
and coal and fodder. She was a good hostess to Sadler, and when he
relinquished his duties gladly enough in February, upon the Earl’s
return, he was positive that Lady Shrewsbury was deserving of great
commendation and “condign thanks” for the manner in which she filled her
important position. She was very much of a personage, and her
correspondence exhibits very few of the traits usually described as
“feminine,” while her friends fully estimated her influence and her
interest in the larger events. The following lengthy letter gives the
complexity of the political situation, and though of course it belongs
to a date previous to the execution of Norfolk, is placed here as an
illustration of the stirring times in which the great lady lived and the
events which had happened during the first year or two of her fourth
marriage. It is unsigned, and is evidently from some connection or
possibly a gentleman of the Shrewsbury household, who is keeping his
ears and eyes wide open at Court:—
“To the Countess of Shrewsbury,
“My most humble duty remembered unto your honourable good lord. May it
please the same to understand that I have sent you herein enclosed the
articles of peace concluded and proclaimed through all France, in
French, because they are not at this hour to be had in English (which
are translated and in printing), and if the peace be kept, the
Protestants be indifferently well. The great sitting is done at Norwich;
and, as I do hear credibly, that Appleyard, Throgmorton, Redman, and
another are condemned to be hung, drawn, and quartered; and Hobart and
two more are condemned to perpetual imprisonment, with the loss of all
their goods and lands during their lives. The four condemned for high
treason, and the other for reconcilement. They were charged of these
four points: the destruction of the Queen’s person; the imprisonment of
my Lord Keeper, my Lord of Leicester, Secretary Cecil; the setting at
liberty out of the Tower the Duke of Norfolk; and the banishment of all
strangers; and it fell out in their examination that they would have
imprisoned Sir Christopher Haydon and Sir William Butts, the Queen’s
Lieutenants. None of them could excuse themselves of any of the four
points, saving Appleyard said he meant nothing towards the Queen’s
person; for that he meant to have had them to a banquet, and to have
betrayed them all, and to have won credit thereby with the Queen.
Throgmorton was mute, and would say nothing till he was condemned, who
then said, ‘They are full merry now that will be as sorry within these
few days.’ Mr. Bell was attorney for Mr. Gerrard, he being one of the
Judges, and Mr. Bell alleged against Appleyard that he was consenting to
the treason before; alleging one Parker’s words, that was brought
prisoner with Dr. Storey out of Flanders, that Parker heard of the
treason before Nallard came over to the Duke of Alva. And there stood
one Bacon by that heard Parker say so: my Lord offered a book to Bacon
for to swear: ‘O, my Lord,’ said Appleyard, ‘will you condemn me of his
oath that is registered for a knave in the Book of Martyrs?’
“They had set out a proclamation, and had four prophecies; one was
touching the wantonness of the Court, and the other touching this land
to be conquered by the Scots; and two more that I cannot remember. There
were many in trouble for speaking of seditious words. Thomas Cecil said
that the Duke of Norfolk was not of that religion as he was accounted to
be: and that his cousin Cecil was the Queen’s darling, who was the cause
of the Duke of Norfolk’s imprisonment, with such like; who is put off to
the next assize. Anthony Middleton said, ‘My Lord Morley is gone to set
the Duke of Alva into Yarmouth, and if William Keat had not accused me,
Throgmorton, and the rest we had had a hot harvest; but if the Duke of
Norfolk be alive, they all dare not put them to death.’ Metcalf said
that he would help the Duke of Alva into Yarmouth, and to wash his hands
in the Protestants’ blood. Marsham said that my Lord of Leicester had
two children by the Queen: and for that he is condemned to lose both his
ears, or else pay £100 presently. Chiplain said he hoped to see the Duke
of Norfolk to be King before Michaelmas next, who doth interpret that he
meant, not to be King of England, but to be King of Scotland.
“Mr. Bell and Mr. Solicitor said both to this effect to the
prisoners—‘What mad fellows were ye, being all rank Papists, to make the
Duke of Norfolk your patron that is as good a Protestant as any is in
England: and, being wicked traitors, to hope of his help to your wicked
intents and purposes, that is as true and as faithful a subject as any
that is in this land, saving only that the Queen is minded to imprison
him for his contempt.’ Doctor Storey is at Mr. Archdeacon Watts’ house,
in custody, besides Powels. Thurlby, late Bishop of Ely, died this last
week at Lambeth.
“The Spanish Queen is arrived in the Low Countries, and will embark as
soon as may be. The Emperor is setting forward his other daughter
towards Metz to be married to the French King. It is written, by letters
of the 28th of the last, from Venice, that the Turk has landed in Cyprus
100,000 men, or more, and has besieged two great cities within that
kingdom, Nicocia and Famagosta. At one assault at Famagosta they lost
12,000 men; upon the which repulse the Begler Bey of Natolia, the
General of the Turk’s army, wrote to the great Turk, his master, that he
thought it was invincible. He answered that, if they did not win it
before they came, they should be put to the sword at their return home.
The Turk has sent another army by land against the Venetians, into
Dalmatia, and are besieging Zara with 20,000 footmen and 20,000
horsemen, and divers towns they have taken, as Spalator, Elisa, Eleba,
and Nona, with great spoil and bloodshed: and it is written that the
Turk’s several armies are above 200,000 men against the Venetians. The
men first sent by the Venetians fell so into diseases by the way as they
were fain to prepare new men, which is thought will hardly come to do
any good in Cyprus. A man may see what account is to be made of these
worldly things, as to see in a small time the third state of
Christendom, in security, power, and wealth, to be in danger of utter
overthrow in one year.
“They say my Lord of Leicester hath many workmen at Kenilworth to make
his house strong, and doth furnish it with armour, ammunition, and all
necessaries for defence. And thus Jesus have my Lord, and your Ladyship,
and my friends in his tuition, to God’s pleasure.—Scribbled at London,
the last of August, 1570.
“Your good Ladyship’s ever to command during life.
“To the right honourable Countess of Shrewsbury
at Chatsworth, or where.”
Life fell once more into its old groove. No large conspiracy could be
feared yet, in spite of Elizabeth’s postponement of Norfolk’s execution.
But there remained always the undercurrent of lesser “practices.” Earl
and Lady had their hands always full with detective work of this kind.
Priests and conjurers, pedlars, porters, and even schoolmasters formed
the roll of suspects. Scouts were always at work following their
movements, hanging about taverns to hear gossip which might betray their
doings, and searchers were employed to pounce upon any scrap of written
stuff which might prove valuable “copy.” Some of the most emphatic
witnesses against Mary—her own letters of conspiracy—were actually found
hidden under a stone on a bit of waste ground. The messenger charged
with them durst not carry them further at that moment and before he
could remove them they were discovered. It was about this time that she
was given permission to take her airing further than the leads and to
walk out in the open. The snow lay on the ground and soaked her to the
ankles, but she bore it cheerfully, and one wonders if she had knowledge
of those hidden letters and whether she nourished a wild hope of finding
them in their niche and setting them safely on their way. Secret and
sinister were the warnings which Earl and Lady shared in that long cold
spring at Sheffield. All travellers from across the Border were duly
catalogued by the northern authorities and word passed from mouth to
mouth of their appearance and activities. This was the sort of despatch
which reached the castle: “A certain boy should come lately out of
England with letters to the castle of Edinburgh and is to return back
again within three or four days.... It were not amiss that my Lord of
Shrewsbury had warning of him. His letters be secured in the buttons and
seams of his coat. His coat is of black English frieze, he hath a cut on
his left cheek, from his eye down, by the which he may be well known.”
All the dodges of such envoys—from the stitching of letters into linings
and the hiding of a written message under the setting of a jewel to the
use of bags with double bottoms where despatches could be kept “safe
from wet and fretting” and sight—were known to the Shrewsburys. An
evening spent in the kitchens and guardroom, an hour or so of conference
with my Lady would open to reader and writer alike a world of
sensational gossip “palpitating with actuality.” The captive Queen’s
precarious health was a constant subject of discussion. Shrewsbury’s
letters were bound to be full of it. Mary, who once more began to
bombard Elizabeth with letters, suggested a trial of Buxton waters. She
also busied herself anew with embroidery, contrived gifts for the Queen,
and sent her a large consignment of French stuffs and silks. When
packages of this kind arrived from France the Earl was always on the
look-out. So careful was he in regard to his wife’s share in such
parcels that he would not let her receive and pay for such goods until
he had first communicated the exact details of the transaction to his
royal mistress.
Neither French taffetas nor little embroidered caps could alter the
decision of the Privy Council and reverse the position of the axe in
regard to the Duke of Norfolk. His death took place in the glory of the
early summer of 1572. Mary mourned and her health grew worse and worse.
Yet, just when change was planned for her, and the castle had reached a
condition almost too insanitary to endure, the news came of the massacre
of St. Bartholomew. “These French tragedies and ending of unlucky
marriage with blood and vile murders cannot be expressed with tongue to
declare the cruelties.... These fires may be doubted that their flames
may come both hither and into Scotland, for such cruelties have large
scopes.... All men now cry out of your prisoner,” wrote Burghley to the
Earl under supreme agitation. To which the latter replies later, “These
are to advertise you that the Queen remains still within these four
walls, in safe keeping.” The woods and wolds, he explains, are being
scoured by his spies, and the number of the guard is increased by
thirty. Clang of gate, clash of steel, roll of drum—the household music
of the Shrewsburys knew nothing more harmonious than these noises. At
stated intervals we hear the old burthen of sturdy self-vindication in
such letters as the following to Burghley:—
“My very good Lord,
“I heartily thank your good Lordship for seeking to satisfy her Majesty
in some doubts she might conceive of me and my wife, upon information
given to her Majesty; your Lordship therein doeth the part of a faithful
friend; so I have always trusted, and you shall receive no dishonour
thereby. My services and fidelity to her Majesty are such as I am
persuaded with assured hope that her Majesty, having proofs enough
thereof, condemneth those who so untruly surmise, against my wife first,
and now myself, either of us undutiful dealing with this Queen or myself
of any carelessness in regard my charge. As before I crave trial of
whosoever is here noted of any indirect dealing with this Queen, so do I
again require at your Lordship’s hands to be amenable to her Majesty for
due proof and punishment, as they merit, that her Majesty might be fully
satisfied and quiet. And for my riding abroad sometimes (not far from my
charge) in respect of my health only; it has been well known to your
Lordship from the first beginning of my charge, and it is true I always
gave order first for safe keeping of her with a sure and stronger guard,
both within my house and further off, than when myself was with her. I
trusted none in my absence but those I had tried; true and faithful
servants unto me, and like subjects to her Majesty. I thank God my
account of this weighty charge is ready, to her Majesty’s contentation.
No information nor surmise can make me shrink. Nevertheless, henceforth
her Majesty’s commandment for my continual attendance upon this lady
shall be obeyed, as her Majesty shall not mislike thereof; and even so,
my Lord, I say to that part of your letters wherein a motion is made to
me; that (as in all my services hitherto) I had, nor seek, written
contentment nor will, than shall stand her Majesty’s pleasure or her
best service. And so, wishing to your Lordship as well as to myself, I
take my leave.
“At Sheffield this 9th of December, 1572.
“Your Lordship’s ever-assured friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“I have presumed to write to the Queen’s Majesty to the same effect as
to your Lordship.”
CHAPTER VII
FAMILY LETTERS
The following letters carry on the story of the Shrewsburys in domestic
and official detail for the next year. The second stepson of Bess was by
this time not only a married man, but a member of Parliament and a
courtier. He and his eldest stepbrother and brother-in-law, Henry
Cavendish, represented their own county. His brother, Francis Talbot,
the Earl’s heir, who was also at Court, had been entrusted with
diplomatic duties, and had already managed to get into mischief. Neither
he nor Gilbert, who survived him, ever took such an important social or
official position as that achieved by their father and stepmother. But
in youth they were about the Court, and they held their parents in
proper awe. Their occasional letters imply a strong sense of family duty
and kinship in little things as in great. The first letter touches on a
purely domestic matter. It is curious that, seeing his wife was his
stepmother’s eldest daughter, Gilbert should not have referred to the
Countess for advice and approval.
“My Lord,—My brother told me of the letter your Lordship sent him for
the putting away of Morgan and Marven; and said he rejoiced that your
Lordship would so plainly direct and command him what to do, and he
trusteth hereafter to please your Lordship in all his doings; whereunto,
according to my duty, I prayed him to have care above all manner of
things, and advised him to keep secret your Lordship’s directions.
“I have found out a sober maiden to wait on my wife, if it shall please
your Lordship. She was servant unto Mrs. Southwell, now Lord Paget’s
wife, who is an evil husband, and will not suffer any that waited on his
wife before he married her to continue with her. As it behoves me, I
have been very inquisitive of the woman, and have heard very well of her
behaviour; and truly I do repose in her to be very modest and well
given, and such a one as I trust your Lordship shall not mislike; but if
it be so that she shall not be thought meet for my wife, she will
willingly repair hither again. Her name is Marget Butler; she is almost
twenty-seven years old. Mr. Bateman[18] hath known her long, and
thinketh very well of her: she is not very beautiful, but very cleanly
in doing of anything chiefly about a sick body, to dress anything fit
for them. I humbly pray your Lordship to send me word whether I shall
make shift to send her down presently, for she is very desirous not to
spend her time idly. Thus, most humbly desiring your Lordship’s daily
blessing, with my wonted and continual prayer for your Lordship’s
preservation in all honour and health, long to continue, I end.
“At the Court this Monday, the 25th of May, 1573.
“Your Lordship’s most humble and obedient son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the picture at Hardwick
Hall_
_By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
GILBERT TALBOT, SEVENTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY
Page 100
]
The next letter is largely given up to gossip, and places the Earl of
Leicester, who constantly writes wise and appreciative letters to the
Shrewsburys, in the gay, vivid light in which he is best known to
posterity. It is exhaustive, and touches on all the reports the writer
can gather as to public criticism of Shrewsbury as gaoler, besides
making allusion to the Earl’s financial difficulties.
“My most humble duty remembered, right honourable, my singular good Lord
and father; because of the convenience of the bearer hereof, I have
thought good to advertise your Lordship of the estate of some here at
the Court, as near as I have learned by my daily experience. My Lord
Treasurer, even after the old manner, dealeth with matters of the State
only, and beareth himself very uprightly. My Lord Leicester is very much
with her Majesty, and she shows the same great, good affection that she
was wont; of late he has endeavoured to please her more than heretofore.
There are two sisters now in the Court that are very far in love with
him, as they have been long—my Lady Sheffield and Frances Howard;[19]
they (of like striving who shall love him better) are at great wars
together, and the Queen thinketh not well of them and not the better of
him; by this means there are spies over him. My Lord of Sussex goes with
the tide, and helps to back others; but his own credit is sober,
considering his estate; he is very diligent in his office, and takes
great pains. My Lord of Oxford is lately grown into great credit; for
the Queen’s Majesty delighteth more in his personage and his dancing and
valiantness than any other. I think Sussex doth back him all that he
can; if it were not for his fickle head he would pass any of them
shortly. My Lady Burghley unwisely has declared herself, as it were,
jealous, which is come to the Queen’s ear; whereat she has been not a
little offended with her, but now she is reconciled again. At all these
love matters my Lord Treasurer winketh, and will not meddle anyway.
Hatton is sick still; it is thought he will very hardly recover his
disease, for it is doubted it is in his kidneys; the Queen goeth almost
every day to see how he doth. Now are there devices (chiefly by
Leicester, as I suppose, and not without Burleigh’s knowledge) to make
Mr. Edward Dyer as great as ever was Hatton; for now, in this time of
Hatton’s sickness, the time is convenient. It is brought thus to pass:
Dyer lately was sick of a consumption, in great danger; and, as your
Lordship knows, he has been in displeasure these two years, it was made
the Queen believe that his sickness came because of the continuance of
her displeasure towards him, so that unless she would forgive him he was
like not to recover, and hereupon her Majesty has forgiven him and sent
unto him a very comfortable message; now he is recovered again, and this
is the beginning of the device. These things I learn of such young
fellows as myself. Two days since Dr. Wilson told me he heard say that
your Lordship, with your charge, was removed to Sheffield Lodge, and
asked me whether it was so or not: I answered I heard so also; that you
were gone thither of force till the castle could be cleansed. And,
further, he wished to know whether your Lordship did so by the consent
of the Council, or not: I said I knew not that, but I was certain your
Lordship did it on good ground. I earnestly desired him, of all
friendship, to tell me whether he had heard anything to the contrary;
which he sware he never did, but asked because, he said, once that Lady
should have been conveyed from that house. Then I told him what great
heed and care you had to her safe-keeping; especially being there that
good numbers of men, continually armed, watched her day and night, and
both under her windows, over her chamber, and of every side her; so
that, unless she could transform herself to a flea or a mouse, it was
impossible that she should escape. At that time Mr. Wilson showed me
some part of the confession of one (but who he was, or when he did
confess it, he would in no wise tell me), that that fellow should say he
knew the Queen of Scots hated your Lordship deadly because of your
religion, being an earnest Protestant; and all the Talbots else in
England, being all Papists, she esteemeth of them very well; and this
fellow did believe verily all we Talbots did love her better in our
hearts than the Queen’s Majesty: this Mr. Wilson said he showed me
because I should see what knavery there is in some men to accuse. He
charged me of all love that I should keep this secret, which I promised;
and, notwithstanding, considering he would not tell me who this fellow
was, I willed a friend of mine, one Mr. Francis Southwell, who is very
great with him, to know, amongst other talk, who he had last in
examination; and I understood that this was the examination of one at
the last session of Parliament, and not since, but I cannot learn yet
what he was. Mr. Walsingham is this day come hither to the Court; it is
thought he shall be made Secretary. Sir Thomas Smith and he both
together shall exercise that office. He hath not yet told any news; he
hath had no time yet for being returned home; as soon as I hear any your
Lordship shall have them sent. Roulsden hath written to your Lordship as
he saith, by this bearer; he trusteth to your Lordship’s satisfaction. I
have been very importunate of him for the present payment of his debt to
your Lordship. He cannot anyways make shift for money unless he sell
land, which he vows to do rather than to purchase your Lordship’s
displeasure. I have moved my Lord Treasurer two sundry times as your
Lordship commanded me for the mustering within your Lordship’s offices.
The first time he willed me to come to him some other time, and he would
give me an answer, because then he had to write to Berwick in haste;
this he told me before I half told him what I meant. The second time,
which was on Saturday last, my Lord Leicester came unto him as I was
talking; but to-morrow, God willing, I will not fail to move him
thoroughly. For other matters I leave your Lordship to the bearer
himself. And so, most humbly desiring your Lordship’s daily blessing,
with my wonted prayer for the continuance of your Lordship’s honour, and
health long to continue, I end, this 11th of May, 1573.
“Your Lordship’s most humble and obedient son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.”
This letter is packed with suggestions of Court intrigue.
Hatton—afterwards Sir Christopher Hatton—it will be remembered, was one
of the many young courtiers whose polish, culture, and elegant dancing
excited Elizabeth’s romantic interest. He rose from the post of
Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to the captaincy of the Guard, and, by
way of the successive posts of Vice-Chamberlain and Privy Councillor,
reached the Chancellorship and received a Garter.
Edward Dyer, Hatton’s rival, matched him to some extent in honours, for
he too was subsequently knighted and invested with the Garter. As for
the Dr. Wilson named, he afterwards became a Secretary of State, while
the Earl of Oxford, who is shown as trying to outdo all other courtiers
in favour, was a son-in-law of Lord Burghley. He was an adherent of the
fifth Duke of Norfolk, and when Burghley refused to intercede for the
Duke’s life, the Earl vowed that he would revenge himself on his
father-in-law by destroying the happiness of his daughter. This he
achieved satisfactorily, and when she died of a broken heart he finished
his work of destruction by dissipating the whole of his fortune. The
jealousy of “my Lady Burghley,” named in the above letter, evidently
refers to the torture which his wife suffered while he was paying
addresses to the Queen.
In the midst of this motley Court group one discerns the figure of
Burghley himself, a pillar of discretion, while unable to shield his own
daughter from distress and scandal.
We see that the Earl of Leicester was a person to be cultivated so long
as his love affairs did not incur the Queen’s anger, and so long, in
fact, as the love-making was not on his side. It must have been with a
chuckle of satisfaction that the Earl received a letter from the
favourite about this time, in which he specially commends the behaviour
of the young Talbots and records the Queen’s high approval of them. All
this was very soothing to their parents. The political situation was
less acute. Many traitors were dead, and the banner of Mary of Scotland
lay in the dust. Her chief stronghold had fallen. France was in very bad
odour, though the memory of the horror of the Bartholomew Massacre was
beginning to fade from English minds. Spain had enough to do with her
affairs in the Netherlands. Elizabeth could afford to dance, practise on
the virginals, play off one of her Court lovers against another, and
invent nicknames for them. Domestic happiness and a merrier aspect of
things came also nearer to the Talbots. My Lady absented herself for a
while, and the Earl writes to her as of old like a lover, and tells her
of his dangers and longings:—
“My dear none,—Of all joys I have under God the greatest is yourself: to
think that I possess so faithful, and one that I know loves me so
dearly, is all and the greatest comfort that this earth can give.
Therefore God give me grace to be thankful to Him for His goodness
showed unto me, a vile sinner.
“And where you advise in your letter you willed me to ...[20] which I
did that I should not be ...[20] to this lady nothing of the matter: my
stomach was so full, I asked her in quick manner, where she writ any
letters to any her friends that I would stand in her title. She affirms
in her honour she hath not. But howsoever it is she hath written
therein, I may safely answer I make small account thereof.
“I thank you, my sweetheart, that you are so willing to come when I
will. Therefore, dear heart, send me word how I might send for you; and
till I have your company I shall think long, my only joy: and therefore
appoint a day, and in the meantime I shall content me with your will,
and long daily for your coming. I your letters study very well; and I
like them so well they could not be amended: and I have sent them up to
Gilbert. I have written to him how happy he is to have such a mother as
you are. Farewell, only joy. This Tuesday evening.
“Your faithful one,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“To my wife.”[21]
The next letter, from one of her own boys, is one which Bess evidently
sent on to her “juwell” of a husband:—
_Henry Cavendish to the Countess of Shrewsbury._
“May it please your honour, I thought it good to let your La. understand
of a misfortune that happened in my house. On Thursday night last at
supper two of my men fell out about some trifling words, and to all
their fellows’ judgment that heard their jangling we made good friends
again, and went and lay together that night, for they had been
bedfellows of long before, and loved one another very well, as everybody
took it in the house. On Friday morning, very early, by break of day,
they went forth, by name Swenerto and Langeford, with two swords apiece,
as the sequel after showed; and in the fields fought together, and in
fight Swenerto slew Langeford, to my great grief both for the sudden
death of the one and for the utter destruction of the other, whom I
loved very well. Good Madam, let it not trouble you anything; we are
mortal, and born to many and strange adventures; and therefore must
temper our minds to bear such burdens as shall be by God laid on our
shoulders. My greatest grief, and so I judge it will be some trouble to
your La. that it should happen in my house. Alas! mada, what could I do
with it: altogether right sorrowful for it, and it hath troubled and
vexed me, more than in reason it should have done a wise man. I would to
God I could forget that there never had been any such matter. Upon the
fight done I sent for Mr. Adderley, and used his counsel in all things.
Swenerto fled presently and is pursued, but not yet heard of. Thus
humbly craving your La. daily blessing I end, more than sad to trouble
your La. thus long with this sorrowful matter. Tut: this present
Saturday.
“Your La. most bounden, humble, and obedient son,
“HENRY CAVENDISH.
“To my lady.
“Return this.”
“My ‘juwell,’ this Saturday at night I received this letter, much to my
grief for the mishap. Yet was ever like that Swenerto should commit some
great fault; he was a vain, lewd fellow. Farewell, my dear heart.
“Your faithful wife,
“E. SHREWSBURY.”
The Earl writes again, impatient for his wife’s return:—
“My dear none,—I see how careful you are of my health, which if I were
sick would relieve me again. I received a letter from Gilbert sent by
Nykle Clark. You may see the time approaching near that a new alarm will
be given me. When you have read his letter I pray you to write to me
again, for I mind of Monday to write by Antony Barlow; he will be glad
of the pursuivantship if he can get it: he shall have my good will
therein. If you will write up ... he may safely deliver it, therefore I
pray you fail not, but send me your advice concerning this matter.
Farewell, my only joy. This Saturday I pray you keep promise; you said
you would be with me within a fortnight at the furthest; therefore let
me hear from you when I shall send for your horses, my sweetheart.
“Your faithful husband and assured,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
At the beginning of the year following, 1574, the Earl indites a very
touching and dignified little New Year letter to the son in whom he
always seems to take the most interest—Gilbert:—
“I have received your letter of New Year’s Eve, and this New Year’s day
I begin to use my pen first to yourself wishing you to use yourself this
New Year and many years after to God’s glory and fear of Him, and to
live in that credit your ancestors have hitherto done, and so doing, as
I hope you will, be faithful, loyal, and serviceable to the Queen’s
Majesty, my Sovereign, who to me, under God, is King of Kings and Lord
of Lords. Your New Year’s gift shall be I will supply all your needful
wants; and so long as I see that carefulness, duty, and love you bear me
which hitherto I see in you, my purse and all that I have shall be as
free to you as to myself.[22] Time is so short and I have so many come
to me with New Year’s gifts I can write no more, but thank you for your
perfumed doublet you sent me: and so praying God to bless you.
“Sheffield Castle this New Year’s Day 1574.
“Your loving father,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The whole tone of the letter is one of domestic security, and one has a
vivid glimpse of the New Year celebrations and the flow of gifts. These
_étrennes_ were important affairs. A good courtier always paid this dole
to his queen under the guise of a handsome gift, while the nobles and
country gentry in their turn were the recipients from their tenants and
friends of heterogeneous articles varying from capons, wine, and
foodstuffs to gloves, clothes, or furniture.
No one in that great and rich family group, so full of promise, had any
notion of the events which would call down upon the Countess the wrath
of the Queen, or the fresh accusations which would be hurled against the
Earl.
Life just now was as easy as Shrewsbury could ever hope to find it. He
had managed to satisfy his prisoner and give her plenty of change. She
was in the autumn of 1573 transferred to Chatsworth, _en route_ for
Buxton. Ultimately, by dint of scouring the place of strangers and
preventing access to the springs of any save specified persons—a thing
the more easy of accomplishment since the waters were the property of
Shrewsbury’s family—it was made possible to give her five weeks here.
After this came a stay at Chatsworth and then the return to Sheffield.
Freedom from outside attacks did not last very long. Before the spring
had fairly set in Elizabeth and Burghley were once more on the warpath
against the Shrewsburys. Never was George Talbot sure of his Queen’s
trust. It must be remembered here that at the close of 1572 she had
deliberately written thus by Burghley: “The Queen’s Majesty has in very
good part accepted your last letter to herself, and has willed me to
ascertain your Lordship that she doth no wise alter her former good
opinion of your approved fidelity and of the care you have of such
service as is committed to you, the same being such as none can in her
land compare with the trust committed to your Lordship, and yet she
would have your Lordship, as she says, not to mislike that when she hath
occasion to doubt or fear foreign practices reaching hither into her
realm, even to the charge which your Lordship hath, she do warn you
thereof; and, in so doing, not to imagine that she findeth such
informations to proceed from any mistrust that she hath of your
Lordship, no more than she would have if you were her son or brother.
This she wills me to write effectually to your Lordship ... with my most
hearty commendations to your Lordship and my good Lady.”
In spite of this the least thing afforded Elizabeth an excuse for a
nagging letter to Sheffield Castle. On this occasion the matter was
innocent enough. Gilbert’s young wife expected her first child, and it
was not surprising that my Lord and Lady should prefer that the event
should take place under their roof. Yet the Queen thought it necessary
to worry them with mistrust, forcibly expressed. Shrewsbury replies to
Burghley: “The mislike her Majesty ... of my son Gilbert’s wife brought
to bed in my house, as cause of women and strangers repair hither, makes
me heartily sorry; nevertheless, the midwife excepted, none such have,
or do at any time, come within her sight; and at the first, to avoid
such resort, I myself with two of my children christened the child. What
intelligence passeth for this Queen to and from my house I do not know;
but trust her Majesty shall find my service while I live both true and
faithful. Yet be you assured, my Lord, this lady will not stay to put in
practice, or make enquiry by all means she can devise, and ask me no
leave, so long as such access of her people is permitted unto her.... My
Lord, where there hath been often bruits of this Lady’s escape from me,
the 26th of February last there came an earthquake, which so sunk
chiefly her chamber as I doubted more her falling than her going, she
was so afraid. But God be thanked she is forthcoming, and grant it may
be a forewarning unto her. It hath been at the same time in sundry
places. No hurt was done and the same continued a very small time. God
grant us all grace to fear Him.”
That the very Derbyshire ground which bore him should fail his feet
while his Queen’s faith in him fell away seems adding insult to injury.
For some time past he appears to have been torn between the longing to
rid himself of a now intolerable responsibility and the fear of
misconstruction to which his retirement from his post would expose him.
“The truth is, my good Lord,” as he is driven at last to say to
Burghley, “if it so stand with the Queen Majesty’s pleasure I could be
right well contented to be discharged ... and think myself therewith
most happy, if I could see how the same might be without any blemish to
my honour and estimation.” He begs that Burghley “will have respect that
such consideration may be had of my service as shall make it manifest to
the world how well her Majesty accepteth the same. My Lord Scroop, and
others, were not unconsidered of for their short time of service.” And
so in this condition of mind he waits for Burghley’s advice. He would
have done better to risk the Queen’s displeasure and to lay down his
gaoler’s warrant on the plea of illness, even if in those days medical
certificates were not so easy to procure and might not have been so
potent. As for disfavour at Court, he could, as a strong and powerful
private gentleman, take up his stand and keep up his vast property,
though Elizabeth might wreak her annoyance on the young Cavendishes and
Talbots. Had he summed up the courage to decide the matter after his own
heart he would have lost nothing in the world’s esteem, been far better
off in pocket, and possibly the barque of the Shrewsburys would have
escaped the shoals and rocks of domestic bickerings, which in later
middle-life led to such woeful wreckage of the vessel and the
magnificent family crew.
George Talbot did not foresee all this. He was not an imaginative man.
He was a typical Government official, precise, sententious, cautious,
faithful, anxious, hypersensitive. One imagines that his countess—who
was not in the least _au fond_ the typical discreet wife of a high
official—spent a good deal of time goading him to revolt. He has
admitted in a previous letter that she was not at all anxious for him to
continue with his present duties. Of course, it was the business of
Burghley to keep him at them. Shrewsbury was the most useful of all
English nobles in this respect. All the conditions about him suited the
Queen’s purposes in every way. The way in which she and Burghley put him
off with fair promises and bamboozled him with vague promises of reward
makes one gasp. As to current outlay—the £52 per week allowed him for
this by the Council was far too little—one of the most ingenious
suggestions Elizabeth ever made was that Mary should “defray her own
charges with her dowry of France.” Shrewsbury adds: “She seemed not to
dislike thereof at all, but rather desirous ... so she asked me in what
sort and with what manner of liberty she should be permitted to same.”
He urges that these details should be settled at once. “Assure yourself
if the liberty and manner thereof content her as well as the motion, she
will easily assent to it; and so I wish it, as may be without peril
otherwise; and for the charges in safe-keeping her, I have found them
greater many ways than some have accounted for, and than I have made
show of, or grieved at; for in service of her Majesty I can think my
whole patrimony well bestowed.”
How the wary official, loyal and somewhat crushed, speaks in that last
sentence! How irritating to his Bess with her superabundant business
instinct and her ambitions for her family! He was ever on the watch, his
conscience agog. She was continually “on the make,” seeking the quickest
road to family aggrandisement which was compatible with decency.
The following letter belongs to this period, and shows Gilbert Talbot
back in London. He had been previously there in communication with Court
officials apropos of the accusations brought originally against his
father and subsequently against himself by an ex-chaplain of the Earl,
named Corker, in combination with another priest called Haworth. The
letter roused the whole family. The Earl literally lashes out. It
remains as the chief evidence of the first published imputations against
the Earl’s honour. It evidently embodies the attitude of wife as well as
husband. This is a very important point because of the dissension which
arose later on this very question.
“_To the right honourable my very good Lord, my Lord Burghley, Lord
Treasurer of England._
“Your Lordship’s friendly letters I accept in as friendly ways as I know
to be meant to me. For Corker’s proceedings against my son Gilbert, I
partly understand of his false accusation; which, in my conscience, is
utterly untrue and thereupon I dare gage my life. The reprobate’s
beginning was against me and now turned to Gilbert. His wicked speeches
of me cannot be hid; I have them of his own hand, cast abroad in London,
and bruited throughout this realm, and known to her Majesty’s Council.
Her Majesty hath not heard of him ill of me, so it pleaseth her Majesty
to signify unto me by her own gracious letters, which I must believe,
notwithstanding his dealing against me is otherwise so notoriously known
that if he escape sharp and open punishment dishonour will redound to
me. This practice hath a further meaning than the varlets know of....
For mine own part I have never thought to allow any title, nor will,
otherwise than as shall please her Majesty to appoint.... How can it be
supposed that I should be disposed to favour this Queen for her claim to
succeed the Queen’s Majesty? My dealing towards her hath shown the
contrary. I know her to be a Stranger, a Papist, and my enemy; what hope
can I have of good of her, either for me or my country? I see I am by my
own friends brought in jealousy, wherefore I wish with all my heart that
I were honourably read, without note or blemish, to the world of any
want in me.”
Though the Earl’s enemy was satisfactorily condemned to the pillory and
the Fleet, the scandal proved many-headed, and again the poor official
(accused, among other things, of being as much of a credulous fool as a
knave in regard to Mary of Scotland) thunders protest.
“Wherefore as touching that lewd fellow, who hath not only sought by
unlawful libels extant, so much as in him lay, to deface my dutiful
heart and loyalty, but also the rooting up of my house, utter overthrow
and destruction of my lineal posterity, I neither hold him a subject nor
yet account him worthy the name of a man, which with a watery submission
can appease so rigorous a storm;[23] no, if loss of my life, which he
hath pretended would have fully contented him, I could better have been
satisfied than with these, his unspeakable vilenesses.... I might be
thought hard-hearted if, for Christianity’s sake, I should not freely
forgive as cause shall require, and desire God to make him a better
member, being so perilous a caterpillar in the Commonwealth. For I have
not the man anywise in contempt, it is his iniquity and Judas dealing
that I only hate.”
In other words, “Reptile! But I forgive thee.” It is almost a parallel
to the anecdote of a certain little girl with an over-stern nurse of
gloomy religious tendencies, to whom the child, waking alone in the
dark, called, “Nurse, nurse, come, come! I dreamed that the devil was
here tempting me to call you a duffer—_but I resisted the temptation_!”
The Corker affair, of course, provided fresh food for the imaginings and
reports of Mary’s adversaries. People thought that it would necessarily
mean the removal of Mary into fresh custody. Mary herself dreaded this.
She did not love Shrewsbury, but she believed her life to be safe with
him, though she may not have entirely trusted his wife. She heard that
poison was to be used against her, and that there was a suggestion at
Court “to make overtures to the Countess of Shrewsbury.” She was assured
that if anyone poisoned her without Elizabeth’s knowledge, the latter
“would be very much obliged to them for relieving her of so great a
trouble.”
There is nothing on the Countess’s side to corroborate this wild
statement. This horrible fear, however, was so implanted in Mary’s mind
that she sent to France for “some genuine terra sigillata, as antidote.”
But she did not apply to her sinister mother-in-law Catherine De Medici.
“Ask M. the Cardinal my uncle,” she writes, “or if he has none, rather
than have recourse to the Queen my mother-in-law, or to the King, send a
bit of fine unicorn’s horn, as I am in great want of it.”
The year 1574 travelled onward without realisation of her fears. The
“caterpillar,” Corker, had not prevailed in the overthrow of the Earl’s
house or of his “lineal posterity,” and Gilbert Talbot in this little
note writes affectionately enough to his stepmother:—[24]
“My most humble duty remembered unto your good Ladyship, to fulfil your
La. commandment, and in discharge of my duty by writing, rather than for
any matter of importance that I can learn, I herewith trouble your La.
Her Majesty stirreth little abroad, and since the stay of the navy to
sea here hath been all things very quiet.... I have written to my Lord
of the bruit which is here of his being sick again, which I nothing
doubt but it is utterly untrue: howbeit, because I never heard from my
L. nor your La. since I came up, I cannot choose but be somewhat
troubled, and yet I consider the like hath been often reported most
falsely and without cause, as I beseech God this be. My Lady Cobbam
asketh daily how your La. doth, and yesterday prayed me, the next time I
wrote, to do her very hearty commendation unto your La., saying openly
she remaineth unto your La. as she was wont, as unto her dearest friend.
My La. Lenox hath not been at the Court since I came. On Wednesday next
I trust (God willing) to go hence towards Goodrich; and shortly after to
be at Sheffield. And so most humbly craving your La. blessing with my
wonted prayer, for your honour and most perfect health long to continue.
From the Court at Greenwich this 27th June, 1573.
“Your La. most humble and obedient son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.
“To my Lady.
“I received a letter from my Lord since this letter was sealed, and then
I had no time by this messenger to write again unto your La. which came
in a comfortable season unto me.”
CHAPTER VIII
A CERTAIN JOURNEY
It was now the autumn of the year 1574. The Shrewsburys had for the time
being come triumphantly out of official complications, and despite their
grave responsibilities lived as comfortably as might be, though they
were often separated, because the wife, at any rate, had other duties
besides that of gaolership. What social life was permitted to them by
the restraint entailed by this charge could obviously be enjoyed only by
the Countess, and even she must have found it difficult to meet her
cronies, get her children married and provided for, and keep a firm hand
on domestic expenditure at the various houses she owned. The guarding of
Mary of Scotland certainly had its interesting, romantic side, and this
to some extent was a set-off against the greyer side of the business and
its financial disadvantages. Just now the chances of Mary were at their
lowest. Bothwell was dying in exile,[25] the Duke of Norfolk had shed
his blood vainly for her, Charles Darnley, “The Young Fool,” as Mr. Lang
most justly calls him, though dead, with all his vanity, treachery, and
vice, could still harm her cause, more latterly perhaps through the
popular stigma which attached to her than by the hatred of his
relatives, the family of Lennox. His family, sorely chastened by
Elizabeth for his marriage with Mary, was, since his death, held in less
odium at the English Court, though it did not suit the Queen’s gracious
meanness to raise it out of poverty. Elizabeth and Darnley’s mother,
poor soul—Countess of Lennox, _née_ the Lady Margaret Douglas—had buried
the hatchet after the boy’s death. For the benefit of those who forget
her story—or ignore it—a word as to this lady:—
[Illustration:
_From a contemporary picture_
LADY MARGARET DOUGLAS, COUNTESS OF LENNOX
MOTHER OF LORD DARNLEY
Page 120
]
The daughter of Queen Margaret of Scotland (a Tudor, and sister of Henry
VIII) and of the Earl of Angus, a mere boy, she was born in a wild
moment of flight over the border into England. The very castle into
which her mother crept after the long journey on horseback was
immediately besieged. Thereafter the child Margaret became a bone of
contention between her divorced parents—as history tells. After three
years of babyhood in the shelter of her royal uncle’s English Court she
spent her youth in France and Scotland, often latterly a wanderer from
castle to castle, abhorred by her mother the Scots Queen because of her
devotion to her outlawed father. For years she had neither house nor
pin-money, but was dependent always upon such hospitality and shelter as
her father’s friends would yield her in their Northern fortresses.
Though her mother never forgave her for her defection, the fortunes of
the girl—beautiful and of imposing personality—mended and brought her at
last into the sunshine of Tudor favours. Henry VIII had compassion on
his niece and made her playmate of Princess Mary, at which time she so
won his affections that he settled an annuity upon her and her father.
Subsequently she was first lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, and was
installed as one of the household of the baby Princess Elizabeth. While
Katherine of Aragon was being divorced and the star of Anne Boleyn waxed
and waned she witnessed strange moments, and watched the violent changes
by which her uncle declared now this one and now that one of his
daughters illegitimate. Her own fortunes, even as a princess of the
blood royal, were—in spite of her uncle’s genial expressions—nothing too
secure, and marriage and a dowry were still dreams of the future.
Possibly the King’s erotic irregularities allowed him no time for the
love affairs of others, but at any rate he manifestly did not, like some
of his successors, intend to doom his lady wards to perpetual virginity.
When Lady Margaret showed favour to Lord Thomas Howard, kinsman of the
Queen (Boleyn), Henry seemed to have winked at the courtship. So soon,
however, as he killed his second consort and degraded her baby girl to
the ranks of the illegitimate, matters assumed a very different colour.
For the Lady Margaret Douglas was now the nearest heir to the throne. He
married immediately, but no heir was speedily born. Meanwhile the Lady
Margaret’s love affair grew and culminated in a formal if secret
contract—that is to say a solemn betrothal, in every respect binding.
Henry regarded this as a double offence. His blood niece, his heir
apparent, had contracted herself without his permission; moreover she
had pledged herself to a near relative of the abhorred Boleyn. He
behaved in his proper, kingly, melodramatic way, sent man and maid to
the Tower, speedily convicted them of high treason, and sentence of
death followed. The execution of this, as usual, was delayed. The State
document condemning both is, as all the world knows, one of the most
disgracefully illegal concoctions ever produced by the blundering rage
of a ruler and the hypocrisy of his ministers. In addition it furnished
the precedent for the gross interference of that ruler’s daughter,
Elizabeth, in like cases. In addition to proving the Lady Margaret
guilty of treason, it professed to prove her illegitimacy also, and so
cleared the way for Henry’s future whims. The unhappy Lord Thomas, after
a year or two, succumbed to close confinement and sorrow and died in the
Tower. His lady was removed to Sion House Court, near London, one of the
few religious houses upon which her uncle found it convenient to smile
because it could play a most useful part in his affairs as a polite
place of detention for ladies of quality who drooped under his
displeasure. The birth of his prince—Edward VI—made him relent towards
his niece, and she came about the Court once more, though her old
penchant for the house of Howard, of which a second member—nephew of her
betrothed—now wooed her, thrust her into shadow again. This was probably
a harder blow than the first, though she was not this time shivering
under the fear of the axe. For she had been fully restored to her old
place; she had once more taken part in that melodramatic domestic
merry-go-round of Henry’s consorts. She was first lady to the new royal
Anne of Cleves, she had apartments assigned to her at Hampton Court, and
she was “first lady” again to Anne’s successor, Katherine Howard. A
weary period of detention at Sion House followed—sharply ended because
the King now wished to shut up Katherine Howard there. So Lady Margaret
was moved on to the care of the Duke of Norfolk on the East coast. The
third Katherine whom Henry wooed—the widowed Parr—put an end to this
banishment, and by her tact and kindness reconciliations took place all
round in the royal house. Lady Margaret played bridesmaid and
lady-in-waiting once more, and her uncle began to bestir himself about
her marriage. The man she wedded at the age of thirty-two after so much
tossing and chasing, imprisonment and poverty, was the very Matthew,
Earl of Lennox, whose claim to the Scots Crown had by James V of
Scotland, on the death of his two sons, been preferred against those of
the Earl of Arran. Both earls were kinsmen of James, and because of
their high ambitions were engaged in undying feud. The birth of a royal
Scots heir, in Mary, reduced both lords to the same level, but did not
diminish the pertinacity of Lennox, who returned from France to England
with the design of wedding Mary’s mother, Mary of Lorraine, as soon as
her widowhood pointed her out as eligible. He was a handsome fellow and
perfected in the graces of courts after his long apprenticeship in
France, but he did not have his way, and emissaries from England schemed
to throw Lady Margaret Douglas in his path. England was eager that he
should serve her purposes. As consort of Mary of Lorraine and financed
by France he would be the worst enemy of England. With Lady Margaret
England dangled before him a good dowry. The marriage, adorned by the
blessing of Henry VIII, took place with great éclat in 1544, and the
King flourished his sanction in a speech including the important
declaration, “in case his own issue failed he should be right glad if
heirs of her body succeeded to the crown.” Nevertheless, though her
husband was promised the regency of Scotland, and she was awarded
residence in a royal palace (Stepney), she did not retain the King’s
favour. Quarrels ensued; whether brewed by the spies in her own
household in London or in Yorkshire (where she established herself in
order to be nearer her husband, engaged in Border invasions), or by her
act does not appear. Just before Henry died the breach was complete, and
in spite of her having given birth to three legitimate Tudor heirs, of
whom Henry Darnley was the second, her rights and those of her offspring
from the regal succession in England were wiped out.
With a strength, as of Antæus, the much-buffeted lady overrode trouble
and travelled to London with her child Henry, now the eldest (her
first-born died in infancy), to pay her respects to her cousin, the new
King, Edward VI. How she faced the situation is a marvel. Her husband’s
Border cruelties had made him unpopular, and she was coldly looked upon.
Her position for some years was most equivocal, since, in spite of her
close relationship to the queen dowager of Scotland, she could not
present to this lady, her sister-in-law, her husband Earl Lennox,
traitor to Scotland, or her sons, in whom the Tudor blood was tainted by
that of Lennox. She lived, however, in stately fashion in Yorkshire,
followed eagerly the ritual of the Romish Church, and educated her
children in it. Quarrels with her father Angus, discussions as to the
disposal of his property, the birth of her eighth child, and the
impaired health of her lord engrossed her now sufficiently. Then came
another subtle and sudden change of fortunes with the death of Edward
VI, the abortive scheme on behalf of Lady Jane Grey, and the sudden
triumph of the claims of Princess Mary over those of her younger sister
Elizabeth.
During the reign of Mary of England Lady Lennox passed into calmer
waters. She did not abuse her opportunities, but the Queen’s favour did
not make Margaret or her children heirs designate to Mary’s crown.
Exit Mary, enter Elizabeth, and with Elizabeth a short time of
prosperity! Matthew Lennox secured eventually his regency in Scotland,
and his wife was in waiting upon Elizabeth at Windsor. She must have
felt like a bat emerging from a cellar after the constant misfortunes
and rebuffs of the past. Disfavour, dispeace were, however, always her
portion, and very soon closed in upon her. This time the occasion of
disturbance was France. Its king died. Mary of Scotland became queen
consort. Lady Lennox saw a rich chance of using influence so puissant
for reinstating her husband and herself in Scotland. She sent one
messenger of congratulation and again another. This seems to have been
Henry Darnley, now her eldest son, who was just fifteen. Thus did she
begin to lay the train of circumstances which exploded in the horrors of
the night of Kirk-o’-Field. From this till the actual Darnley marriage
it was the Lady Lennox even more than her husband who invited intrigue.
She, like other keen aristocratic plotters of the day, employed not only
codes, emissaries, and spies, but conjurors. Little she guessed at the
eavesdroppers who lurked in the corners of her great house at
Settrington, and of the spies whom the Earl of Leicester and Lord
Burghley employed to catch every suspicious word and record every
private interview within her walls. One fine day the Queen’s officers
invaded and seized her household, conjurors included, and she and her
family were summoned sharply to Court. A sorry journey that, though not
the first piece of pitiful travelling she had done. Servants, children,
lord and lady reached the capital, and were disposed of in various
quarters. The Lennoxes were ordered to their own apartments in
Westminster Palace, while some of their retinue were put into the old
Gate House prison close by. How young Lord Darnley managed to evade
watching and quietly lose himself in London is a mystery. This did not
make things easier for his parents, who were instantly punished by
separation and imprisonment, he in the Tower, and she to strait keeping
under the roof of Sir Richard and Lady Sackville, the Queen’s cousins,
at Sheen. Lady Lennox’s religion and the unjust suggestion that she had
been responsible for the harsh treatment, by the late Queen, of her
sister Elizabeth, seemed to aggravate the case of both prisoners. After
sickness, pleadings, and indignation, husband and wife were permitted to
share confinement at Sheen. It would have been best for them if they had
been kept there indefinitely. How Elizabeth ever came to free them in
the midst of her suspicions and fears in regard to the marriage of Mary
of Scotland is extraordinary. That she should actually have been
prevailed upon to give the Earl and his eldest son a passport into
Scotland is still more so. With the Darnley marriage began Lady Lennox’s
long incarceration in the Tower itself—a more pitiful imprisonment than
any she had experienced. Her children were far from her; her husband and
eldest son were too wise to risk their fate by obeying Elizabeth’s
absurd order to return to Court. Freedom came hand in hand with the
terrible news of Darnley’s murder. What could the woman do but break
forth into loud complaints and passionate accusation in the royal
presence? Was it strange that, worn with imprisonment, the beauty of her
prime gone, her face disfigured with many sorrows, her dignity and royal
blood degraded, she should address a petition begging the Queen to
commit Mary to trial and secure the speedy execution of justice?
Elizabeth would not have her hand forced. “It was not becoming,” said
she, “to fix a charge so heinous upon the princess and her kinswoman
without producing the clearest evidence.” She would not actually accuse,
but she would not clear her enemy.
Thus there was reason enough for Elizabeth’s later clemency towards the
Lennoxes. It suited the purpose of queen and prisoner that they should
now join issue against the murderess, “the hure,” against “Bothwell’s
wench.” It suited Lennox well that he should be installed guardian of
the future James I, and Lady Lennox, as his grandmother, was now
accorded a far more important position than she could have taken had her
daughter-in-law been above suspicion. It is true that financially she
was never unembarrassed. A mansion at Hackney, formerly the property of
the ruined family of Percy, was awarded to her as a residence, but it
does not seem to have been much of a home, or at least, her manner of
living there seems to have been anything but luxurious. She does not
appear to have been much at Court. Gilbert Talbot alludes to her in a
letter already quoted, and written in this summer of 1574: “My Lady of
Lennox hath not been at the Court since I came.” Up to the present her
attitude towards Mary was unchanged. When Lord and Lady Burghley visited
Chatsworth in 1570, Margaret Lennox thought it necessary to flog a dead
horse and add by letter her exhortations to the warnings of Elizabeth
that Mr. Secretary should be on his guard against the wiles of Mary.
Even Margaret—a woman—knew the force of the personal equation in this
case. She is careful to add: “Not for any fear you should be won, which
as her Majesty tells me she did speak to you at your departing, but to
let you understand how her Majesty hath had some talks with me touching
my Lord.... Her Majesty says that Queen works many ways—I answered her
Majesty was a good lady to her and better I thought than any other
prince would have been if they were in her case, for she staid
publishing abroad her wickedness which was manifestly known.” In the
self-same summer from Chatsworth Mary, the daughter-in-law, writes to
her. The content and tone of the letters is pitiful enough.
“Madame,—If the wrong and false reports of enemies well known as
traitors to you, alas! too much trusted by me, by your advice, had not
so far stirred you against my innocence (and I must say against all
kindness) that you have not only as it were condemned me wrongfully, but
cherished, as your words and deeds have testified to all the world, a
manifest misliking against your own blood, I would not have omitted this
long ago duty in writing to you, excusing me for those untrue reports
made of me, but hoping with God’s grace and time to have my innocence
confirmed, as I trust it is already, even to the most indifferent
persons. I thought best not to trouble you for a time till now another
matter is moved that toucheth us both, which is the transporting of your
little son, and my only child, to the which I were never so willing, yet
I would be glad to have your advice therein, as in all other things
touching him. I have borne him, and God knoweth with what danger to him
and to me, and of you he is descended. So I mean not to forget my duty
to you in showing therein any unkindness to you notwithstanding how
unkindly you have dealt with me, but will love you as my aunt and
respect you as my mother-in-law. And if it please you to know further of
my mind, in that and all things betwixt us, my ambassador, the Bishop of
Ross, shall be ready to confer with you.
“And so after my hearty commendations, remitting you to the said
ambassador and your better consideration, I commit you to the protection
of Almighty God, whom I pray to preserve you, and my brother Charles,
and cause you to know my part better than you do—By your loving
daughter-in-law.
“(To my Lady Lennox, my mother-in-law.)”[26]
This letter was delivered to Lady Lennox in the Queen’s presence some
months after it was written, and Elizabeth was still at work defaming
the writer to her mother-in-law. That was during the close of 1570. In
1574 their relations were in no wise altered. Lady Lennox evidently
still believed her son’s wife guilty, while she pathetically insisted
upon her rights as the grandmother of a king. In this capacity she
applied to the Queen for a safe-conduct to her northern house of
Settrington—now restored to her—whither she wished to repair with her
son Charles because she had been informed of a plot to carry off her
royal grandson and bring him to England. This seems to have been a
rather well-worn excuse and was mistrusted by Elizabeth, who about this
time began to entertain doubts of her lady’s real attitude towards the
imprisoned “dowager of Scotland.” She and Lady Shrewsbury were old
acquaintances at Court. The latter heard of the projected long journey,
and invited the party to break it at one of the Shrewsbury “places.”
Chatsworth offered itself as most suitable, but she was right in her
surmise that this choice would only appear in a suspicious light to
Elizabeth, who anticipated it in the admonition she bestowed on Lady
Lennox before her departure. Her Ladyship showed a fine indignation at
such a suggestion, but one wonders whether this was not merely a piece
of “bluff,” for the complicity of Mary had been repeatedly denied by
Bothwell and by other Scottish lords implicated in the dark business at
Kirk-o’-Field. At any rate this northern journey gave colour to all
kinds of imputations. It was suggested that Lady Lennox’s ultimate aim
was simply a visit of tender enquiry and that she was bound actually for
Scotland to assure herself of the welfare of the boy James. It was
thought, again, that she herself would kidnap the child and bring him
into England for her own purposes or for those of her daughter-in-law.
At all events she had her way and started. Lady Shrewsbury also knew
that Chatsworth was much too near Sheffield Castle to allow of the
reception of this guest without literally disobeying orders from Court.
She decided, therefore, upon Rufford Abbey as the most suitable place.
Unhappily the scheme which lay behind this hospitality has not descended
to posterity in the form of letters. But gradually the motives
underlying the invitation show themselves clearly enough. Lady
Shrewsbury had still one unmarried daughter for whom she was exerting
herself to find a good match. She had her eye upon a certain young
Bertie, a son of the Duchess of Suffolk by a second marriage. This
affair could not be accomplished, and she therefore worked upon the
Duchess’s sympathy so as to secure her co-operation in a new direction.
Lady Lennox and her son Charles on their journey halted first at the
gates of the Duchess’s house. Six miles away was Rufford, where Lady
Shrewsbury had taken her daughter and made all ready for goodly
entertainment. To the Duchess’s house she sent a messenger, and backed
up the invitation by a personal visit. Lady Lennox accepted the
invitation, and with her son, coach, baggage-carts, mules, and
attendants arrived at the Abbey. Previous to this there must surely have
taken place an interesting three-cornered interview between the three
great ladies. Though the Duchess of Suffolk may have been genuinely
interested in helping to find a husband for wistful young Elizabeth
Cavendish, one cannot acquit her of a certain malice. Her part in the
transaction wears a very innocent air. Nothing happened under her roof
for which she could be called to book by the Queen. At the same time she
was a hot Protestant and could not have felt any very great sympathy for
the Lady Lennox, nor for Lady Shrewsbury, who, as regards mere creed,
must always have been a religious opportunist.
At Rufford Lady Lennox fell ill. There was excuse enough after the
exposure to cold and flood in the uncertain autumn weather during which
she undertook her journey. She was forced to keep her room. Nothing
could have fallen out more happily to assist the plot of the hostess.
Her hands were occupied with her friend’s ailments. Their children must
amuse one another. In five days the close companionship between Charles
and Elizabeth could not but grow, fostered by the cleverness of the
girl’s mother. Free to go and come in gardens and woodland, young and
lithe, eager to escape from rules and duties and tutors, to forget sad
things—Elizabeth Cavendish, the grim details of Sheffield Castle, its
alarums and excursions, Charles Stuart, the tragedies of his family—they
wooed each other readily. Glimpses of their courtship are visualised for
the reader in imaginary dialogue following.
CHAPTER IX
LOVE AND THE WOODMAN
_Scene_: A parlour in Rufford Abbey, October, 1574. Elizabeth
Cavendish bending over her embroidery frame. The Countess of
Shrewsbury seated writing.
A man’s voice [_calling outside the window_]. Mistress! Mistress
Elizabeth! Come out!
[_Elizabeth Cavendish starts, rises, looks at her mother._
_Countess_ [_apparently stern_]. Say that I have set you a task. Now do
not go to the window!
_Elizabeth_ [_checking herself half-way to the window_]. Nay, my Lord, I
cannot come indeed. [_Drops her voice._] Oh! mother, if it were one of
the grooms or only my brother!
_Countess._ Little fool! It is the voice of Lennox. Mark you—play him
wisely.
_Lennox_ [_calling again_]. Mistress, there is no “cannot” when the sun
calls!
_Elizabeth._ My Lord, lady mother says she ... needs me.
_Lennox._ It is not true. She is brewing a hot posset for my mother. I
saw her shoulders in the buttery.
_Countess_ [_her shoulders shaking_]. Oho! it was Mrs. Glasse he saw. I
gave her once an old gown of mine to wear.
_Elizabeth_ [_moving to the window_]. No, no, my Lord, she says it was
Mrs. Gl.... [_The Countess springs up, catches her sharply by the wrist,
and gives her a little rap with her fan._]
_Countess._ S-s-t! Let him think I am not here. Play him, play him!
_Lennox._ What is that you say, mistress?
_Elizabeth_ [_embarrassed and miserable_]. Nothing....
[_Lennox throws his cap in at the window. It falls at her feet._]
_Countess._ Girl, do not touch it.
_Lennox._ Oh, mistress, how the sun calls! It has called my cap. Some
magic has given wings to it and it is gone.
_Elizabeth._ It is here!
_Countess._ Hush! Not yet—not yet.
[_Enter at back a maid with a bowl of posset._]
_Lennox._ Mistress, is my cap flown in at your window perchance?
_Countess_ [_mimicking Elizabeth’s voice_]. Indeed, no.
_Elizabeth._ Oh—lady mother!
[_The maid with the posset giggles, and receives a frown and a box on
the ear for her pains._]
_Maid._ Will your la’ship’s grace be pleased to taste?
_Countess._ Nay, nay, I cannot abide tansy, but it is good for the
joints and for rheumy distillations, and will serve the Lady Margaret
finely. Go you and wait for me at her door with the bowl.
_Lennox._ Elizabeth, I know you have my cap. Without it I cannot walk
abroad. The wind is cool.
_Elizabeth_ [_softly_]. Oh, mother, he will have the rheum too!
_Countess._ Then shall he stay longer and be well nursed and physicked
also.
_Lennox._ Bring me my cap, fair mistress.
_Bess_ [_in Elizabeth’s voice_]. Come and fetch it, my Lord.
_Lennox._ That I will, if you will come out with me. But not till you
promise.
_Bess_ [_to Elizabeth_]. Say no—say no.
_Elizabeth._ I cannot, because ... because ... I have much work to do,
enough for ... many days.
_Lennox._ It can tarry, lady. In two days I shall be over the Border.
_Elizabeth_ [_agonised_]. Oh, mother!
_Bess_ [_in the feigned voice_]. Not without your cap, I trust, my Lord.
_Lennox._ What if you give it me back?
_Elizabeth_ [_in tears_]. Mother, why does he not come to fetch it?
_Bess._ Sh-sh. I scolded him well but half an hour ago, and bid him
leave you alone and keep out of my parlour.
_Elizabeth_ [_with dignity_]. Nay, lady mother, he shall have his cap.
[_Picks it up._]
_Bess_ [_taking it from her_]. He shall, young impudence, but he shall
fetch it. Play him, Bet, play him well, and if he should ask you go into
the meadows ... say “Yes.” But not in haste, mark you!
_Elizabeth_ [_on her knees, clinging to her mother’s gown_]. Lady
mother ... I mislike it....
_Bess_ [_disengaging herself_]. “It,” “it”? What is “it”? He is a pretty
young man, and his blood runs high like Darnley’s. But God be thanked
’tis a wiser fool than his brother. Now remember to carry yourself as a
Cavendish should. Be cautious! Make no false step. I go to cosset and
posset the mother. S’death, I would I were in your shoes, Bet, to run
into the woods instead of tiptoe round a sick-chamber.
_Elizabeth_ [_springing up_]. May I indeed go into the woods?
_Bess_ [_at the door_]. Sh-sh.... Cavendo tutus![27]
_Elizabeth_ [_half runs to the window with the cap, stops, smiles_]. My
Lord!
_Lennox._ Are you alone, mistress?
_Elizabeth._ Yes.... No....
_Lennox._ Who is there?
_Elizabeth._ Your cap! [_Looks laughing out of the window._]
_Lennox._ Coming, coming! [_A minute later he bursts open the door and
greets her, walks to the embroidery frame, pushes it into a corner, and
holds out his hand._] Into the sun, Elizabeth.
_Elizabeth_ [_shyly_]. I have not my hood, my Lord.
_Lennox._ Charles, Elizabeth!
_Elizabeth._ Charles ... my Lord.
_Lennox._ Into the woods, my Lady. What matters your hood? The sun
cannot fire your hair if you wear a hood! [_Draws her down the stairway.
At the foot of it she slips her hand from his, and they pass demurely
across the courtyard and out into the meadows, talking of light and
little things. From time to time Lennox sings snatches of song. The
larks trill overhead. They plunge into the woods._]
_Elizabeth._ Oh, Charles, I feel as though I had grown lark’s wings ...
like your cap.
_Lennox._ No, no. If you would grow into a bird, then I shall needs
become a fowler.
_Elizabeth._ Nay, you shall have wings too.
_Lennox._ Why have we not wings, Elizabeth?
_Elizabeth_ [_looking up into the sky between the branches_]. God is
wise, Charles. And we have the beautiful warm earth and all the flowers
to joy us. Meseems it is more comfortable to talk upon the earth than in
the branches.... And to build our mansions on the earth, too.
Charles....
_Lennox._ Mansions? I hate them. Great chambers in which one must shiver
in cold state because one is poor, great chairs in which one must sit
very straight and look wise, great windows where the snow and rain beat
and trickle in, or little ones which bar the sun. In Scotland they are
like that, little and narrow in the great castles. I hate them.
_Elizabeth_ [_proudly_]. In England we have great windows secure against
storms. You should see my mother’s house at Hardwick, Charles. It has
high windows. And so fair the house. And she says she will build one
there still greater and fairer.
_Lennox._ But I desire no great house. You are little, I am not
great.... I want a little house, a bower....
_Elizabeth._ My Lord....
_Lennox_ [_with his arm about her_]. A bower with you, which I would
build out of the trees, my own self, like the knight who loved the lady.
_Elizabeth._ Ah? Who was she?
_Lennox._ A lady, like you, Elizabeth, and not much taller, so I take
it. I read of her in a little book. See ... here it is. [_Pulls a volume
out of the bosom of his jerkin._] My brother Darnley gave it me once. It
is a love tale, all in French, and very curious.
_Elizabeth._ Read it to me, Charles.
_Lennox._ Sweetheart, I cannot read it all because the words are so
strange, but my brother writ portions of the rightful meanings on the
margins.... Come ... let us sit.... [_He draws her to a place under the
trees._]
_Elizabeth._ Charles ... I am afraid....
_Lennox._ Not with me....
_Elizabeth._ There are woodmen.... They go to and fro.
_Lennox._ What of that? There are woodmen in the story—many. [_Opens the
book._]
_Elizabeth._ Listen, I hear their axes—chip, chop. They are cutting into
pieces the lovely trees they felled in the spring. It is very sad.
_Lennox._ Dear, you are sweetly foolish. They cannot hurt you.
_Elizabeth_ [_sadly_]. So do they cut down the happy trees.
_Lennox._ Happy to be cut down to build bowers for you and me....
Listen.... [_Turns over the leaves._] She was a fairy maiden.
_Elizabeth_ [_shocked_]. Oh! Then she said no prayers.
_Lennox._ Her foster-father took her from the fairies, and what prayers
she missed she learnt at the feet of love.
_Elizabeth._ Where did she first see her lover...?
_Lennox._ How can I tell? He loved her from the beginning ... as I love
you.
_Elizabeth._... The beginning?
_Lennox._ Two days ago.
_Elizabeth_ [_starting up_]. A woodman comes. [_He pulls her down
again._]
_Lennox._ How can I tell the story if you run away?
_Elizabeth._ Indeed ... I love to listen.
_Lennox_ [_goes on rapidly_]. Well ... thus was it. These two loved ...
oh, terribly! And the father of the knight, a great count, parted them,
since the boy would not go fight against his country’s enemies except he
wedded the lady ... and the Count bid her foster-father shut her in a
prison so that she should weave no spells about him more.
_Elizabeth._ This is too sad a story. [_Wipes her eyes._]
_Lennox._ It was a very fair prison in a great castle, dearest.... And
she quickly escaped from it by her art.
_Elizabeth._ Good, good!
_Lennox._ But her love knew not where she went.... And he said to his
father, “If I trounce your foes in battle, let me but kiss my lady.” To
which the lord said “Yes.” But he kept not his word, and put the knight
in prison when he came home bruised and weary after battle.
_Elizabeth._ Alack!
_Lennox._ But she—she found the prison and sang through the window, and
cut her hair to throw into the chamber that he might remember her.
_Elizabeth_ [_slyly_]. Like your cap, but just now, Charles.
_Lennox._ Yes, yes.... And they called courage to one another till the
soldiers came and she hid for fear they should kill her.... And then she
walked far till she came to a great wood.... [_A woodman passes with his
axe._]
_Elizabeth._ There is the axe, again. It minds me of—of death, Charles!
_Lennox._ Dearest, it is only a foolish axe to chop your lady mother’s
fuel.
_Elizabeth._ And how did the knight find his lady?
_Lennox._ When the Count deemed the fairy lady gone for ever he let his
son the knight come out of the tower where he was, and feasted him. But
the lady dwelt in the woods and he knew it not.
_Elizabeth_ [_indignant_]. He stayed to feast while she wandered in a
strange wood?
_Lennox._ He stayed but little. And when he could he took his horse and
rode out and came to five roads which met.... Stay ... my brother writ
of these cross-roads. It is a pretty conceit he made. The one was called
“The World,” and another “The Wars,” a third was “Power,” and the
fourth ... see, can you read this?
_Elizabeth._ “Riches.” And the next word is “Poverty.”
_Lennox._ There he waited—perplexed.
_Elizabeth._ Quick, quick! Which did he choose?
_Lennox._ Faith, he tried them all save “Poverty.”... Yet when he would
travel down one or the other her voice called him back, and his horse
stood like stone till the knight trembled in the twilight and feared she
was all a fairy and no woman, but mocked him. And then from his bosom
there fell a sheaf of her hair. When he stooped to gather it, it grew
into a fine chain, the end whereof he could not see, and it closed about
his wrist like a bracelet and drew him to the road called “Poverty.”
_Elizabeth._ Then, surely, he rode fast?
_Lennox._ Horse and man were exceeding glad—so says the book ... because
of the noble road which opened before them.... And the moon and the sun
shone together upon them till at last they were come to a little house
of boughs twined with lilies.... Over the door was written, “Her Heart
and My Desire” ... and there he found his lady, singing fairy songs
because she knew that he was faithful.... [_Closes the book and bends
over her._]
_Elizabeth_ [_softly_]. And there they stayed surely a little while.
_Lennox._... To the end of the world....
_Elizabeth._... But the woodman came by with his axe to cut down the
bower.
_Lennox._ Not in this tale.
_Elizabeth._ The lilies faded.
_Lennox._ They were fadeless.
_Elizabeth._ They grew old ... and ... could not feel the sun....
_Lennox._ Never, never.
_Elizabeth._ I would it were true, Charles. [_The sound of the axe again
interrupts them. There is laughter from men, who pass and repass and
point out the lovers to each other._] There! They have seen us—the rude
woodmen. We have no bower any more. [_Hurries away from the tree._]
_Lennox_ [_in pursuit_]. What mean you by this “woodman”...?
_Elizabeth_ [_holding out her hands for protection_]. I mean there ...
is no for ever.... They died, and the lilies and the branches died. Let
us go home ... Charles, hide me ... from the woodman!
_Lennox._ Always, always! Elizabeth, stay with me. Do not ever go from
me. You ... you shall never die!
[_He puts his cloak about her and they walk, closely knit, through the
meadows till they reach the Abbey. At the gates they slip apart and
go in demurely as before. The Countess looks through a window on to
the court over which they pass._]
_Countess._ Bet, come instantly to your chamber!
_Lennox_ [_saluting_]. My Lady, she cannot leave me. For so has she
promised.
_Countess._ Lord, Lord! What have you done?
_Elizabeth._ Lady mother, I ...
_Countess._ Come in, come in, you sad fools. Every scullion will hear
you. [_The three meet on the staircase and the Countess motions them
austerely into the parlour._]
_Countess_ [_to Lennox_]. I bid you stay far from Elizabeth.
_Elizabeth._ Oh, mother, make no more feints. He loves me. If he goes
from me ... [_Her voice breaks._]
_Lennox._ My Lady, she will go to the Border with me and into the world.
_Countess_ [_with a cry of dismay_]. So, so.... “He loves me.”... “I
will go over the Border.”... And how shall a poor woman permit such
naughty contrivings!
_Elizabeth._ Mother.... We are not naughty. I did not know he loved me
till ... till we spoke of a story.... And then ... it was very sweet,
mother ... till the woodmen came.... And I was frightened and ran,
and ... Charles bid me come home.... He says the woodman ... [_Turns to
Lennox for protection._]
_Countess_ [_with a cry of anger_]. The woodmen. What is this of the
woodmen?
_Elizabeth._ They mocked, and....
_Countess._ Lord, Lord!... What is to be done now...? You should both be
whipped. The woodmen to see you kissing and cozening under the trees?
The woodmen? And you a Cavendish! Stay you here till I have told the
Lady Lennox. Oh, oh, oh! that I should have such a tale for her....
[_At the sound of her voice Lady Lennox, roused, comes down the
corridor in her bedgown._]
_Countess._ My Lady!
_Lennox._ Mother....
_Lady Lennox._... I was affrighted. I thought you wept, my Lady.
_Countess._ Matter for weeping, in truth. [_Points to Elizabeth and
Lennox, who stand together._]
_Lady Lennox._ But ... how? [_Sinks into a chair._]
_Countess_ [_vehemently_].... My Lady, ... these naughty children have
carried themselves no better than a pair of turtle-doves; and all in the
woods.... And the whole world knows it. My very woodmen ... low
fellows ... laughed!... Your son plots to carry my Elizabeth over the
Border an if she were a truss of hay! And she, the wretch, too, content
to be bundled that way ... any way ... so long as it be on his road! Oh!
my Lady, help us all, lest shame fall on my house.
_Lennox_ [_defiant_]. No shame to love well, my Lady. Are there no
priests? And this an Abbey!
_Lady Lennox._ Boy, go you to your room and leave me talk with my Lady
here.
_Lennox._ I go with Elizabeth to the gallery. When you call, mother, we
will come.... [_Kisses her hand and goes out with Elizabeth._]
_Lady Lennox._ A priest! There is time enough....
_Countess._ How do I know if they will not fly like birds together if we
say them “Nay”?
_Lady Lennox._... The saints forbid!...
_Countess_ [_quickly_]. The boy is wild ... for love makes wildlings of
men.... It is the only word of wisdom he has said ... that of the
priest.
_Lady Lennox._ Great Heaven!...
_Countess._ Young fools.... Yet, if we part them ... shall not our
consciences give us everlasting punishment?
_Lady Lennox._ True, true.... The girl is very gentle, my Lady.... There
is a look in her eye that.... And he is very ripe for love. [_The
Countess punctuates her speeches with sympathetic gestures._] And I have
seen much sorrow, and the House of Lennox dies ... with Charles.
_Countess._ Come ... let us not talk of death ... but look properly upon
this matter and devise, instead of funerals, weddings. Come, my sweet
friend, dear Lady ... to your chamber.... Rest, and let us comfort one
another.... Come! [_She supports Lady Lennox out of the room._]
CHAPTER X
AFTERMATH
There was, as the two mothers agreed, but one way out of it all—a speedy
marriage. No time to invite the blessing of the bride’s stepfather, no
time for signing of deeds, or for collecting bride-gear, or for endowing
boy and girl with house and lands. These things would as well be done
afterwards as now, and a pompous family wedding in the Shrewsbury
household would just now have been attended with all sorts of
difficulties. Without more ado the matter was settled, and the actual
wedding seems to have taken place at Rufford in the presence of only a
very few persons. Indeed, in the words of one historian, the pair
“married almost as soon as Lady Lennox was able to leave her bedroom.”
It has been suggested by the same writer that the two dowagers, in
aiding and abetting the marriage, were at cross purposes. It is certain
that Lady Shrewsbury had met her match in character, purpose, and
ability in intrigue. She could not have been able to persuade Margaret
Lennox in the affair against her will and conscience. Henderson
elaborates the suggestion thus: “The motive of Lady Lennox was probably
reconciliation with the Queen of Scots, through the new connection
formed with the Shrewsburys. If Elizabeth died—and there was a general
impression that she would not live long—Mary might very possibly succeed
her; and though Lady Lennox thought it prudent to assert to Elizabeth
that she never could have dealings with the Queen of Scots, since, being
flesh and blood, she could not forget the murder of her child, yet she
did not wish to debar herself from all further favour from the possible
Queen of England, who was also the mother of her grandchild (i.e. James
of Scotland). As for Mary, nothing could suit her better than a
reconciliation with Lady Lennox, since it would mean the renewal of
support from many Catholics who had been estranged from her by the
circumstances attending the death of Darnley. In any case, whatever
Mary’s part in the accomplishment of the marriage, and whether any
understanding was then arrived at by her with Lady Lennox or not, Mary,
after the death of Lady Lennox in 1578, affirmed that she had been
reconciled to her for five or six years, and that Lady Lennox sent her
letters expressing regret at the wrong she had done her in the
accusations she had been induced to make against her, at the instance of
Elizabeth and her Council.”[28]
This is, however, a part of future history. The facts show that Mary
seems to have had no hand in the marriage, and we cannot imagine that
after carefully balancing all possibilities Lady Shrewsbury would have
invited her interest. The whole thing would have been revealed and
exaggerated by spies, and thus assume the form of a very serious plot.
Lady Lennox certainly trusted to Elizabeth’s credence in her old enmity
against her daughter-in-law to clear her from blame. Lady Shrewsbury
doubtless pretended to herself that she could not be justly accused of a
grab at royal rights, on behalf of her family, since Scotland had
already its King and it was open to England to name a successor. La
Mothe Fénélon, the French Ambassador, feared that the Lennox intimacy
would estrange the Shrewsburys from Mary, and so make her case harder.
The very contrary happened, as the correspondence reveals.
For the moment we are concerned with the days immediately following that
sudden ceremony at Rufford. Details of the itinerary of the bridal pair
are not forthcoming, neither does it appear where the older Lady Lennox
went after her momentous visit, nor whether young Elizabeth and her
husband took shelter with her mother or his. News of the event did not
reach the Queen till fully a month later. Instantly she scented treason.
Here was a chance for her to behave once more after the pattern of her
autocratic father. She belaboured the Earl of Shrewsbury, and despatched
to both dowagers and the bride and bridegroom a summons to Court.
Lord Shrewsbury, who in these days scarcely ever put pen to paper except
to expostulate, explain, and apologise, wrote three separate letters on
the subject—to the Queen, to Burghley, and to Lord Leicester. It will
suffice to quote the two first:—
“May it please your excellent Majesty,
“The commandment your Majesty once gave me, that I should sometimes
write to you, although I had little to write of, boldeneth me thus to
presume, rather to avoid blame of negligence than dare tarry long for
any matter worthy your Majesty’s hearing; only this I may write; it is
greatly to my comfort to hear your Majesty passed your progress in
perfect health and so do continue. I pray to Almighty God to hold it
many years, and long after my days ended; so shall your people find
themselves most happy.
“This Lady, my charge, is safe at your Majesty’s commandment.
“And, may it further please your Majesty, I understood of late your
Majesty’s displeasure is sought against my wife, for marriage of her
daughter to my Lady Lennox’s son. I must confess to your Majesty, as
true it is, it was dealt in suddenly, and without my knowledge; but as I
dare undertake and ensure to your Majesty, for my wife, she, finding her
daughter disappointed of young Barté, where she hoped that the other
young gentleman was inclined to love with a few days’ acquaintance, did
her best to further her daughter in this match; without having therein
any other intent or respect than with reverend duty towards your Majesty
she ought. I wrote of this matter to my Lord Leicester a good while ago
at great length. I hid nothing from him that I knew was done about the
same, and thought not meet to trouble your Majesty therewith, because I
took it to be of no such importance as to write of, until now that I am
urged by such as I see will not forbear to devise and speak what may
procure any suspicion, or doubtfulness of my service here. But as I have
always found your Majesty my good and gracious Sovereign, so do I
comfort myself that your wisdom can find out right well what causes move
them thereunto, and therefore am not afraid of any doubtful opinion, or
displeasure to remain with your Majesty of me, or of my wife, whom your
highness and your council have many ways tried in times of most danger.
We never had any thought or respect but as your Majesty’s most true and
faithful servants; and so do truly serve and faithfully love and honour
your Majesty, ever praying to Almighty God for your Majesty, as we are
in duty bounden.
“SHEFFIELD, _2nd of December, 1574_.”
The other letter is headed:—
“To My Lord Tre....,
“My very good Lord, for that I am advertised the late marriage of my
wife’s daughter is not well taken in the Court, and thereupon are some
conjectures more than well, brought to her Majesty’s ears, in ill part
against my wife; I have a little touched the same in my letters now to
her Majesty, referring further knowledge thereof to letters I sent my
Lord of Leicester a good while since, wherein I made a long discourse of
that matter; and if your Lordship meet with anything thereof that
concerns my wife or me, and sounds in ill part against us, let me crave
of your Lordship so much favour as to speak your knowledge and opinion
of us both. No man is able to say so much as your Lordship of our
service because you have so carefully searched it, with great respect to
the safe keeping of my charge. So I take leave of your Lordship.
“SHEFFIELD, _2nd December, 1574_.”
These letters did not help matters in the slightest. The two Countesses
were obliged to go to Court for chastisement, and apparently Bess
Shrewsbury repaired thither before any interview could be secured with
her husband. Nor have any letters from her been found to show whether
she was awestruck or defiant, though correspondence must have passed
between wife and husband upon a matter so urgent.
The fateful northern journey took place about October 9th. Queen
Elizabeth’s summons was dated November 17th, and reached the delinquents
within a few days. Lady Lennox, who, in her royal capacity and as mother
of the bridegroom, may legally be regarded as the prime offender,
followed Lord Shrewsbury’s example of explanation and expostulation.
She, too, wrote promptly to Lords Burghley and Leicester:—[29]
“My very good Lord,
“Assuring myself of your friendship I will use but few words at this
present, other than to let you understand of my wearisome journey and
the heavy burden of the Queen’s Majesty’s displeasure, which I know well
I have not deserved, together with a letter of small comfort that I
received from my Lord of Leicester, which being of your Lordship read, I
shall desire to be returned to me again. I also send unto your Lordship,
here enclosed, the copy of my letter now sent to my Lord of Leicester;
and I beseech you to use your friendship towards me as you see time.
Thus with my hearty commendations, I commit you to Almighty God, whom I
beseech to send you long life to your heart’s desire. Huntingdon this 3
of December.
“Your Lordship’s assured loving friend,
“MARGARET LENNOX.
“To the Right Honourable my very good Lord and friend, the
Lord-Treasurer of England.”
It is unfortunate that one of the enclosures, the letter from Leicester,
is not to be found, for it would have been interesting to read that
gentleman for once in a mood that was not suave and reassuring.
The letter to Leicester gives a graphic description of her uncomfortable
journey across flooded country:—[30]
“HUNTINGDON, _December 3, 1574_.
“My very good Lord,—The great unquietness and trouble that I have had
with passing these dangerous waters, which hath many times enforced me
to leave my way, which hath been some hindrance to me that hitherto I
have not answered your Lordship’s letters chiefly on that point wherein
your Lordship, with other my friends (as your Lordship says) seems
ignorant how to answer for me. And being forced to stay this present
Friday in Huntingdon, somewhat to refresh myself, and my overlaboured
mules, that are both crooked and lame with their extreme labour by the
way, I thought good to lay open to your Lordship, in these few lines,
what I have to say for me, touching my going to Rufford to my Lady of
Shrewsbury, both being thereunto very earnestly requested, and the place
not one mile distant out of my way. Yea, and a much fairer way, as is
well to be proved; and my Lady meeting me herself upon the way, I could
not refuse, it being near XXX miles from Sheffield. And as it was well
known to all the country thereabouts that great provision was there made
both for my Lady of Suffolk and me—who friendly brought me on the way to
Grantham, and so departed home again, neither she nor I knowing any such
thing till the morning after I came to Newark. And so I meant simply and
well, so did I least mistrust that my doings should be taken in evil
part, for, at my coming from her Majesty, I perceived she misliked of my
Lady of Suffolk being at Chatsworth, I asked her Majesty if I were
bidden thither, for that had been my wonted way before if I might go.
She prayed me not, lest it should be thought I should agree with the
Queen of Scots. And I asked her Majesty, if she could think so, for I
was made of flesh and blood, and could never forget the murder of my
child. And she said, ‘Marry, by her faith she could not think so that
ever I could forget it, for if I would I were a devil.’ Now, my Lord,
for that hasty marriage of my son, Charles, after that he had entangled
himself so that he could have none other, I refer the same to your
Lordship’s good consideration, whether it was not most fitly for me to
marry them, he being mine only son and comfort that is left me. And your
Lordship can bear me witness how desirous I have been to have had a
match for him other than this. And the Queen’s Majesty, much to my
comfort, to that end gave me good words at my departure.”
There were other letters from her repeating the statements about her
careful avoidance of Chatsworth and Sheffield, the helpless position in
which she was placed by “the sudden affection” of her son, and begging
for the Queen’s compassion “on my widowed estate, being aged and of many
cares.”
She reached Court on December 12th, and was accorded such a reception
that La Mothe Fénélon thought it worth while to include, in his
despatches to France, her fears and apprehensions. He records her dread
of her old prison, the Tower, and her hope that she may escape at least
that indignity through the influence of good friends. She went meekly to
her house at Hackney, with Charles and Elizabeth Lennox, who had
scarcely learnt the meaning of the word honeymoon. There the three,
forbidden to leave the precincts of the house, spent a joyless
Christmas, while, in lieu of a royal festival greeting, Christmas Eve
brought them Elizabeth’s orders that they were to have intercourse only
with such persons as were named by the Privy Council. Immediately after
Christmas the door of the Tower gaped and swallowed the Lennox dowager.
To the Tower also, it seems, was sent her confederate. The comments of
Bess of Shrewsbury have not been chronicled. But she probably remembered
keenly enough the days when as “Sentlow” she had the sense to keep out
of any active participation in the marriage of Lady Catherine Grey. Her
thoughts in retrospect could not have been very pleasant, and genuine
fears for the fate of her young and easily-led daughter must have
jostled fears for her own skin.
As for Lady Lennox, her sensations were still more poignant. “Thrice
have I been cast into prison,” said she, “not for matters of treason,
but for love matters. First, when Thomas Howard, son to Thomas first
Duke of Norfolk, was in love with myself; then for the love of Henry
Darnley, my son, to Queen Mary of Scotland; and lastly for the love of
Charles, my younger son, to Elizabeth Cavendish.”
It was just after Christmas that Lord Shrewsbury again bestirred himself
and applied to Burghley, though he ostensibly does it less on behalf of
his wife than of Lady Lennox.
“My very good Lord,
“Upon my Lady Lennox’s earnest request, as to your Lordship I am sure
shall appear, I have written to my Lords of the Council all I can find
out of her behaviour towards this Queen and dealing when she was in
these north parts; and if some disallowed of my writing (as I look they
will, because they would have it thought that I should have enough to do
to answer for myself) let such ...[31] reprove, or find any ...[31]
respect to her Majesty in me or my wife is sought for, and then there is
some cause to reprehend me, and for them to call out against me as they
do. I take that Lady Lennox be a subject in all respects worthy the
Queen’s Majesty’s favour, and for the duty I bear to her Majesty I am
bound, methinks, to commend her so as I find her; yea, and to intreat
you, and all of my Lords of the Council for her, to save her from
blemish, if no offence can be found in her towards her Majesty. I do not
nor can find the marriage of that Lady’s son to my wife’s daughter can
any way be taken with indifferent judgment, be any offence or
contemptuous to her Majesty; and then, methinks, that benefit any
subject may by law claim might be permitted to any of mine as well. But
I must be plain with your Lordship. It is not the marriage matter nor
the hatred some bear to my Lady Lennox, my wife, or to me, that makes
this great ado and occupies heads with so many devices. It is a greater
matter; which I leave to conjecture, not doubting but your Lordship’s
wisdom hath foreseen it, and thereof had due consideration, as always
you have been most careful for it.
“I have no more to trouble your Lordship withal, but that I would not
have her Majesty think, if I could see any cause to imagine any intent
of liking or insinuation with this Queen the rather to grow by this
marriage, or any other inconvenience might come thereby to her Majesty,
that I could or would bear with it, or hide it from her Majesty, for
that Lady’s sake, or for my wife, or any other cause else; for besides
the faith I bear her Majesty, with a singular love I look not by any
means but by her Majesty only to be made better than I am; nor by any
change to hold that I have—so take my leave of your Lordship.
“Sheffield Castle (where my charge is safe), the 27th of December, 1574.
“Your Lordship’s assured friend to my power,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
This letter is dignified, slightly defiant—claiming common justice for
his people, as “any subject” may do—and doggedly loyal. He is no
opportunist, and for any improvement in his fortunes he looks to
Elizabeth only. He has acted whole-heartedly and with a single mind. He
has tendered to the Lords of the Council all possible details which
would assist in clearing Lady Lennox from imputations in regard to
co-operation with Mary of Scotland. He fully recognises that this is the
“greater matter” which “occupies heads with so many devices” and wherein
lies the crux of the affair. He knew that a long official enquiry was
inevitable. This took the form of a special Court under the Earl of
Huntingdon, whom Mary of Scots and the Earl alike detested. The choice
of him as grand inquisitor must have been the more galling just now,
because reports were rife that this rash marriage had finally decided
the Queen to supersede Lord Shrewsbury as incapable and unworthy of her
reliance. Such rumours were always a part of her policy. She knew
perfectly well who was most useful to her, and she was not going to
relax her grip upon Shrewsbury, his endurance, his loyalty, his houses,
and his income.
Lord Huntingdon’s enquiry went forward, and both ladies were ultimately
acquitted of “large treasons.” If the gaoler-soldier Earl did not give
his wife a sound verbal drubbing for endangering the peace of his whole
house in so gratuitous a fashion it would be strange. From the very
first, in spite of his assurances to the Queen, he must have scented his
lady’s ambition with regard to any possible semi-royal offspring of the
Rufford marriage. The matter weighed on him greatly in after life. One
can only assume that his Bess at this period lost her sense of
perspective, and that in one sense her noted long-headedness deserted
her. The enquiry over, the principal offenders, crushed and humble (Lady
Lennox at all events seemed so), retired to their homes. It is mentioned
that the royal order giving Lady Shrewsbury her freedom included
permission for her to repair to the baths at Buxton, a change of air
which must have been extremely salutary after the poor ventilation of
the Tower of London, even under the less rigorous conditions accorded to
prisoners of quality.
By the middle of May, Lady Lennox was once more at her Hackney house. A
visit to Buxton waters for her was out of the question, both as regards
policy and expense. At Hackney she rested, very much out of the world
and very poor, with her gentle little daughter-in-law and son, who spent
the first year of their married life in a tolerably morose atmosphere of
suspicion and unpopularity. They had, of course, a few visitors. Gilbert
Talbot, who seems always to have been the spokesman of the family, and
to have kept in touch with its various members, records the impression
made by the Lennoxes on a certain “Mr. Tyndall,” who subsequently
carried letters down to Derbyshire to the mother of Elizabeth Lennox:—
“This bearer, Mr. Tyndall, was at Hackney, where he found them there
well. And I trust very shortly that the dregs of all misconstruction
will be wiped away, that their abode there after this sort will be
altered.”
This means that the inmates were socially taboo and were still kept
“within bounds.”
In July of the same year there is a most pathetic little letter from the
girl-wife Elizabeth, by this time in a fair way to produce an heir for
the perishing house of Lennox. She makes no allusion to the fact in this
piteous and formal little note to the mother who used her for family
purposes much in the same way as she used a stone for the building of
her other “workes.” The cause of the displeasure which the writer seeks
to disarm is inexplainable. Elizabeth Cavendish was exactly the opposite
in character to her mother, or her mother’s eldest daughter Mary, wife
of Gilbert Talbot. The latter—of whom more presently—was a hot-tempered,
vindictive, energetic creature, with plenty of intelligence. Elizabeth
Cavendish was gentle, unassuming, tender-hearted. She would certainly
take the line of least resistance. This is the letter:—[32]
“My humble duty remembered: beseeching your L. of your daily blessings:
presuming of your motherlike affection towards me your child that trust
I have not so evilly deserved as your La. hath made show, by your
letters to others, which maketh me doubtful that your La. hath been
informed some great untruth of me or else I had well hoped that for some
small trifle I should not have continued in your displeasure so long a
time. And I might be so bold as to crave at your La. hands that it would
please you to extreme[33] such false bruits as your La. hath heard
reported of me as lightly as you have done when othere were in the like
case, I should think myself much the more bound to your La. I beseech
you make my hearty commendations to my aunt. I take my leave in humble
wise.
“Hackney, 25th of July.
“Your La. humble and Obedient daughter,
“E. LENOX.
“To the right honourable the Countess
of Shrewsbury my very good mother.”
At all events, the mother’s displeasure must have melted upon the birth
of her Lennox grandchild. Unhappily for the ambitious Bess, this was not
a son but a girl, christened Arabella, who was afterwards to play her
part in just such a tragi-comedy of ambition, Court pageant, and
luckless marriage as befell her grandmother Margaret Lennox, and the
Ladies Catherine and Mary Grey. Had the child been a boy Queen Elizabeth
might have been less inclined to clemency. Her sex, her helplessness,
the poverty of her father’s house, and the dangerous and delicate
condition of his health were all inducements to the Queen’s compassion,
and also rendered the babe a useful item in the plans of the “Mistress
Builder.” Her birth, of course, brought the Shrewsburys into an oddly
contradictory relationship towards Mary of Scotland, who always showed
the tenderest interest in the child. It must also have assisted to
complete the better understanding between Darnley’s mother and widow.
Already they had drawn closer in a mutual dread lest, since the
assassination of the old Earl of Lennox, the evil practices of the
present Regent, Lord Morton, should injure the young James of Scotland.
Lady Lennox’s letter to Mary from Hackney, dated November 10th, 1575,
makes their reconciliation very clear:—
“It may please your Majesty, I have received your letters and mind both
by your letters and otherwise, much to my comfort specially perceiving
what jealous natural care your Majesty hath of our sweet and peerless
jewel in Scotland. I have been as fearful and as careful as your Majesty
of him, so that the wicked governor should not have power to do harm to
his person, whom God preserve from his enemies. I beseech your Majesty
fear not, but trust in God all shall be well. The treachery of your
traitors is evidently no better than before. I shall always play my part
to your Majesty’s content so as may tend to both our comforts. And now I
must yield your Majesty my most humble thanks for your good remembrance
and bounty to our little daughter, her who some day may serve your
highness. Almighty God grant unto your Majesty a long and happy life.
“Your Majesty’s most humble and
loving mother and aunt,
“MARGARET LENNOX.”
The “little daughter” is surely the young Elizabeth Lennox (_née_
Cavendish), who adds this postscript to the letter:—
“I most humbly thank your Majesty that it pleased you to remember me,
your poor servant, both with a token and in my La. Gr.’s letter,[34]
which is not little to my comfort. I can but wish and pray God for your
Majesty’s long and happy estate.... I may do your Majesty better
service, which I think long to do, and shall always be as ready thereto
as any servant your Majesty hath, according as by duty I am bound. I
beseech your highness to pardon these rude lines, and accept the good
heart of the writer, who loves and honours your Majesty unfeignedly.
“Your Majesty’s most humble and lowly servant through life,
“E. LENNOX.”
Now the above convincing and pathetic letter of the dowager Lady Lennox,
it seems, never reached Mary; but fortunately for Mary’s reputation and
as proof of the accord between her and her mother-in-law with regard to
the marriage and other matters, has been preserved.
Two years later, 1577, Queen and mother-in-law were toiling to get the
Scottish prince away from the “wicked governor,” and Mary says of Lady
Lennox, “I praise God that she becomes daily more sensible of the
faithlessness and evil intentions of those whom she previously assisted
with her name against me.”
CHAPTER XI
VARIOUS OCCURRENCES
The Shrewsbury pair started the year 1575 in different fashion. She was
in the Tower and not at all in a happy mood. He also in a
fortress—Sheffield—but as warder and not prisoner, and more unhappy,
because in the larger things he was always the more conscientious, yet
bestirred himself to send a diplomatic present of rich gold plate to
Lord Burghley, and was himself in the usual manner the recipient of
bounties from his friends and tenants. Burghley acknowledges the present
and his indebtedness in highly satisfactory terms to the master of
Sheffield Castle:—
“And now, my Lord, I find such continuance or rather increase, of your
good will to me, by your costly gift of plate this new year, as you may
account me greatly in your debt and yet ready with my heart and service
to acquit you. I humbly therefore pray your Lordship to make proof of my
good will where my power may answer the same, and I trust you shall find
the best disposed debtor that your Lordship hath to acquit my debt.”
Lodge prints immediately before this letter from the Lord Treasurer a
fragment (also from the Talbot manuscripts) in which Lord Shrewsbury
lays his financial case emphatically before the Queen, and there is no
doubt that his appeal and the present of gold plate to her Lord
Treasurer were incidents closely related:—
“Your Majesty was minded to allow me for the keeping of this Lady but
£30 a week. When I received her into my charge at your Majesty’s hands,
I understood very well it was a most dangerous service, and thought
overhard to perform, without some great mischief to himself at least,
and as it seemed most hard and fearful to others and every man shrunk
from it, so much the gladder was I to take it upon me, thereby to make
appear to your Majesty my zealous mind to serve you in place of greatest
peril; and I thought it was the best proof your Majesty could make of
me. I demanded not great allowance, nor did stick for anything as all
men used to do. My Lords of your Council, upon good deliberation,
assigned by your Majesty’s commandment, a portion of £52 every week
(less by the half than your Majesty paid before she came to me) which I
took, and would not in that doubtful time have refused your Majesty’s
service of trust so committed to me, if my lands and life had lain
thereon; and how I have passed my service, and accomplished your trust
committed to me, with quiet, surety——”
That sudden break in the appeal, whatever its cause, has its own
dramatic force.
As regards Court matters, a long letter from Francis Talbot, the eldest
son, who apparently wrote so rarely, belongs to the beginning of this
year. It gives a picture of Queen Elizabeth in a mood of anxiety,
depression, and perplexity in regard to foreign politics, especially
touching the all-important decision as to whether or not she should
accept the offer of the suzerainty of the Netherland States:—
“Her Majesty is troubled with these causes which maketh her very
melancholy; and seemeth greatly to be out of quiet. What shall be done
in these matters as yet is unknown, but here are ambassadors of all
sides who labour greatly one against another.”
To this year also belongs a kindly letter—this time on purely family
matters—from the wife of Francis Talbot, Lady Ann, _née_ Herbert,
daughter of William, Earl Pembroke, to the Countess of Shrewsbury. In
this the forthcoming “prograce” is mentioned, and the visit of Queen
Elizabeth to the then Countess of Pembroke, her sister-in-law, _née_
Catherine Talbot, and married to Henry, Earl Pembroke:—
“Good Madame, I am to crave pardon for not writing to my Lord’s man
Harry Grace. The cause I willed him to declare to your La. which was the
extremity that my sister of Pembroke was in at that time; which hath
continued till Thursday last. Since that day she hath been out of her
swooning, but not able to stand or go. Her greatest grief is now want of
sleep, and not able to away with the sight of meat; but considering her
estate before we think ourselves happy of this change, hoping that
better will follow shortly. The Queen Majesty hath been here with her
twice; very late both times. The last time it was ten of the clock at
night ere her Majesty went hence, being so great a mist as there were
divers of the barges and boats that waited for her lost their ways, and
landed in wrong places, but thanks be to God her Majesty came well home
without cold or fear. For the holding of the progress I am sure your La.
heareth; for my part I can write no certainty, but as I am in all other
matters, as I have always professed and as duty doth bind me, ready at
your La. command; and in anything I may show it either at this time or
when occasion serveth, if I be not as willing thereto as any child of
your own, then let me be condemned according to my deserts; otherwise I
humbly crave your La. good opinion of me not to decrease, remembering
your La. commandment heretofore, to write to you as often as I could,
which now in this place I shall have better means than I have had in the
country, and thereupon presuming to lengthen my letter upon any
occasion, although I count this of my sister very evil news, yet
considering her recovery, I hope my long scribbling will the less
trouble your La. And so with my most humble duty of my Lord and your La.
I humbly take my leave. From Baynards Castle the 8th of May.
“Your La. assured loving daughter to command,
“ANNE TALBOT.
“My sister of Pembroke hath willed to remember her humble duty to my
Lord and you, with desire of his daily blessing. As soon as she is able
she will do it herself.
“To the right honourable and my assured good Lady
and mother, the Countess of Shrewsbury.”
That “my sister Pembroke” recovered from her swoonings and her
convalescence is stated at the close of a long letter from Gilbert
Talbot, in February, to both his parents.
During the whole of the spring the Earl’s correspondence was large. Sir
Francis Walsingham and others kept him informed of all State events and
possibilities which could affect politics. In a paper which the Earl
endorses “Occurrences, from Mr. Secretary Walsingham” is contained the
news of the disappearance from the French Court of Henry of Navarre, the
overtures made to him by the French King, the gradual increase of his
adherents among the Protestants, the multifarious schemes of the Duke of
Guise, and all the details which made for civil war. The belief in magic
seems to have had sufficient hold upon a statesman like Walsingham to
induce him to include a note such as this:—
“There is secret report, and that very constantly affirmed by men of
credit, that a day or two before the King of Navarre departed, it
happened the Duke of Guise and him to play at dice, upon a very smooth
board, in the King’s cabinet; and that, after they had done, there
appeared suddenly upon the board certain great and round drops of blood
that astonished them marvellously, finding no cause in the blood of the
world, but, as it were, a very prodigy.”
Another letter of this year is very interesting, as it shows the
indefatigable Lady Shrewsbury once more at her match-making, and once
again seeking to ally her family with one which could most assist it at
Court—the family of Lord Burghley. Lord Shrewsbury’s letter making the
proposal as suggested by his wife is not forthcoming, but Lord
Burghley’s reply is full and detailed, and breathes caution in every
word. His excuses for declining the offer are quite reasonable. At the
same time he must have had sufficient insight into her Ladyship’s
masterful character to strengthen his refusal. He accentuates his fear
of the Queen’s distrust by instancing the absurd reports circulated
about him when he merely went to Buxton to drink the waters, and he
concludes with a quaintly sententious condemnation of “human learning”
in wishing well to the boy whom he did not desire for his son-in-law.
“My very good Lord,—My most hearty and due commendations done, I cannot
sufficiently express in words the inward hearty affection that I
conceive by your Lordship’s friendly offer of the marriage of your
younger son; and that in such a friendly sort, by your own letter, and
as your Lordship writes, the same proceeding of yourself. Now, my Lord,
as I think myself much beholden to you for this your Lordship’s
kindness, and manifest argument of a faithful goodwill, so must I pray
your Lordship to accept mine answer, with assured opinion of my
continuance in the same towards your Lordship. There are specially two
causes why I do not in plain terms consent by way of conclusion hereto;
the one, for that my daughter is but young in years; and upon some
reasonable respects, I have determined (notwithstanding I have been very
honourably offered matches) not to treat of marrying her, if I may live
so long, until she be above fifteen or sixteen, and if I were of more
likelihood myself to live longer than I look to do, she should not, with
my liking, be married before she were near eighteen or twenty. The
second cause why I differ to yield to conclusion with your Lordship is
grounded upon such a consideration as, if it were not truly to satisfy
your Lordship, and to avoid a just offence which your Lordship might
conceive of my forbearing, I would not by writing or message utter, but
only by speech to your Lordship’s self. My Lord, it is over true and
over much against reason that upon my being at Buxton last, advantage
was sought by some that loved me not to confirm in her Majesty a former
conceit which had been laboured to put into her head, that I was of late
become friendly to the Queen of Scots, and that I had no disposition to
encounter her practices; and now at my being at Buxton, her Majesty did
directly conceive that my being there was, by means of your Lordship and
my Lady, to enter into intelligence with the Queen of Scots; and hereof
at my return to her Majesty’s presence I had very sharp reproofs for my
going to Buxton with plain charging of me for favouring the Queen of
Scots; and that in so earnest a sort I never looked for, knowing my
integrity to her Majesty; but especially knowing how contrariously the
Queen of Scots conceived of me for many things past to the offence of
the Queen of Scots. And yet, true it is, I never indeed gave just cause
by any private affection of my own, or for myself, to offend the Queen
of Scots; but whatsoever I did was for the services of mine own
sovereign Lady and Queen, which if it were yet again to be done I would
do. And though I know myself subject to contrary workings of displeasure
yet will I not, for remedy of any of them both, decline from the duty I
owe to God and my sovereign Queen; for I know and do understand, that I
am in this contrary sort maliciously depraved, and yet in secret sort;
on the one part, and that of long time, that I am the most dangerous
enemy and evil willer to the Queen of Scots; on the other side that I am
also a secret well willer to her and her title, and that I have made my
party good with her. Now, my Lord, no man can make both these true
together; but it sufficeth such as like not me in doing my duty to
deprave me, and yet in such sort is done in darkness, as I cannot get
opportunity to convince them in the light. In all these crossings, my
good Lord, I appeal to God who knoweth, yea (I thank him infinitely),
who directeth my thoughts to intend principally the service and honour
of God, and jointly with it the surety and greatness of my sovereign
Lady the Queen’s Majesty; and for any other respect but it may tend to
those two, I appeal to God to punish me if I have any. As for the Queen
of Scots, truly I have no spot of evil meaning to her. Neither do I mean
to deal with any titles to the Crown. If she shall intend any evil to
the Queen’s Majesty, my sovereign, for her sake I must and will mean to
impeach her; and therein I may be her unfriend, or worse.
“Well now, my good Lord, your Lordship seeth I have made a long
digression from my answer, but I trust your Lordship can consider what
moveth me thus to digress. Surely it behoveth me not only to live
uprightly, but to avoid all probable arguments that may be gathered to
render me suspected to her Majesty whom I serve with all dutifulness and
sincerity; and therefore I gather this, that if it were understood that
there were a communication or a purpose of marriage between your
Lordship’s son and my daughter I am sure there would be an advantage
sought to increase these former suspicions. Considering the young years
of our two children ... if the matter were fully agreed betwixt us, the
parents, the marriage could not take effect, I think it best to refer
the motion in silence, and yet so to order it with ourselves that, when
time shall hereafter be more convenient, we may (and then also with less
cause of vain suspicion) renew it. And in the meantime I must confess
myself much bounden to your Lordship ... wishing your Lordship’s son all
the good education may be meet to teach him to fear God, love your
Lordship, his natural father, and to know his friends; without any
curiosity of human learning, which, without the fear of God, I see doeth
great hurt to all youth in this time and age. My Lord, I pray you bear
with me scribbling, which I think your Lordship shall hardly read, and
yet I would not use my man’s hand in such a matter as this.
“From Hampton Court, 24th December, 1575.
“Your Lordship’s most assured commandment,
“W. BURGHLEY.”
The boy in question was Edward Talbot, the Earl’s fourth son. His
matrimonial chances did not suffer by this just refusal, for in after
years he married one of the twin heiresses of Lord Ogle of
Northumberland, and eventually, after the death of his two elder
brothers, succeeded to his father’s earldom.
A single bill of items of the Earl’s expenditure in the year 1575
amounting to £300 is of a nature which shows how many and extensive were
the purchases justifying his constant appeals to the Treasury. All these
items he had to import from France by special messenger. Hogshead after
hogshead of French wine was required for Mary’s use. Her household drank
it in preference to the heavier English brew of ale. Moreover, she was
accustomed to use it for her bath, especially when indisposed. Buckram
and canvas, damask and sheeting, vinegar and live quails (“with cages
for the said quails”), paper and hempseed, “comfitures and other
sugar-works,” and even “fourteen pounds of sleyed silk for my Lady,
being of all colours,” go to this long bill of goods from Rouen.
My Lady meanwhile was properly reinstated in the English Queen’s
confidence. It would please Bess Shrewsbury well to know that this
letter from the Earl of Leicester, written early in 1576 to her husband,
has come down to posterity:—
“My Lord,—For that this bearer is so well known and trusted of you I
will leave to trouble you with any long letters, and do commit the more
to his report, for that he is well able to satisfy your Lordship fully
of all things here. And, touching one part of your letter sent lately to
me, about the access of my Lady, your wife, to the Queen there, I find
the Queen’s Majesty well pleased that she may repair at all times, and
not forbear the company of that Queen, having not only very good opinion
of my Lady’s wisdom and discretion, but thinks how convenient it is for
that Queen to be accompanied and pass the time rather with my Lady than
meaner persons. I doubt not but your Lordship shall hear in like sort
also from her Majesty touching the same, and yet I may well signify thus
much, as from herself, to your Lordship. The rest I commend to this
bearer, and your Lordship, with my good Lady, to the Almighty. In haste,
this first of May.
“Your Lordship’s assured kinsman,
“R. LEICESTER.”
Soon after, in June, Lord Shrewsbury, at Buxton with his “charge,” asks
that he may remove her, not to Tutbury as suggested, but back to
Sheffield Lodge. There was a “bruit” that Lord Leicester was going to
Buxton for the waters, and it was necessary, seeing that his going would
probably attract others in the world of fashion, not to allow Mary to
linger at the baths. A letter from Gilbert Talbot, in July, 1576, full
of the usual delightful chit-chat about Queen and Court, mentions the
Buxton expedition in connection with the magnificent Leicester:—
“My duty most humbly remembered, right honourable my singular good Lord
and father. Since my coming hither to the Court there hath been sundry
determinations of her Majesty’s progress this summer. Yesterday it was
set down that she would go to Grafton[35] and Northampton, Leicester,
and to Ashby, my Lord Huntingdon’s house, and there to have remained
twenty-one days, to the end the water of Buxton might have been daily
brought thither for my Lord of Leicester, or any other, to have used;
but late yesternight this purpose altered, and now at this present her
Majesty thinketh to go no further than Grafton; howbeit there is no
certainty, for these two or three days it hath changed every five hours.
The physicians have fully resolved that wheresoever my Lord Leicester be
he must drink and use Buxton water twenty days together. My Lady Essex
and my Lady Sussex will be shortly at Buxton, and my Lady Norris shortly
after; I cannot learn of any others that come from hence.
“This day Mr. Secretary Walsingham has gotten the Bill signed for the S.
Q.’s diet, and to-morrow early it shall be sent to the Exchequer, that
as soon as possible we may receive the money, which shall be disposed
according to your Lordship’s commandment in payment of all your debts
here.
“I have bespoken two pair of little flagons, for there are none ready
made, and I fear they will not be finished before my departure hence. I
have seen many fair hangings, and your Lordship may have all prices,
either two shillings a stick or seven groats, three, four, five, or six
shillings the stick, even as your Lordship will bestow; but there is of
five shillings the stick that is very fair. But unless your Lordship
send up a measure of what depth and breadth you would have them, surely
they will not be to your Lordship’s liking; for the most of them are
very shallow, and I have seen none that I think deep enough for a guest
chamber, but for lodgings.
“I have had some talk with my Lord of Leicester since my coming, whom I
find most assuredly well affected towards your Lordship and yours. I
never knew man in my life more joyful for their friend than he at my
Lady’s noble and wise government of herself at her late being here;
saying that he heartily thanked God of so good a friend and kinsman of
your Lordship, and that you are matched with so noble and good a wife. I
saw the Queen’s Majesty yesternight in the garden; but for that she was
talking with my Lord Hunsden, she spake nothing to me, but looked very
earnestly on me. I hear her Majesty conceiveth somewhat better of me
than heretofore;[36] and my Lord of Leicester doubteth not in time to
bring all well again.
“I can learn no certain news worthy to write to your Lordship’s
Secretary. William Winter hath not yet sent my resolute answer from the
Flushingers and Prince of Orange touching our merchants’ ships and
goods; for other matters of France. I know Mr. Secretary Walsingham’s
wonted manner is to send your Lordship’s occurrents that come thence.
Mr. Secretary Smith lieth still in hard case at his house in Essex, and,
as I hear, this day or to-morrow setteth towards the baths in
Somersetshire; the use of his tongue is clean taken from him that he
cannot be understood, such is the continuance of the rheum that
distilleth from his head downwards.
“Thus, not knowing wherewith else to trouble your Lordship, I most
humbly beseech your blessing, with my wonted prayer for your Lordship’s
long continuance in all honour, and most perfect health.
“From the Court this Friday at night, the 6th of July, 1576.
“Your Lordship’s most humble and
obedient loving son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.”
Otherwise the family affairs of the Shrewsburys were engrossing enough.
The Lennox baby, born at Chatsworth, had, as stated, altered their
domestic and social world considerably. My Lady was now the grandmother
of a possible queen, a creature having equal right on her father’s side
to the crowns of Scotland and England. It was very important that while
Lady Shrewsbury still kept up towards the child’s aunt, Mary, a show of
friendliness, she should curry favour on every occasion with the English
Queen, who supported the rule of young James of Scotland. It was a nice
and delicate game to play, and must have pleased her well. It was not
likely now that Mary would ever come into power. Still, strange things
happened. If Elizabeth died suddenly Mary might have her day at last,
and every act of the Shrewsburys towards her in her captivity would be
weighed in her judgment and awards as soon as she was in the seat of
government. The two women had hitherto grown very friendly. All manner
of confidences must have passed between them, and my Lady’s alert ears
had supplied her quick tongue with many a bit of scandal which she could
retail for the amusement of the royal “guest.”
From this period, however, she would practise greater caution. She had
recently steered clear of great danger, and was toiling hard for the
Queen’s smiles. It was well known that those who favoured and fêted Lord
Leicester fêted the Queen in proxy. The visit of Leicester to Buxton in
1576 presented itself therefore as a great social chance.
CHAPTER XII
MY LORD LEICESTER’S CURE
My Lord of Leicester was to have his cure. The physicians insisted upon
it. It is chronicled in Gilbert Talbot’s letter with all the importance
which would attend the bulletins of the health of a king. The Queen
never resented a fuss of this kind made over her pampered darling. In
his stuffed and padded Court costume, his feathered head-dress, and his
jewels one cannot detect in him one of the virile qualities which so
dominated her imagination. His treacheries were winked at, his vices
condoned, even the people who accused him most violently of the murder
of his first wife, Amy Robsart, when in perplexity crawled to his feet,
either literally like poor Lady Catherine Grey, or in abject letters
like Lady Lennox, who was one of his bitterest accusers and who had
suffered under the spies he sent into her very house. Let us for a few
moments recall the growth of this personage, this veritable bay-tree. He
was just Robert Dudley, a younger son, the fifth of a ruined family
lying under attainder—the Dukes of Northumberland. Mary of England
restored him to his title, and drew him out of nonentity and poverty by
appointing him Master of the Ordnance at the siege of S. Quentin. As
soldier and courtier he certainly came into contact with the Princess
Elizabeth, whose visits to Court were finally forced upon her unwilling
sister. Elizabeth had scarcely been on the throne a few months before
she indulged with much too evident relief in flirtations with him, as a
counterblast to the incessant negotiations with the ambassadors of her
successive foreign suitors. She coquetted with him in her boat, she kept
his portrait in a secret cabinet, she showed off her learning, her airs
and graces before him, she danced with him, and when she formally
created him Earl of Leicester she “could not refrain from putting her
hand in his neck, smilingly tickling him.” This honour, by the way, it
will be remembered, she pretended to confer on him in order that his
rank should fit him for marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, and so avoid
the dangers and difficulties to England which would arise from her
marriage with Darnley. There never was a pretence so thin. Elizabeth
made a great show of her willingness to bestow on another her “brother
and best friend, whom she would have married herself had she minded to
take a husband.” Since she had decided to die a virgin she held that
such a procedure in regard to Leicester would “free her mind of all
fears and suspicions to be offended by any usurpation before her death,
being assured that he was so loving and trusty that he would never
suffer any such thing to be attempted in her time.” While she openly
advertised Leicester as her favourite, she dangled him as a prize over
the head of her chief enemy. She always loved playing with fire, and it
is well that this time she did not burn her fingers, for Leicester was
the complete courtier and could not decide between the two queens. In
his eyes Mary had as much chance of ruling England as his present
mistress. Mary did not at the beginning of her career in Scotland appear
very anxious for his wooing. All this helped Elizabeth. Creighton
clearly takes the view that the latter promoted the Darnley marriage by
the very pushing of Leicester’s claims. Whether or not he was personally
commendable to Mary, it was greatly to his disadvantage, that, as
creature of Elizabeth, he should be thrust upon her enemy.
Just at that period Leicester’s familiarity towards the Queen touched
gross impudence. We see him in the royal tennis-court pausing in a match
against the premier peer of England, the Duke of Norfolk, to wipe his
face with the handkerchief quickly filched from the Queen’s hand as she
sat amongst the onlookers. The Duke raged, offered violence, and,
unfortunately for royal dignity, Elizabeth’s manner showed that she took
the part of Leicester. She had already bestowed on him while a commoner
the Garter. The Order of St. Michael was his next honour, and he was
soon created Master of the Horse, Steward of the Household, Chancellor
of Oxford, Ranger of the Forests south of Trent, and, later on,
Captain-General of the English forces in the Netherlands. When age and
his last illness brooded over him his queen planned for him a last
dazzling post—a new creation—in the Lieutenancy of England and Ireland.
Despite the scandals attached to his three marriages,[37] he maintained
his place in the eyes of Elizabeth, and only in after years seriously
earned her displeasure. He had the rare art of “keeping on the right
side” of Lord Burghley, between whom and himself a sort of armed
neutrality existed, except when mutual advantage found them acting
heartily in concert. Leicester, as all his history shows, was, like
Buckingham, a gay dog, a ladies’ man. Pretty women hovered about him at
Court—_vide_ the letter from Gilbert Talbot under date May 11, 1573,
quoted in full in a previous chapter—he had to keep them at peace not to
give offence. He could play with their love, enjoy it, go to utmost
lengths, so long as the Queen believed that in his heart no other woman
could take her place. He entertained largely, he lived and dressed as
befitted his position. It was above all highly important that he should
keep his health in order, preserve the elegant lines of his soldier’s
figure, and defer as long as possible the days when he would, in his own
phrase, “grow high-coloured and red-faced.”
When he was ordered to Buxton it was imperative that he should be
properly received and housed, and not lodged in the low wooden sheds
which were used by the ordinary public during their “cure,” and where
their fare seems to have consisted of “oat cakes, with a viand which the
hosts called mutton, but which the guests strongly suspected to be dog.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Emery Walker, after the picture in the National Portrait
Gallery_
ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER
Page 178
]
Buxton waters, under the patronage of St. Anne “of Buckstone” and St.
Andrew of Burton, were beset for many years before this with poor
crippled pilgrims, who left symbols of their gratitude in the various
shrines of the place in the way of crutches and candles. When the
Cromwell of Henry VIII wiped England of popery these testimonials were
all demolished, and he “locked up and sealed the baths and wells ...”
pending the royal permission “to wash” therein. This, however, did not
prevent the Earl of Shrewsbury from building a suitable house for
patients, and it is thus described by a physician of the day:—
“Joyninge to the chiefe sprynge betweene the river and the bathe is a
very goodly house, four square, four stories hye, so well compacte with
houses and offices underneath, and above and round about, with a great
chamber, and other goodly lodgings to the number of thirty, that it is
and will be a bewty to beholde; and very notable for the honourable and
worshipful that shall need to repair thither, as also for others.
“Yea, and the porest shall have lodgings and beds hard by for their uses
only. The bathes also so beautified with seats round; defended from the
ambyent air; and chimneys for fyre to ayre your garments in the bathes
side, and other necessaries most decent.”
Prices for baths varied according to the social position of the patient!
An archbishop seems to head the scale with a compulsory payment of £5,
while a yeoman only paid twelvepence, and was entitled to as long a cure
as the Primate. Lord Leicester, coming in the category of Earls, was
charged twenty shillings. One half of the fee went to the doctor in
command, the rest towards a fund for the cure of the poorest cripples.
The aforesaid house, which four times sheltered both Mary of Scotland
and once at least Lord Leicester, is now gone; in place of it is a
hotel, and there is no trace of the “pleasant warm bowling-green planted
about with large sycamore trees.” This, according to another authority,
was part of its garden, and it was Gilbert Talbot’s duty to entertain
his father’s dazzling guest and the Queen’s favourite in this pleasant
spot. During the week of this memorable visit the young man never lost
an opportunity of furthering his family’s cause and of sounding
influential persons at all seasons. He, like others, had constant
recourse to Leicester, both by word of mouth and pen. The letter which
follows[38] is a typical epistle of the kind which is scattered through
the society correspondence of the day.
We see by this that Gilbert was actually at “Buckstones” doing the
honours of his father’s house there to any distinguished guests, while
the Earl, his father, was nailed to his post at Sheffield, and the
Countess presumably busying herself with the killing of the fatted calf
at Chatsworth in readiness to honour Leicester on his going southward.
She must have hailed this epistle with huge satisfaction, since it
definitely announces the Earl’s presence at Buxton with his intention of
accepting her invitation to Chatsworth, and at the same time assures her
of his good offices on behalf of young Lady Lennox. Poor Elizabeth
Cavendish was by this time a widow,[39] almost penniless, and appealing
to the Queen for financial support on behalf of the baby Lady Arabella.
The letter is addressed to both of Gilbert’s parents:—
“My duty, etc,—This morning early I delivered your L.’s packet to my L.
of Leicester, who, upon reading thereof, said he would write to your L.
by a post that is here, and willed me to send away your lackey. I asked
him how long he thought to tarry here, and prayed him to tarry as long
as might be. And he said he knew not whether to go to Chatsworth on
Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday come seven nights, but one of those
three days without fail. There came some score of fowl here on Saturday,
which served here very well yesterday, and will do this three or four
days. Sir Hugh Chamley sent hither to my L. of Leicester a very fat
beef, which my L. of Leicester bade me go down to see, and to take him
to use as I listed; but I told him I was sure your L. would be angry if
I took him; yet for all this, he would force me to take him; and so I
kept him here in the town till I know your L.’s pleasure what shall be
done with him; he would serve very well for Chatsworth. Bayley thinketh
that they will tarry two or three days at Chatsworth. There is no word
yet come from my L. of Huntington and my La. whether they will meet my
L. of Leicester at Chatsworth or not; if they do (as he hath written
very earnestly to them) I think he will not come to Ashby, but go the
next way to Killingworth and there tarry but two or three days only. My
L. of Rutland, by reason of the foul afternoon yesterday, lay here all
the last night in the chamber where Sir Henry Lea lodged. I showed the
letter of my La. Lennox, your daughter, to my L. of Leicester, who said
that he thought it were far better for him to defer her suit to her
Majesty till his own coming to the Court than otherwise to write to her
before; for that he thinketh her Majesty will suppose his letter, if he
should write, were but at your La.’s request, and so by another letter
would straight answer it again, and so it do no great good; but at his
meeting your La. he will (he saith) advise in what sort your La. shall
write to the Queen Majesty, which he will carry unto her, and then be as
earnest a solicitor therein as ever he was for anything in his life, and
he doubteth not to prevail to your La. contention. To-morrow my L. of
Leicester meaneth to go to Sir Peres a Leyes to meet with my L. of
Derby, if the weather be any whit fair. And thus most humbly craving
your Lo.’s blessing with my wonted prayer for your long continuance in
all honour and most perfect health and long life I cease. At Buxton in
haste this present Monday before noon.
“Your Lo.’s most humble and obedient son,
“G. TALBOT.
“The Lords do pray your L. to remember their case (of) knives.”[40]
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the picture at
Hardwick Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Page 182
]
There is no further comment from him on the subject of this visit, but
later letters will show that it went off smoothly and resulted in
benefit to the patient. As for his visit to Chatsworth it appears to
have been a triumphant success. Many things were talked out between
host, hostess, and guest in the few days of his sojourn. They had many
experiences in common—to wit, the insane jealousy and suspicions of
their Sovereign. But on this occasion their meeting hatched no
unpleasant results in this respect. The Queen herself wrote to thank
them for their good entertainment of her valued friend. And hereby hangs
a little comedy, a mystery. Two letters, evidently of the same date,
were dictated by the Queen. The skittish original in the handwriting of
Sir Francis Walsingham was not sent. A sedate version of it was the one
which the Shrewsburys opened. This is among the Talbot manuscripts. The
lively edition remains in the Record Office among the Mary Queen of
Scots MSS. for the amusement of posterity. Opinions differ as to the
mood in which Elizabeth wrote it.[41] It has been suggested that it was
done in a flippant ironical spirit; it has also been taken as a symptom
of wild elation born of Elizabeth’s belief that her marriage with Lord
Leicester would really be achieved. It seems most likely that she
certainly dashed it off in a flippant mood, with the intention of
chaffing the serious apprehensive High Steward of England and his wife,
and that Lord Burghley, or Walsingham, advised her to desist and to
allow a copy to be made, excluding the “larky” passages.
This is what she sent:—
“The Queen to the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury.
“By the Queen.
“Your most assured loving cousin and sovereign,
Elizabeth R.
“Our very good Cousins,
“Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honourably
he was received by you our cousin the Countess at Chatsworth, and his
diet by you both discharged at Buxtons, but also presented with a very
rare present, we should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of
favour we do) in case we should not let you understand in what thankful
sort we accept the same at your hands, not as done unto him, but to our
own self, reputing him as another ourself; and, therefore, ye may assure
yourselves, that we taking upon us the debt not as his but as our own,
will take care accordingly to discharge the same in such honourable sort
as so well-deserving creditors as ye are shall never have cause to think
ye have met with an ungrateful debtor. In this acknowledgment of new
debts we may not forget our old debt, the same being as great as a
sovereign can owe to a subject; when through your loyal and most careful
looking to this charge committed to you, both we and our realm enjoy a
peaceable government, the best good hope that to any prince on earth can
befall: This good hap, then, growing from you, ye might think yourselves
most unhappy if you served such a prince as should not be as ready
graciously to consider of it as thankfully to acknowledge the same,
whereof ye may make full account, to your comfort when time shall serve.
Given under our signet in our manor of Greenwich, the 25th day of June,
1577, and in the 19th year of our reign.”
This is what Elizabeth, a sovereign of nineteen years’ standing, a woman
over forty years of age, wanted to send:—
“Being given to understand from our cousin of Leicester how honourably
he was lately received and used by you, our Cousin the Countess of
Chatsworth, and how his diet is by you both discharged at Buxtons, we
should do him great wrong (holding him in that place of favour we do) in
case we should not let you understand in how thankful sort we accept the
same at both your hands—which we do not acknowledge to be done unto him
but unto ourselves; and therefore do mean to take upon us the debt and
to acknowledge you both as creditors, so you can be content to accept us
for debtor, wherein is the danger unless you cut off some part of the
large allowance of diet you give him, lest otherwise the debt thereby
may grow to be so great as we shall not be able to discharge the same,
and so become bankrupt, and therefore we think it meet for the saving of
our credit to prescribe unto you a proportion of diet which we mean in
no case you shall exceed, and that is to allow him by the day of his
meat two ounces of flesh referring the quality to yourselves, so as you
exceed not the quantity; and for his drink one-twentieth of a pint of
wine to comfort his stomach and as much of St. Anne’s sacred water as he
lusteth to drink. On festival days, as is fit for a man of his quality,
we can be content you shall enlarge his diet by allowing unto him for
his dinner the shoulder of a wren, and for his supper a leg of the same,
besides his ordinary ounces. The like proportion we mean you shall allow
unto our brother of Warwick,[42] saying that we think it meet, in
respect that his body is more replete than his brother’s, that the
wren’s leg allowed at supper on festival days be abated; for that light
suppers agreeth but with the rules of physic. This order our meaning is
you shall inviolably observe, and so you may right well assure
yourselves of a most thankful debtor to so well-deserving creditors.”
This letter is endorsed “M. of her Mates Ires to the Earl and Countess
of Shrewsbury, of thanks for the good usage of my L. of Lec.”
Indeed, it was well that it was not sent. From one point of view it
reads suspiciously like a skit devised by Elizabeth on the statements
periodically sent her by Lord Shrewsbury with regard to the “diet” of
the Queen of Scots, and the number of courses and dishes allowed her on
festival days.
The Earl writes presently to the Queen in his wife’s name, on this, his
own, and other matters. His tone is artful, astute, and conventional:—
“May it please your most excellent Majesty,
“The comfortable letters I lately received, of your own blessed
handwriting, made me by oft looking on them, think my happiness more
than any service (were it never so perfect) could merit; and myself more
bounden to your Highness for the same than by writing I can express. And
as it pleased your Majesty to write with assured confidence you have in
my fidelity, and safe keeping of this lady, doubting nothing but lest
her fair speech deceive me, so I am sure, although it please your
Majesty to warn[43] me of her, yet doth your wisdom see well enough by
my many years’ service past any inclination to her was never further,
nor otherwise than of her Majesty’s service....
“Nor have I cause to trust her. Were her speech fair or crabbed my only
respect hath been, is still, and so shall continue, to the duty I owe
unto your Majesty.... I have her forthcoming at your Majesty’s
commandment....
“And may it now further please your Majesty to license my wife and me
humbly to acknowledge ourselves the more bound to your Majesty, as well
as for the comfortable message Mr. Julio brought us lately from your
Majesty, as that it pleased your Majesty to vouchsafe our rude and gross
entertainment of our devout friend, my kinsman, my Lord of Leicester;
which although in respect of our duties to your Majesty and the great
goodwill we bear to him, is not so well as it ought to be, yet are we
sure it contenteth him, and displeaseth not your Majesty, that he is the
welcomed friend to us of all others. My wife also bids me yield her
humble thanks to your Majesty ... and now (since we can do no more, nor
your Highness have no more of us than our true and faithful hearts and
service, wherein we will spend our lives and all we have, if your
Majesty command it) we pray to God for your most excellent Majesty, as
we are bounden. Sheffield, 4th of July, 1577.
“Your Majesty’s most humble, faithful servant,
“GEORGE SHREWSBURY.”
In this year, whether or no the weather specially tended to develop
rheumatism or aggravate it, there seems to have been a positive rush of
great persons to Buxton. A fortnight later Lord Burghley wrote to inform
the Shrewsburys of his expedition to the baths and, like others, to beg
for hospitality.
“I am now thoroughly licensed by her Majesty to come thither with as
much speed as my old crazed body will suffer me. And, because I doubt
your Lordship is and shall be pressed with many other like suits for
your favour, to have the use of some lodgings there, I am bold at the
present to send this my letter by post”—that is to say, by special
messenger. He goes on: “I am to have in my company but Mr. Roger Manners
and my son, Thomas Cecil, for whom I am also to interest your Lordship
to procure them, by your commandment, some lodging as your Lordship
shall please.”
The Earl of Sussex who preferred a doughty cure, drinking as much as
three pints a day, made tender enquiries as to the result of the water
on the Lord Treasurer. As to its effects on Lord Leicester, one can
judge best by this letter from a friend to the Shrewsburys—Richard
Topclyffe, a tremendous Protestant, by the way, and hunter of
“mass-mongers and recusants,” to the Countess. He reassures her fully as
to the health of the guest who had just quitted Chatsworth, quotes
Leicester’s promise to further her welfare and that of her young
stepsons, Henry and Edward Talbot, his kinsmen:—
“We did yesternight come to Ricote, my Lo. Norris’s, where late did
arrive the Countesses of Bedford and Cumberland and the Earl of
Cumberland, the Lord Wharton and his wife. The fat Earl[44] cometh this
day, my L. of Leicester being departed towards the Court, to Sir Thomas
Gresham’s, thirty-three miles hence (whereby you may perceive of his
health), only a little troubled with a boil drawing to a head in the
calf of the leg, which maketh him use his litter. The Countess kept him
long waiting, asking if Buxton sent sound men halting home. But I never
did hear him commend the place, nor the entertainment half so much: and
did sware that he wished he had tarried three weeks longer with his
charge ... but, saith he, it hath, and would have cost my friends
deeply. His L. wished her Majesty would progress to Grafton and
Killingworth, which condition he would see Buxton this summer again. But
the next year is threatened that journey. I can send your La. no more
unpleasant news but that his Lo. hath said with me in vows that he will
be as tender over your Lord and yourself, and both yours, as over his
own health: and my Lo. is very careful over his two young cousins, Mr.
Ed. and Mr. Hen., to have them placed at Oxford, wishing that he may
find of his kindred to work his goodwill upon, as he hath done hitherto
on many unthankful persons. Good madam, further you my good Lo., your
husband’s disposition that way for your son Charles.... And therewith I
end; in very humble sort. The 9th of July, 1577.
“Your La. ever at command,
“RIC. TOPCLIFFE.”[45]
Everything as regards the Talbot and Cavendish family was going
well—merrily as a marriage-bell, so far as “Bess” was concerned. The
widowhood of her youngest daughter, Lady Lennox, did not affect her. It
was only one more tool to her hand in scheming for the Queen’s favour,
the Queen’s largesse, and in balancing any foolish and unwise notions
which the Countess might have previously entertained in regard to Queen
Mary’s cause.
Mary, it may be recalled here, had had more than one chance of marriage
with Lord Leicester. He had, so to speak, meandered in and out of her
affairs, now as suitor, now as go-between. As recently as 1574, three
years previous to his Buxton visit, he seems for the second time to have
entertained thoughts of making her an offer of marriage, whereas
previously he had used his influence on behalf of the Duke of Norfolk’s
wooing, and again with a view to averting his condemnation. In 1574 Mary
was so firmly impressed with his attitude towards her that she advised
her relations in France to pave the way for friendly overtures with a
gift to Leicester. She was also about this time very anxious to
refurbish her wardrobe, and took a great interest in securing brilliant
and becoming materials and millinery of the kind most in vogue: “Send by
and by Jean de Compiègne,” she writes, “and let him bring me patterns of
dresses and samples of cloth of gold and silver and silk, the most
beautiful and rare that are worn at Court, to learn my pleasure about
them. Order Poissy to make me a couple of headdresses, with a crown of
gold and silver, such as they have formerly made for me; and tell Breton
to remember his promise, and obtain for me from Italy the newest
fashions in headdresses, and veils and ribbons, with gold and
silver....” There was no blindness about the way she regarded the
possibility of such a marriage. She held that Leicester’s motives were
anything but romantic or altruistic. But if so powerful a suitor could
be secured, and above all seduced from allegiance to Elizabeth, Mary had
no objection to the match. Her letters to France are full of allusions
to him:—[46]
“Leicester talks over M. de La Mothe to persuade him that he is wholly
for me, and endeavours to gain over Walsingham my mortal enemy to this
effect.”
And again: “M. de La Mothe advises me to entreat that my cousin of
Guise, my grandmother and yours, will write some civil letters to
Leicester, thanking him for his courtesy to me, as if he had done much
for me, and by the same medium send him some handsome present, which
will do me much good. He takes great delight in furniture; if you send
him some crystal cup in your name, and allow me to pay for it, or some
fine Turkey carpet, or such like as you may think most fitting, it will
perhaps save me this winter, and will make him much ashamed, or
suspected by his mistress, and all will assist me. For he intends to
make me speak of marriage or die, as it is said, so that either he or
his brother may have to do with this crown. I beseech you try if such
small device can save me and I shall entertain him with the other, at a
distance.”
How this letter reveals her impulse for romance, her pathetic, dogged
attempts to believe herself all-powerful!
Leicester, naturally, was far too cautious to take the tremendous risk
involved, and contented himself with keeping at a distance and in
exchanging polite and friendly letters with the Shrewsburys, such as the
one quoted on page 170. He was an adept at this kind of sugary
testimonial. Certainly no finer instance could be given in support of
the dignity, virtue, and innocence of an intriguing and busy lady from
the pen of an arch-courtier—a man accused of wife-murder, seduction,
poisoning, and political treachery.
CHAPTER XIII
THE DIVIDED WAY
Seeing that my Lady of Shrewsbury had triumphantly surmounted one of the
greatest dangers she had ever drawn upon herself and hers, one can
safely assume that after the foregoing letter she was in a tolerably
prancing and jovial temper. Socially she really was for the moment a
much more important item to be reckoned with than Mary Queen of Scots
herself. All the difficulties of the past two years had only served to
bring her into closer touch with both queens. Meantime she was a rich
and honoured lady with a great many irons in the fire, and her wants and
requirements were legion. She still wanted ale and wood and stone, she
could not spend all her valuable time dancing attendance upon Mary, or
sharing the dull semi-military routine of Sheffield Castle and Sheffield
Lodge. She went to her beloved Chatsworth, and husband and wife
exchanged letters. Here is a wistful appreciation from him:—
“My Sweetheart,—Your true and faithful zeal you bear me is more
comfortable to me than anything I can think upon, and I give God thanks
daily for his benefits he hath bestowed on me, and greatest cause I have
to give him thanks that he hath sent me you in my old years to comfort
me withal. Your coming I shall think long for, and shall send on Friday
your litter horses and on Saturday morning I will send my folks, because
Friday they will be desirous to be at Rotherham Fair.
“It appears by my sister Wingfield’s letter there is bruit of this
Queen’s going from me. I thank you for sending it me, which I return
again, and will not show it till you may speak it yourself what you
hear; and I have sent you John Knifton’s letter, that Lord brought me,
that you may perceive what is [? bruited] of the young King. I thank you
for your fat capon and it shall be baked, and kept cold and untouched
until my sweetheart come; guess you who it is. I have sent you a cock
that was given to me, which is all the dainties I have here.
“I have written to Sellars to send every week a quarter of rye for this
ten weeks, which will be as much as I know will be had there, and ten
quarters of barley, which will be all that I can spare you. Farewell, my
sweet true none and faithful wife.
“All yours,
“SHREWSBURY.”[47]
Here is a letter from her to him, brisk, tart, affectionate all at
once:—
“My dear heart,
“I have sent your letters again and thank you for them; they require no
answer; but when you write remember to thank him for them. If you cannot
get my timber carried I must be without it though I greatly want it; but
if it would please you to command Hebert or any other, to move your
tenants to bring it, I ken they will not deny to do it. I pray you let
me know if I shall have the ton of iron. If you cannot spare it I must
make shift to get it elsewhere, for I may not now want it. You promised
to send me money afore this time to buy oxen, but I see, out of sight
out of mind with you.
“My son Gilbert has been very ill in his bed ever since he came from
Sheffield: I think it is his old disease; he is now, I thank God,
somewhat better and she very well. I will send you the bill of my wood
stuff: I pray you let it be sent to Joseph, that he may be sure to
receive all. I thank you for taking order for the carriage of it in
Hardwick; if you would command, your waggoner might bring it thither: I
think it would be safest carried. Here is neither malt nor hops. The
malt come last is so very ill and stinking, as Hawkes thinks none of my
workmen will drink it. Show this letter to my friend and then return it.
I think you will take no discharge at Zouch’s hands nor the rest. You
may work still in despite of them; the law is on your side.[48] It
cannot be but that you shall have the Queen’s consent to remove hither;
therefore if you would have things in readiness for your provision, you
might the sooner come. Come either before Midsummer or not this year;
for any provision you have yet you might have come as well as at Easter
as at this day. Here is yet no manner of provision more than a little
drink, which makes me to think you mind not to come. God send my jewel
health.
“Your faithful wife
“E. SHREWSBURY.”
“Saturday morn.
“I have sent you lettuce for that you love them; and every second day
some is sent to your charge and you. I have nothing else to send. Let me
hear how you, your charge and love do, and commend me I pray you. It
were well you sent four or five pieces of the great hangings that they
might be put up; and some carpets. I wish you would have things in that
readiness that you might come either three or four days after you hear
from Court. Write to Baldwin to call on my Lord Treasurer for answer of
your letters.”
The expression in the postscript “your charge and love” has been
variously interpreted by historians. It is utterly inconceivable that,
as suggested, Lady Shrewsbury should have indicated Mary Queen of Scots
by the last word. Had she wished to bring an accusation of this kind
against her husband she would not immediately add her desire that he
should join her as soon as possible. It is not unlikely that this
perplexing sentence should run, “Let me hear how you, your charge, and
(our) love do,” the “love” probably signifying a child or grandchild
then with the Earl. Similarly the words “God send my jewel health” may
apply to the same child, for in after years she uses this term of
endearment almost exclusively in speaking of her precious grandchild,
Arabella Stuart. Her peremptory request for “great hangings and carpets”
is rather interesting, because a previous family letter, not yet
included, gives a picture of the Earl’s parsimony in these details. This
occurs as early as two years before the date of the above letters; and
two long epistles from Gilbert to his stepmother show, first, how the
long strain of his duties was telling upon the Earl, and, secondly, the
unfavourable contrast produced on the minds of their children by the
manner in which they were treated respectively by father and mother.
Gilbert, at Sheffield in 1575, describes the atmosphere of the house as
utterly uncongenial. He is longing to be away and to have his own home.
Lady Shrewsbury was away, probably at Chatsworth.[49]
“My L. is continually pestered with his wonted business, and is very
often in exceeding choler of slight occasion; a great grief to them that
loves him to see him hurt himself so much. He now speaketh nothing of my
going to house, and I fear would be contented with silence to pass it
over; but I have great hope in your La. at your coming, and in all my
life I never longed for anything so much as to be from hence; truly,
Madame, I rather wish myself a ploughman than here to continue.”
Her Ladyship came and went, but does not seem to have had much effect in
softening her lord. Soon afterwards Gilbert writes again, oppressed by
his father’s lack of lavishness in regard to the fitting out of his
son’s home—an attitude which he compares unfavourably with the generous
methods of the stepmother.[50]
“Madame, where it hath pleased your La. to bestow on us a great deal of
furniture towards house we can but by our prayers for your La. show
ourselves dutiful as well for this as all other your La. continual
benefits towards us, whereof we can never fail so long as it shall
please God to continue His grace towards us. Presently after your La.,
departure from hence my Lord appointed him of the wardrobe to deliver us
the tester and curtains of the old green and red bed of velvet and satin
that your La. did see; and the cloth bed tester and curtains we now lie
in, and two very old counterpanes of tapestry; and forbad him to deliver
the bed of cloth of gold and tawny velvet that your La. saw. That which
your La. hath given us is more worth than all that is at Goodrich,[51]
or here of my Lord’s bestowing. On Wednesday my Lord went hence. Cooks
brought in a piece of housewife’s cloth nothing dearer than twelve pence
the yard, and so was holden; which Cooks told my Lord would very well
serve my wife to make sheets, bore cloths and such like: which my L. at
the very first yielded unto, and bade him carry it to Stele to measure,
into the outer chamber, and he said he thought it very dear of that
price, and thereupon my L. refused to buy it.... Thus I beseech your La.
most humbly of your blessing to your little fellow[52] and myself who is
very well, thanks be to God....
“Sheffield, this Friday, 13th of October, 1575.”
Here for the first time is the beginning of real dissension in the
family. The Earl’s own son murmurs against him, and the wife, being the
daughter of her husband’s stepmother, would naturally share his
resentment towards the soldierly official towards whom she stood in such
a very delicate double relationship. The young couple are placed in a
very difficult position henceforth between Earl and Countess, and their
letters show the growing jealousy of her absence and her independence in
the Earl’s mind. The postscript strikes a tenderer note in the allusion
to the childish days of the “lyttell fellow”—George, son and heir of
Gilbert and Mary Talbot—and his awe of his “Lady Danmode” (Grandmother).
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the painting at Hardwick
Hall_
_By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY
Page 198
]
“My duty, most humble rem. R. Ho., my most singular good La. This day my
Lo. intendeth to go to Worsopp; to-morrow to Rufford; and on Saturday
hither again. He was not so inquisitive of me touching your La. since my
last being at Chatsworth, as he was the time before; only he hath asked
me many times when I thought your La. would be here: whereto I have
answered sometimes that your La. was so ill at ease with the rheumatism
as you knew not when God would make you able; other times, that I
thought when your La. were well, you would desire to stay for some
months if he would give you leave; for you assuredly thought my Lo. was
better pleased with your absence than presence. Whereunto he replied
very earnestly the contrary in such manner as he hath done heretofore
when I have told him the like. I found occasion to tell him that your
La. meant not to hold Owen as your groom any longer, since it was his
pleasure to be so offended with him: howbeit (I said) your La. told me
that you knew not what offence he had committed, nor other by him at all
than that he was a simple, true man, and that you would be glad to
understand something to lay to his charge when you should turn him out
of your service. But he answered no other than that it was his will for
divers causes which he would not utter. Further, I said your La. told me
you meant to take some wise fellow as your groom that should not be so
simple as Owen was, but one who had been in service heretofore and knew
what were fit and belonged to him to do in that service. Quoth he: ‘I
believe she will take none of my putting to her.’ Since that time he
gave no occasion of speech of your La., and indeed I have not been very
much with him these four or five days, for he had much business with
others. He is nothing so merry in my judgment as he was the last week;
but I assure your La. I know not any cause at all. No other thing I know
worthy of your La. knowledge at this present. Therefore, with most
humble desire of your La. blessings to me and mine, and our prayer for
your La. continuance in all honour, most perfect health and felicity, I
cease.
“Sheffield, this present Thursday, 1st August, 1577.
“Your La. most humble and obedient
loving children,
“GILBERT TALBOT, M. TALBOT.
“George is very well, I thank God: he drinketh every day to La.
Grandmother, rideth to her often, but yet within the Court; and if he
have any spice, I tell him La. Grandmother is come and will see him;
which he then will either quickly hide or quickly eat, and then asks
where La. Danmode is.”
Here it is very distinctly set forth, the growing distrust, the little
suspicions nursed by husband and wife: “He was not so inquisitive of me
touching your Ladyship.” “He asked me divers times when I thought your
Ladyship would be here.” “You assuredly thought that my Lord was better
pleased with your absence than presence.” And in expressing his mother’s
willingness to send away one of her grooms, since her lord was so
offended with him, though she would gladly know of some offence to
allege in giving the man his dismissal, he shows that my Lord still is
mistrustful. “She’ll take no groom that I recommend to her” is his
morose comment.
Another long letter from Gilbert the go-between gives the quarrel a
more serious colour. Apparently it is the absurd old matter of
household tapestries which is the immediate bone of contention. In
vulgar phrase, there seems to have been a regular “row” over some
embroiderers—upholsterer’s men as they would now be called—at
Sheffield Lodge, who had been turned adrift instead of being carefully
housed while at their work. The Earl’s steward, one Dickenson,
evidently acted against express orders in his zeal to keep at a
distance all persons who were not actually of the household and who
might convey letters or messages to the captive. The Earl had
expressed himself forcibly and the Countess could not forget his
words. But she had not restrained her tongue either, and he had
retorted that she scolded “like one that came from the Bank.” He does
not like the groom, Owen (alluded to in the letter just quoted), and
couples him with the embroiderer’s men. But the thing which most hurts
him is that his wife should have left Sheffield, whither he is bound
from Bolsover, the very day he arrives. He cannot forgive it, in spite
of her suggestion that he should combine some business he has to
transact in the Peak district with a visit to her at Chatsworth. He
is, moreover, morbidly sensitive about the whole position, and thinks
that his wife’s departure will make a very bad impression upon his
household. Gilbert pleads her love and devotion, and draws a vivid
picture of her distress. The Earl melts; he concedes her love; he
reiterates all he has done for her, all he has “bestowed.” And lastly
he curses her building projects which take her so constantly away from
him.
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the picture at
Hardwick Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
GEORGE TALBOT, SIXTH EARL OF SHREWSBURY
Page 202
]
“My duty most humbly remembered. I trust your La. will pardon me in
writing plainly and truly, although it be both bluntly and tediously. I
met my L. at Bolsover yesterday about one of the clock, who at the very
first was rather desirous to hear from hence than to enquire of
Killingworth. Quoth he, ‘Gilbert, what talk had my wife with you?’
‘Marry, my L.,’ quoth I, ‘it hath pleased her to talk with me once or
twice since my coming, but the matter she most spoke of is no small
discomfort for me to understand.’ Then he was very desirous and bade me
tell him what. I began: ‘Truly, Sir, with as grieved a mind as ever I
saw woman in my life, she told me your L. was vehemently offended with
her, in such sort, and with so many words and shows in your anger of
evil will towards her, as thereby your L. said you could not but seem
doubtful that all his wonted love and affection is clean turned to the
contrary; for your L. further said, you had given him no cause at all to
be offended.’ You hearing that your embroiderers were kept out of the
Lodge from their beds by John Dickenson’s command said to my L. these
words in the morning, ‘Now did you give command that the embroiderers
should be kept out of the Lodge?’ and my L. answered ‘No.’ ‘Then,’ quoth
your La., ‘they were kept from their beds there yesternight; and he that
did so said John Dickenson had given that express command.’ Which my L.
said was a lie. And he said it was utterly untrue. And so I would have
gone on to have told the rest; how your La. willed him to enquire
whether they were not in this manner kept out or no: but his proceeding
into vehement choler and hard speeches he cut me off, saying it was to
no purposs to hear any recital of this matter, for if he listed he said
he could remember cruel speeches your La. used to him, ‘which were such
as,’ quoth he, ‘I was forced to tell her, she scolded like one that came
from the Bank.[53] Then, Gilbert,’ said he, ‘judge whether I had cause
or not. Well,’ quoth he, ‘I will speak no more of this matter: but she
hath such a sort of varlets about her as never ceaseth carrying tales’;
and then uttered cruel words against Owen chiefly and the embroiderers,
over long to trouble your La. with. So being alighted from his horse all
this while, said, ‘Let us get up and be gone; and I shall have enough to
do when I come home.’ Then quoth I, ‘I think my La. be at Chatsworth by
this time.’ ‘What!’ quoth he, ‘is she gone from Sheffield?’ I answered,
‘By nine of the clock.’ Whereupon he seemed to marvel greatly, and said,
‘Is her malice such that she would not tarry one night for my coming?’ I
answered that your La. told me that he was contented at your first
coming you should go as yesterday: which he swore he never heard of.
‘Then,’ quoth I, ‘my La. further told me that when your L. was contented
for her departure that day, he said that he had business in the Peake
and would shortly come thither, and lie at Chatsworth.’ Quoth he, ‘Her
going away thus giveth me small cause to come to Chatsworth,’ but
answered not whether he said so or not. But I assure your La. before
God, he was and is greatly offended with your going hence yesterday.
“After he had seen all his grounds about Bolsover, and was coming into
the way homewards, he began with me again saying that all the house
might discern your Ladyship’s stomach against him by your departure
before his coming. I answered beside what I said before, that your La.
said you had very great and earnest business as well at Chatsworth for
your things there, as to deal with certain freeholders for Sir Thomas
Stanhope, but he allowed not any reason or cause, but was exceeding
angry for the same. Whereupon I spake at large which I beseech your La.
to pardon my tediousness in repeating thereof, or at least the most
thereof. Quoth I, ‘I pray your L. give leave to tell you plainly what I
gathered by my Lady. I see she is so grieved and vexed in mind as I
protest to God I never saw any woman more in my life; and after she told
me how without any cause at all your L. uttered most cruel and bitter
speeches against her, when she all the while never uttered any undutiful
word, and had particularly imparted the whole matter, she plainly
declared unto me that she thought your L. heart was withdrawn from her,
and all your affection and love to hate and evil will’: saying that you
took it as your cross that so contrary to your deservings he adjudged of
you, applinge[54] the manifold shows which you so indefinitely have made
proof; and so forgot no earnest protestations that your La. pleased to
utter to me of your dear affection and love to him both in health and
sickness, taking it upon your soul that you wished his griefs were on
yourself to disburden and quit him of [them].
“And quoth I, ‘My L., when she told me of this her dear love towards
you, and now how your L. hath requited her, she was in such perplexity
as I never saw woman’: and concluded, that your La. speech was that now
you know he thought himself most happy when you were absent from, and
most unhappy when you were with him. And this, I assure your La., he
heeded; and although I cannot say his very word was that he had injured
and wronged you, yet both by his countenance and words it plainly showed
the same, and [he] answered, ‘I know,’ quoth he, ‘her love hath been
great to me: and mine hath been and is as great to her: for what can a
man do more for his wife than I have done and daily do for her?’ And so
reckoned at large, your La. may think with the most, what he hath given
and bestowed. Whereunto I could not otherwise reply than thus. Quoth I,
‘My L., she were to blame if she considered not these things: but I
gather plainly by her speech to me that she thinketh notwithstanding
that your heart is hardened against her, as I have once or twice already
told your Lordship, and that you love them that love not her, and
believe those about you which hateth her.’ And at your departure I said
that your La. told me that you verily thought my L. was gladder of your
absence than presence. Wherein, I assure your La., he deeply protested
the contrary: and said, ‘Gilbert, you know the contrary; and how often I
have cursed the buildings at Chatsworth for want of her company: but
[quoth he] you see she careth not for my company by going away. I would
not have done so to her....’ But after this he talked not much; but I
know it pinched him, and on my conscience I think so; but what effects
will follow God knoweth.
“I will write again to your La. what I find by him this day; for
yesternight having not talked with any but myself, I know that his heart
desireth reconciliation if he wist which way to bring it to pass. Living
God grant it, and make his heart turn to your comfort in all things.
“To-morrow he will send me to Derby about Sir Thomas Stanhope’s matter.
I most humbly beseech your La. blessing to me and mine. George rejoiced
so greatly yesternight at my L. coming home, as I could not have
believed if I had not seen it. Sunday at nine of the clock. For God’s
sake, Madame, pardon my very tedious and evil favoured scribbling.
“Your La. most humble and obedient loving son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.”
“The hasty letter from Sir John Constable was to advertise that there
are two Scots that travel with linen cloths to sell, that gave letters
of importance to this Queen: one of them is brother to Curle. My L.
Huntington’s letter was refusal of land that my L. offered him to sell.”
“What effects will follow God knoweth!” Certainly 1577 was an unhappy
year for the house of Shrewsbury. “This world,” as Lord Leicester says
in one of his letters to the great Earl, “is wholly given to reports and
bruits of all sorts.” And these conjugal bickerings, as the Earl
foresaw, would beget reports which, added to the “bruits” he had to face
almost daily anent his prisoner, would certainly crush him and his wife.
For the present the latter rumours were reviving in such force that he
could not stop to think of his private affairs. In his letter to his
wife—the first letter quoted in this chapter—he had alluded to one of
these “bruits,” and his apprehensions naturally made him greatly desire
the companionship of his Bess.
These rumours were no laughing matter. Affairs in the Netherlands were
now complicating England’s foreign policy, and the rumour of the wooing
of Mary of Scotland by the gallant Don John of Austria caused all sorts
of suspicions of her release. For this audacious and foolhardy soldier
had projected a programme of exploits which included the subjugation of
the Low Countries, the conquest of England, and, through Mary, the
sovereignty over it and the restoration of the Romish faith. My Lord
Treasurer promptly indited the following to Mary’s gaoler:—
“My very good Lord,
“I cannot but continue my thanks for all your liberal courtesies,
praying your Lordship to assure yourself of my poor but yet assured
friendship while I live. At my coming to the Court I found such alarm by
news directly written from France, and from the Low Countries, of the
Queen of Scots’ escape, either already made or very shortly to be
attempted, as (surely knowing, as I did, your circumspection in keeping
of her, and hearing all things in that country about you very quiet, and
free from such dangers) I was bold to make small account of the news,
although her Majesty, and the Council here, were therewith perplexed.
And though time doth try these news for anything already done false, yet
the noise thereof, and the doubt that her Majesty halts for secret
hidden practices, to be wrought rather by corruption of some of yours
whom you shall trust than by open force, moveth her Majesty to warn your
Lordship, as she said she would write to your Lordship that you
continue, or rather increase, your vigilancy ...; and as I think your
Lordship hath carried your charge to Chatsworth, so I think that house a
very meet bourn for good preservation thereof; having no town of resort
where any ambushes ... may lie.”
Shrewsbury had removed Mary to Chatsworth during the late summer of
1577, and his motive in applying for leave to do so was apparently not
unmixed with an earnest desire for that “reconciliation” at which
Gilbert hinted. There was, besides, a very potent reason for the
_rapprochement_ of husband and wife. On Gilbert and Mary Talbot great
sorrow had fallen. The adored baby son George, the “lytell fellow,” died
suddenly. The Earl tells it to Burghley. He writes from Sheffield
briefly, incoherently. The loss hits him very hard, and he acknowledges
that this child is his best beloved, the Queen’s Majesty only excepted.
In fear of the effect of the blow upon his excitable wife he suggests
that Burghley’s reply and condolences should be addressed to her, and so
help to “rule” and control her.
“My very good Lord,—When it pleased God of His goodness yesternight a
little before supper to visit suddenly my dearest jewel under God next
to my Sovereign, with mortality of sickness, and that it hath pleased
God of his goodness to take that sweet babe from me, he surely was a
toward child. I thought it rather by myself than by common report you
should understand it from me, that though it nips me near, yet the fear
I have of God and the dutiful care to discharge my duty and trust my
mistress puts me in, makes me now that he is gone to put away needless
care and to look about me that I am put in trust withal—and, my Lord,
because I doubt my wife will show more folly than need requires, I pray
your Lordship write your letter to her, which I hope will greatly rule
her. So wishing to your Lordship perfect health, I take my leave.
Sheffield, 12th of August, 1577.
“Your Lordship’s assured friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”[55]
To Walsingham the Earl also announces this news, adding, “Howbeit, I do
not willingly obey unto His will who took him, who only lent him me,
without grudging thereat; but my wife (although she acknowledge no less)
is not so well able to rule her passions, and hath driven herself into
such case by her continual weeping, as it likes to breed in her further
inconvenience.” Wherefore he is particularly anxious to join her at
Chatsworth, and begs that the Queen shall be “moved” for the requisite
permission.
This visit was ended by the beginning of November, when Queen Mary was
once more bundled back to Sheffield. At this time she seems to have been
on the best of terms with Earl and Countess, and ready to do them every
kindness in her power. For instance, she sent to France for a bed for
them. But as this was not at the moment acceptable she mentions in a
letter her intention to “fulfil my promise by another bed of finer
stuff.” It came to her knowledge that they required half a dozen great
hall candlesticks such as those “made at Crotelles,” whereupon she sent
for “the largest, richest, and best made.” These were to be sent among
articles ordered by her servants, “so that they may create no
suspicion.”
It is sometimes hard to distinguish from her bribes the presents Mary
made out of sheer generosity.
CHAPTER XIV
“BRUITS”
In a letter quoted in the previous chapter Lord Burghley had told Lord
Shrewsbury that the Queen herself would write to him on the subject of
the new-old rumours about Mary’s escape. Elizabeth, of course, did
write, and very seriously, about these reports “from sundry places
beyond the sea,” and in that letter (of September, 1577) she gave her
servant full powers to use his own discretion in making things secure.
But by the spring of 1578 she was not quite so sure of him. The
mischief-making at Court had done its usual work. The Queen was very
cruelly placed always between two parties—Mary’s friends and Mary’s
enemies. To all, as her courtiers, she must preserve a certain show of
grace and unswerving discretion, holding always the balance between the
Argus-eyed alertness of the first and the many-winged suspicions of the
last. These suspicions were often grossly exaggerated. There were some
at least who desired the prisoner’s freedom, but not her usurpation of
the English throne and a third religious revolution. On the other hand,
there were men, who, though powerful under Elizabeth, could quickly have
transferred their allegiance to the other sovereign. Again, at all hours
“posts” from various ports could bring in secret information under the
excellently inclusive system organised by Elizabeth’s chief adviser.
Tugged this way and that in her fears for the stability of the kingdom,
and at times driven to a pitch of intense alarm, the Queen’s confidence
in the capacity of the Earl at Sheffield varied according to the tales
poured into her ear.
A crisis of this kind had been slowly brewing since the autumn, till in
the opening of this year it was actually decided to remove Mary to
Leicestershire, and place her under the roof and guard of Lord
Huntingdon. Everything was arranged, even down to the despatch of the
usual warnings to the surrounding officials of the counties through
which the Scots Queen must pass. And then—the usual hitch. Shrewsbury,
of course, scented trouble and disgrace, and before definite orders
could reach him as to the change, he wrote to the Queen: “To answer
somewhat,” he rightly says, “in this letter is part of my duty, lest my
silence should breed suspicion.” And no wonder! For “I am informed that
there are reports ... that I am too much at the devotion of this lady,
and so the less to be trusted, and that it was considered better to
dispose her elsewhere out of my custody, to my dishonour and disgrace.”
He pleads stoutly, as always, for the recognition of his
single-heartedness and loyalty. He desires only “to be acquitted of
blame by the Queen’s own goodness.” He challenges her equity and good
faith: “I presume with your favour not to excuse myself, but to be
cleared thereof by your own just judgment.”
He points out that had he desired to espouse Mary’s cause he might have
done so far earlier in the day:—
“When her liberty was sought, and her case pleaded with sword in hand,
herself in force enough as she supposed to achieve her highest
enterprise, if any hope had been to her of my inclination that way I
might have had an office at her hand with little reward as the greatest
traitor they had, and been offered golden mountains.” But even Mary, as
he points out, knows her ground, and would not attempt to approach him:
“She was without hope of me and durst reveal nothing to me.” He hates
the notion of any upheaval in the realm: “A change bringeth nothing but
destruction of him that desireth it.”
The Queen, after her usual custom after writing a letter of admonition,
softened it down by a kind and rather contradictory little message, to
which he alludes in a postscript: “Thanks for your gracious messages by
my son Gylbard, among others, that I should not credit bruits, but you
would be careful of me.” Elizabeth also included gracious messages to
his “daughter Lynox and her child,” the which, he assured the Queen,
were a great comfort to Lady Shrewsbury.
For the rest, how could the poor fellow help believing “bruits”? This
kind of gracious royal message was very well in its way, but he must
have known that it amounted to nothing. There arose, as he was well
aware, other kinds of rumours concerning him and his which were much
less mendacious, though they were probably grossly increased by
scandalmongers.
Family correspondence has proved how strained were the conjugal
relations of Earl and Countess, and how a barrier beginning, seemingly,
with a foundation no less tangible than an armful of tapestries (but
subsequently solidified by the sheer masonry of Chatsworth) had grown up
between them. All matters of private dispute were complicated by their
own difficulties in regard to the tenants of their various estates and
any neighbours with whom they were on bad terms. Little by little the
fact that the house of Shrewsbury was not at peace with itself must
penetrate to the greater world. Servants carried the news into the
county. If my Lord blazed and my Lady retorted fiercely and shrilly,
matters could not be kept within four walls. And so, though it belongs
to a year later than the crisis which now brooded, a very long letter is
here inserted because it is so pertinent to the affairs of the Talbots
and Cavendishes. Without going needlessly into business details here, it
must be explained that all the disputes with tenants, etc., to which the
letter alludes, were calculated from the Queen’s point of view to
disaffect the people in the immediate neighbourhood of the Earl, and
give them ground for opposing him and furthering the cause of Mary
merely out of spiteful motives. Certain tenants complained, it seems,
that they had been turned out of properties leased to them by the Earl,
and actually carried the matter up to the Lords of the Council for their
arbitration. The Lords took no violent action in the matter, while the
Earl denied the charges, and brought countercharge of ill-treatment.
Eventually, after correspondence and discussion, the Council discharged
the complainants without punishment beyond a little admonition; and
after due examination of the man Higgenbotham mentioned in this letter,
decided that his offence was exaggerated, and recommended him to the
Earl’s clemency. Eventually the unfortunate Earl had to give in and
reinstate his restive men of Glossopdale in their farms, so that his own
popularity might be assured in order to serve the purposes of his Queen.
The letter from Gilbert is addressed to “My Lord, my Father”:—
“My duty most humbly remembered, right honourable my singular good Lord
and father. Your letters, sent by my lacquey of the 10th of this May, I
received the 13th, at which time my Lord of Leicester was at Wanstead
where he yet remains, and therefore I presently delivered your
Lordship’s to the Queen’s Majesty to Mr. Secretary Walsingham, to be
delivered by him, the weather being wet and rainy and therefore no hope
that her Majesty would walk or come abroad, so as I might deliver it
myself. But whilst I stood by he read your Lordship’s letter to himself,
the which he liked very well; and said that he perceived thereby that
your Lordship meant to deal well with your tenants, whereof he was very
glad, for that he knew also that it would very well content her Majesty;
but very little more speech he had with me at that time, and, since, I
hear that he has delivered your Lordship’s letter to her Majesty, the
which she also has taken in very good part. The other letter, to my Lord
Leicester, I sent forthwith to him to Wanstead, but he returns not till
to-morrow, having been there all this week; and I hear nothing from him
thereof. I likewise delivered your Lordship’s letter to my Lord
Treasurer, who liked it very well; and said that he was very glad that
your Lordship took his plain dealing with you in his letter in so good
part. And thus this tragedy I hope is at an end, until the coming up of
Higgenbotham, with such proofs as your Lordship shall send against him.
“We have had no little ado with these unreasonable people of Ashford,
whereof this bearer can inform your Lordship at length; but now they are
all returned back again, and none of those letters that were sent up to
the Council, or any other concerning that matter, were delivered, but
sent down to my Lady again; yet it was thought good that I should make
my Lord of Leicester privy to the coming of these persons; the which I
did the same day that they came to town; and, when I had told him at
length how the case stood, he agreed with me that it was a plain
practice;[56] yet, nevertheless wished that (if by any means possible)
we should stay them from complaining; saying, in general words, that if
they were not stayed, there would fall out greater inconvenience both to
your Lordship and my Lady than you were aware of, how false and untrue
soever their complaints were. But, before that, he enquired of the town
where they dwelt, which when I had described to him, he well remembered,
and that he had angled and fished at the end of that town; and said that
he thought it belonged wholly to my Lady; and asked whether your
Lordship did meddle therewith or not. I answered him that your Lordship
had wholly left it to my Lady, to use at her pleasure, and was not privy
that her Ladyship dealt therewith. ‘Well,’ quoth he, ‘but for all that
assure yourself that whosoever set these varlets and the others on, had
no less evil meaning towards my Lord than my Lady; for there is no
difference made, neither in the Queen’s opinion nor any others but
whatsoever concerns one of them, touches them both alike; and yet,’
quoth he, ‘I never heard of any practice for the removing of my
Lordship’s charge, but, amongst other things, this was ever one: that
there was no good agreement betwixt my Lord and my Lady: and that it was
informed, both to the Queen and others, that there was a secret division
between your doings, and,’ quoth he, ‘if it were known I verily believe
the same has now been informed, and it is not long since I heard it,
when I am assured that there never was any such thing; but,’ quoth he,
‘by the Eternal God, if they could ever bring the Queen to believe it
that there were jars betwixt them, she would be in such a fear as it
would sooner be the cause of the removing of my Lordship’s charge than
any other thing; for I think verily,’ quoth he, ‘she could never sleep
quietly after, as long as that Queen remained with them’; and, next to
this it troubles the Queen most when she hears that you are not so well
beloved of your tenants as she would wish, which was the cause of her
late earnest letter, ‘the which,’ quoth he, ‘I could not stay if my life
had lain thereon. Well,’ quoth he, ‘I am glad all these former matters
are so well satisfied; and, to conclude,’ quoth he, ‘I pray God that my
Lord and Lady have none but faithful and true servants about them, and
that none of them do, by indirect means, cause it to be informed
sometimes hither that there are mislikes or disagreements betwixt them
when there are none at all.’ I leave to write unto your Lordship my
answers to many of these his Lordship’s speeches, for they would be too
long; and your Lordship may think that either I answered according to my
duty, and to the truth, or else I forgot myself overmuch. All this
speech I had with him before he went to Wanstead, which is five days
since. The secret opinion is now that the matter of Monseigneur’s[57]
coming and especially the marriage, is grown very cold, and Simier like
shortly to go over; and yet I know a man may take a thousand pounds in
this town, to be bound to pay double so much when Monseigneur comes into
England and treble so much when he marries the Queen’s Majesty, and if
he neither do the one nor the other, to gain the thousand pound clear.
This is all the news that I hear. And thus, my wife and I, most humbly
beseeching your Lordship’s daily blessings, with our wonted prayer, upon
our knees, for your long continuance in all honour, most perfect health,
and long long life, I cease.
“At your Lordship’s little house near Charing Cross, this present
Friday, late at night, 15th of May, 1579.
“Your Lordship’s most humble and
obedient loving son,
“GILBERT TALBOT.
“I wish it would please your Lordship to remember my Lord Chancellor
with some gift. It would be very well bestowed.”
Thus, because of the possibility of larger treasons, the warder of Mary
of Scotland and his family must needs swallow their private grievances,
forgive their truculent tenants, and appear wreathed with smiles. They
must maintain their estate, in spite of their increasing liabilities and
the churlishness of the Royal Exchequer, and above all they must keep my
Lord Treasurer well supplied with _douceurs_.
Why they did not sell a portion of their vast inheritance at this
juncture in order to make matters comfortable one cannot understand. In
London the Earl’s creditors were pressing him, and he was too
conscientious to let the matter stand longer than avoidable.
A new responsibility was about to be thrust on the Talbots in securing
the hereditary rights of their grandchild Arabella. For the Dowager Lady
Lennox died in this year quite suddenly at her house at Hackney. It was
odd that the guest who last saw her was the man whom she had accused of
slaying his wife, and whose treachery she had once denounced. Lord
Leicester went down to talk business with her at Hackney, relating, no
doubt, to the sorry state of her financial affairs, and stayed to dine
with her. Just after he left she was taken violently ill, and died two
days later. What she had to bequeath—and Heaven knows it was little
enough—in the way of jewels she left to Arabella Stuart. With the death
of her son, Lennox, the ties which bound her to life practically
disappeared, and she succumbed at the age of sixty-seven to a disease
which must have been aggravated by the terrible misfortunes of her
extraordinary life. Her own dowry of Scottish lands made her no return
because of the war-bound condition of her native country; the sons who
owned the estates conferred on her husband by Henry VIII were all dead.
Her land in Yorkshire passed from her with the death, one presumes, of
her last son, and her fatherless granddaughter was, as Strickland says,
“heiress to nought but sorrow and a royal pedigree.”
It was evident that a push must be made to protect the rights of the
child. Queen Mary herself sent for the old lady’s jewels on behalf of
her little niece, but on the other hand she urged her son’s guardians to
put forward his claims. This was not with a view to destroying the
chances of Arabella, but merely to assert his family rights, lest he
should be regarded as a foreigner. A counterblast to this was the action
of Elizabeth, who took the child under her protection. This fulfilled
the heart’s desire of Elizabeth Shrewsbury. Yet it did not avail her
much. The right to do as he chose with the earldom was by young James,
under the influence of his nobles, claimed for Scotland, and he was made
to grant the earldom to the Bishop of Caithness, a man advanced in years
and without heir, chosen purposely for present convenience until another
Stuart—Esmé Stuart, Lord d’Aubigny, should claim it. Lord and Lady
Shrewsbury wrote in deprecation to Lord Leicester on the subject,
entreating Elizabeth’s intervention:[58] “Unless the Queen will write in
most earnest sort to the King of Scotland on her little ward’s
behalf ... we cannot but be in some despair.... The Bishop of
Caithness ... is an old sickly man without a child; and I think it is
done that D’Aubigny, being in France and the next heir male, should
succeed him. My wife says that the old Lord Lennox told her long ago of
D’Aubigny’s seeking to prevent the infant.”
Subsequently Mary declined to open any negotiations with Esmé Stuart in
her own affairs, both because she did not trust him and because she was
desirous not to give offence to “our right well-beloved cousin,
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury.” This is proof enough that her first
move in regard to the matter had been one of pure policy and was to be
regarded as quite apart from her private sentiments. It were well if she
had never sent the recommendation.
Other rumours of the moment gathered special force, and were perhaps of
more importance to the nation at large than was the possible escape of
Mary. They were rumours of the Queen’s marriage. Anjou’s wooing was a
long business. It lasted over nine years. Elizabeth was just now
revelling in rather a skittish mood in spite of the wild “bruits” about
her health. It was said that she was threatened with epilepsy; at all
events she could enjoy herself, and receive fantastic love letters,
while she shortened the leash by which she held Mary, and docked her of
any semblance of liberty. It did not seem to depress the Virgin Queen
that her royal suitor was only twenty. She always pretended great
coyness towards all gentlemen, and there is an odd touch in the way she
scolded Gilbert Talbot for inadvertently gazing upon her in her early
morning deshabille as she stood at a casement.
“On May Day I saw her Majesty, and it pleased her to speak to me very
graciously. In the morning about eight o’clock I happened to walk in the
Tiltyard, under the gallery where her Majesty used to stand to see the
running at tilt; where by chance she was, and looking out of the window,
my eye was full towards her, she showed to be greatly ashamed thereof,
for that she was unready, and in her night stuff; so when she saw me
after dinner, as she went to walk, she gave me a great fillip on the
forehead, and told my Lord Chamberlain, who was the next to her, how I
had seen her that morning, and how much ashamed she was. And, after, I
presented unto her the remembrance of your Lordship’s and my Ladyship’s
bounden duty and service; and said that you both thought yourselves most
bounden to her for her most gracious dealing towards your daughter my
Lady of Lennox; and that you assuredly trusted in the continuance of her
favourable goodness to her and her daughter. And she answered that she
always found you more thankful than she gave cause....”
That last sentence rings with ironical truth. As they read it Earl and
Countess might well merge their differences and smile unanimously—a
somewhat bitter smile!
CHAPTER XV
RUTH AND JOYUSITIE
The dashing suitor of Mary of Scotland, Don John of Austria, was dead.
Her rival was on the edge of a marriage with a son of Mary’s stoutest
champion—France. It was a bad moment for the prisoner. It was not a
pleasant time for the Talbots. Life at Sheffield could be varied only by
letters from Gilbert, though his parents must to some extent have been
cheered by the prospect of his speedily having another heir. His wife
was attended by no less a person than the famous physician of my Lord of
Leicester, a certain Mr. Julio, who seems, on all accounts, to have
known a great deal too much about the unholy drugs which the Medici
found so useful, though his skill as a physician could not be gainsaid.
Gilbert Talbot at least seems flourishing. He is free to come and go; he
is quite a “citizen of the world.” He executes commissions for his
family, his purchases are practical, and he is thoughtful for his
stepmother’s needs. “There are two Friesland horses,” he writes, “of a
reasonable price for their goodness; I have promised the fellow for them
£33; I think them especial good for my Ladyship’s coach; I will send
them down.” He despatches constant reports of his wife’s health, and of
the repairs and decorations which he is superintending in “Shrewsbury
House,” otherwise the Earl’s house in “Broad Street” from which Gilbert
writes. A special ceiling was being designed for this, the building was
to be newly glazed, and the family coat-of-arms inserted in the windows
in stained glass. In a postscript he heralds a private letter from the
Queen to Lady Shrewsbury, which is not forthcoming. “My Lord, my
brother[59] tarrieth only for her Majesty’s letter to my Lady, which,
she saith, she will write in her own hand, so as nobody shall be
acquainted with a word therein till my Lady receive it. I have not seen
her look better a great while, neither better disposed; the living God
continue it.”
The composition of this young gentleman is always rather vague and his
punctuation hazy. He means, of course, that it is the Queen who is in
such good health and humour. She was very busy puzzling everyone over
her projected marriage, and sketching Court entertainments in connection
with it. Even while she felt the gravity of such a step she would dally
with it, thrust away apparently all but the lighter side of things. She
kept her Privy Council sitting “from eight o’clock in the morning until
dinner-time; and presently after dinner, and an hour’s conference with
her Majesty’s Council again, and so till supper-time.” All this strain
was induced, Gilbert assures the household at Sheffield, by “the matter
of Monsigneur coming here, his entertainment here, and what demands are
to be made unto him in the treaty of marriage ...; and I can assure your
Lordship it is verily thought this marriage will come to pass of a great
sort of wise men; yet nevertheless there are divers others like Sr.
Thomas of Jude who would not believe till he had both seen and felt. It
is said that Monseigneur will certainly be here in May next.... It is
said that he will be accompanied with three dukes, ten earls, and a
hundred other gentlemen.”
The suitor came—but more or less secretly—and departed. It was not till
nearly a year later that the cat-and-mouse game which Elizabeth played
with him approached a crisis in the shape of a splendid pageant at
Whitehall, which she organised to dazzle the French Ambassador, and to
give the impression that this affair was really to be accomplished. Gay
times those—with Sir Philip Sidney’s art and grace to lead the pomps and
ceremonies! Everyone of importance was invited. “Her talk,”[60] says a
contemporary of Elizabeth, “was of tournaments and balls; her one desire
was that the fairest ladies in England should grace her Court. The Lords
were bidden to bring their families to London that there might be the
bustle of constant gaiety. The merchants were ordered to sell their
silks, velvets, and cloth of gold at a reduction of a quarter of the
ordinary price that more should be induced to buy, and so enhance the
general splendour.”
Alack for the Shrewsburys! No gay invitation appears to have summoned
them from the wilds of their county to witness the famous pageant and
the battle of flowers and perfumes waged this year in the tiltyard at
Whitehall, or applaud the splendid chariot of “my Lady Desire” and her
four gallant sons, of whom Sir Philip Sidney personated one.
Such happiness and all that which Mary of Scotland, in a letter, termed
“joyusitie” was a thing apart from existence at Sheffield, and she, who
loved all such fantastical gaieties, who knew as much as any of them of
love practices and flowery games, who could play even with peasant folk
like a child, looked wistfully forth upon the world from the leads of
her castle-prison or from the meadows close to the Lodge, its neighbour.
From 1579 to 1581 her affairs and those of the Talbots are full of small
events, things which kept them alert, yet brought but little result. The
Earl was watched closely by Elizabeth. He could not even leave home for
two days without sharp reprimand, although he never absented himself for
an hour without knowing that his prisoner was absolutely secure, while
his servants kept him carefully informed of her condition. One of them,
for example, by name George Skargelle, a constant eye-witness of the
Shrewsbury tragi-comedy, not only reports upon the prisoner, but scours
the immediate neighbourhood to see what is going on: “May yt plese your
honner to understand that your L’ house is quyet and well, God be
pressed; and the Quene is sarvet wth. her vetteles and wille plesed for
thes II dayes.” He goes to the Castle gardens “to see what stir there
was of your Lordship’s follkes” and found certain fellows playing at
dice, while in the town of Sheffield he discovered other gamblers at
cards. After this he breaks a lance in speech with his master’s
truculent “bad tenants of Glossopdale,” whom he so mistrusted that he
gave information of their presence to the men at the bridges and the
watches, and to the owners of the houses where the travellers lodged.
The Queen heard of the Earl’s absence (for there were always people
ready to report the least movement of so notable a county resident), and
belaboured him in a letter. He begged her to allow him to come to Court
and justify himself. For many reasons he longed to do this. He was weary
of writing endless letters to her and to the Treasury. His personal
debts weighed on his conscience, and his enemies were always trying to
make out that he could not be in any need of supplies because of his
large estates. Big houses are big thieves, and what with his large
double family and the costs entailed by his position, even his trade
projects—he was among other things an owner of lead and exporter of
it—did not keep him in sufficient ready money to maintain all his houses
and fulfil his landlord’s liabilities as he would have wished. He was
not personally an extravagant man, and displays none of the magnificent
tastes of his wife in regard to his house and person. He declared that
his creditors should be satisfied rather than he should use expensive
household articles. “I would have you buy me glasses to drink in,” he
wrote in 1580 to his servant Baldwin. “Send me word what old plate
yields the ounce, for I will not leave me a cup to drink in, but I will
see the next term my creditors paid.” He may have made a special point
of this in order that Baldwin should use the statement as a pathetic
plea when making application to the Treasury for payments due to his
master, the main reason the Earl had for keeping his representative in
London. He had felt deeply the false reports of his income spread about
by local detractors, who were probably also responsible for the
statement that he was now keeping his prisoner on short commons. His
sensations and those of the Countess on hearing of this from Lord
Leicester can well be imagined. The statement had been handed on to him
by the French Ambassador in London, and Leicester told him it would
“much mislike her Majesty.”
The accusation runs: “That your Lordship doth of late keep the Scotch
Queen very barely of her diet, insomuch as on Easter day last she had
both so few dishes and so bad meat in them as it was too bad to see it;
and that she finding fault thereat your Lordship should answer that you
were cut off your allowance, and therefore could yield her no better.”
And yet Shrewsbury could forgive the Queen’s suspicions and, tolerably
happy in the birth of a granddaughter, despite the fact that a male heir
to Gilbert would have rejoiced him far more, instructed his son Francis
to present for him a New Year’s present to Elizabeth.
Simultaneously no time was lost, no trouble grudged in worrying
Burghley, “her Majesty’s housewife” as the Earl rather ironically terms
him in one letter, with regard to a settlement of the everlasting claim
for “this Queen’s diet.” Indeed, one can only imagine that this word
“diet,” by which the cost of the board of the Scottish Mary is always
signified in succeeding correspondence, must have held in the Earl’s
mind and heart the same place as the name of Calais in the mind of Mary
of England. Robert Beale, a clerk of the Privy Council and personal
friend of the Shrewsburys, did his best for them, but despite his kindly
despatches—one of which has a pretty allusion to “my little Lady
Favour,” evidently Lady Arabella Stuart—payment was tardy. Even the
scanty allowance originally decided upon had been deliberately reduced
by royal order. For the hundredth time he tackled anew the official
“housewife” with the words: “I have made suit to her Highness for some
recompense, in which I do find so cold comfort that I am near driven to
despair to obtain anything.” Elsewhere he speaks pathetically of “the
cark and care” which is his portion. “My riches they talk of are in
other men’s purses,” he complains bitterly; “God knows I make many
shifts to keep me out of debt and to help my children, which are heavy
burdens though comfortable, so long as they do well. I can say no more,
but I have spies near about me and know them well.”
At last, in the August of 1582, in sheer despair of obtaining
satisfaction, and sick of employing intermediaries, he wrote to the
Queen:—
“May it please your most excellent Majesty,
“Having then ten years been secluded from your most gracious sight and
happy presence, which more grieveth me than any travel or discommodity
that I have suffered in this charge that it hath pleased your Majesty to
put me in trust withal, I have taken the boldness most humbly to beseech
your Majesty that it may please the same to license me for a fortnight’s
journey towards your Majesty’s royal person; to the end you may by
myself receive a true account of my said charge, and thereby know what
my deservings are. Wherein, if I may (as I desire most earnestly)
satisfy your Majesty, it shall be unto me a great encouragement to
continue the most faithful duty and careful service that I owe unto your
Majesty, and shall yield to my life’s end.”
This permission was in a fair way to be granted as far as letters could
show, and the good, timid, dogged Earl made all arrangements, settled
the stages of his journey, ordered bedding and lodging, and planned his
retinue: “I think my company will be twenty gentlemen and twenty yeomen,
besides their men and my horsekeepers.” He only waited for his journey
till Chesterfield Fair was over and the crowds of suspicious loafers
dispersed. But he waited far too long. The plague had seized London and
had increased apace; he dreaded the cold journey south in the autumn
storms; he dreaded an aggravated attack from “the enemy”—gout.
Simultaneously with this disappointment came sharper sorrow—the death of
Francis Talbot. The event presented itself to Lord Leicester as worthy
of one of those flowery, humbugging, sententious, idiotic letters of
which he wrote so many in his crowded life. This unscrupulous idler,
living on the fat of the land and overheaped with gifts and favours,
presents a very odd picture as he conjures an afflicted, upright, and
overburdened contemporary to count up his blessings: “The Lord hath
blessed you many ways in this world, and not least with the blessing of
children for your posterity.” This from a fellow who could disown his
legitimate son by denying a lawful marriage with the mother! And again:
“He that hath sent you many might have given you fewer, and He that took
away this might also take away the rest. Be thankful to Him for all His
doings, my good Lord, and take all in that good part which you ought; be
you wholly His, and seek His kingdom, for it far surpasses all worldly
kingdoms.” This from the shrewd sycophant who was waiting day after day
to be announced as consort of the Queen of England!
To return on our paces a little. The health of Queen Mary was extremely
unsatisfactory. From 1579 right on through the eighties she addressed
letter after letter of piteous entreaties for freedom to Elizabeth, and
to the ambassador Mauvissière. Sometimes, for weeks at a time, she could
not leave her bed owing to the pain in her side. Sometimes the hardly
won permission to go to Buxton would revive her spirits. On one occasion
she fell backwards from her horse just as she was mounting, and injured
herself severely. Sometimes she was kept closely guarded at Buxton, and
on others she would be allowed to see something of the country close to
it. In 1577 she was so ailing that she made her will. But she would
revive to write endless spirited letters, to plead incessantly and
indignantly against the way in which her French dowry, the only income
she now had, was being dissipated and misappropriated in France, and to
make eager preparations for hunting expeditions, to few of which, as she
confessed, she expected Lord Shrewsbury would give his consent. At the
end of 1581 she was so worn out by secret suspense in regard to her
fate, by constraint, and by lack of air and exercise—the simple remedies
which in years past had helped her to conquer all bodily ills—that for
once her courage left her. She begged for special doctors other than
those who ordinarily attended her. She worked herself into an agony over
the position of her son, and finally begged that the Queen would send
assistance to her “as that she might not be cast away for want of such
help of physicians and things as she needed.”
Robert Beale, already mentioned in his connection with the Privy
Council, who was really sent down at this juncture to Sheffield to
investigate the political relationship between Mary and her son, found
the household in a depressing condition. Lord Shrewsbury had a bad
attack of gout, and though the Countess was not described as ill, her
frame of mind cannot have been very cheerful. Everyone seems to have
poured out his woes in Beale’s ears, while he stuck to his purpose, and
tried to secure a definite answer as to whether or no Mary would
formally yield the Scottish crown to her son. A clear answer from her he
never had. She was ill, hysterical, and, to his thinking and that of the
Earl, full of trickery. They believed that she asked for a special
physician from London because it might give her a chance of carrying out
some scheme to her advantage in connection with the Duke of Alençon, who
was expected in England. One night when she sent specially for Beale he
arrived to find the room in sudden darkness, and Mary in bed, with the
dim shadowy figures of her chamberwomen hovering about her. Among those
shadowy ladies in the bedchamber was still the devoted Mary Seton, to
whom had come some years previously ruth which her mistress also shared.
Not only had the loyal prægustator, John Beton, died in the earlier days
of the long imprisonment, but his brother and successor in the post,
Andrew, had passed away. With Andrew, who courted her passionately, the
Seton had at last fallen in love. The only barrier to their union was a
most inexplicable vow of celibacy which the girl had taken. With the
approval of his brother, Archbishop Beton, and the encouragement of his
royal mistress, the gallant Andrew overcame his lady’s dread of the
married estate, and undertook to secure papal dispensation from her vow.
It was on his journey back from Rome to Sheffield that he died.
Beale, as aforesaid, found himself nonplussed by the gloom of the
Queen’s apartments; and as for talking business it was impossible, for
she received him with sobs.
Because of “her weeping and her women in the dark I brake off,” he wrote
to Walsingham. He went away and reported this uncanny interview to the
Earl, who sent his lady to her. Mary was asleep or shamming, and all
Lady Shrewsbury could do was to chat vaguely with Mary Seton about “the
suddenness of her sickness.” Later on the same careful enquiries were
made by the Countess, whose shrewd deduction was, “I have known her
worse and recover again.” Her Ladyship was, if not head nurse on these
occasions, certainly official inspectress, and Beale reported that
whether Mary was dangerously ill or not she was obliged to use medicine
and poultices, at which he had himself sniffed inquisitively, and which
Lady Shrewsbury had seen applied.
Presently there was a decided improvement in the condition of the
invalid, and Elizabeth allowed Mary’s carriage to be sent to her so that
she might drive within the limits of the Sheffield manor estate, whose
circumference in those days, as Leader assures us, was eight miles, and
covered an expanse of 2461 acres. Mary could not yet avail herself of
this distraction, so sore and feeble was her weakened body. Yet at all
times and seasons she was extraordinarily sensitive to the joys and
sorrows of persons in her environment. The birth of Gilbert’s daughter
already mentioned was just such an occasion for her goodness and
generosity. She stood godmother to the child and sent to France for
presents. These family occurrences complicated the Earl’s business
considerably, and he took great precautions on this occasion that the
event should not come to pass under the same roof as that which held his
captive. At the end of the letter, in which he instructs Baldwin to make
certain payments to his daughter-in-law’s nurse, he says: “I am removed
to the castle, and most quiet when I have the fewest women here, and am
best able to discharge the trust reposed in me.”
He had still further occasion for this attitude, for another blow fell
upon his family. Young Lady Lennox died. As usual it was the Earl who
made the formal announcement of the loss at Court, for his wife was, as
on a previous occasion, too distraught to collect her wits.
“My very good Lords,
“It hath pleased God to call to His mercy out of this transitory world
my daughter Lennox, this present Sunday, being the 21st of January,
about three of the clock in the morning. Both towards God and the world
she made a most godly and good end, and was in most perfect memory all
the time of her sickness even to the last hour. Sundry times did she
make her most earnest and humble prayer to the Almighty for her
Majesty’s most happy estate and the long and prosperous continuance
thereof, and as one most infinitely bound to her Highness, humbly and
lowly beseeched Her Majesty to have pity upon her poor orphan Arabella
Stewart, and as at all times heretofore both the mother and poor
daughter were most infinitely bound to her Highness, so her assured
trust was that Her Majesty would continue the same accustomed goodness
and bounty to the poor child she left, and of this her suit and humble
petition my said daughter Lennox, by her last will and testament,
requireth both your Lordships, to whom she found and acknowledged
herself always most bound in her name, most lowly to make this humble
petition to Her Majesty and to present with all humility unto Her
Majesty a poor remembrance (delivered by my daughter’s own hands) which
very shortly will be sent, with my daughter’s most humble prayer for her
Highness’ most happy estate, and most lowly beseeching her Highness in
such sort to accept thereof as it pleased the Almighty to receive the
poor widow’s mite.
“My wife taketh my daughter Lennox’s death so grievously that she
neither doth nor can think of anything but of lamenting and weeping. I
thought it my part to signify to both your Lordships in what sort God
hath called her to his mercy, which I beseech you make known to Her
Majesty and thus with my very hearty commendations to both your good
Lordships I cease.
“Sheffield Manor this 21st January, 1581–2.
“Your Lordships’ assured
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“To Lord Burghley and Lord Leicester.”[61]
CHAPTER XVI
VOLTE FACE
The death of her daughter Elizabeth Lennox proved a heavy blow to Bess
Shrewsbury. At first she did not realise the full force of it.
Everything possible had been done to secure puissant support and
interest for Elizabeth and her child Arabella immediately on the death
of her husband and mother-in-law.
The will executed by Queen Mary in 1577 specially named Arabella Stuart
as heiress to her father’s earldom, in the clause: “Je faitz don à
Arbelle, ma niepce, du compté de Lennox, tenu par feu son père, et
commande a mon filz comme mon heritier et successeur, d’obeyr en cest
endroict à ma volonté.”
Further, the young widow herself had found courage to address Lord
Burghley:—
“I can but yield unto your Lordship most hearty thanks for your
continual goodness towards me and my little one, and specially for your
Lordship’s late good dealing with the Scots Ambassador for my poor
child’s right, for which, as also sundry otherwise we are for ever bound
to your Lordship whom I beseech still to further that cause as to your
Lordship may seem best.
“I can assure your Lordship that the Earldom of Lennox was granted by
Act of Parliament to my Lord my late husband and the heirs of his body,
so that they should offer great wrong in seeking to take it from
Arbella, which I trust by your Lordships’ good means will be prevented,
being of your mere goodness for justice sake so well disposed thereto.
For all which your Lordship’s goodness as I am bound I rest in heart
more thankful than I can anyway express.
“I take my leave of your Lordship, whom I pray God long to preserve.
“At Newgate Street the 15th Aug. 1578.
“Your Lordship’s,
“As I am bound,
“E. LENNOX.”[62]
Again, immediately on the death of the old Lady Lennox Mary had executed
this warrant dated Sept. 19, 1579, appointing any heirloom jewels to
Arabella:—
“To all people be it knowne that we Marie be the grace of God Quene of
Scotland, dowagier of Fraunce doo will and require Thomas Fowller soole
executor to our dearest mother in lawe and aunt, the lady Margret
countess of Lennox deceased, to deliver into the hands and cowstody of
our right well belowed cousines Elizabeth contess of Shrewsbury all and
every such juells, as the sayd Lady Margaret before her death delivered
and committed in charge to the said Thomas Fowller for the use of the
lady Arbella Stewart her graund chyld if God send her lyf till fowrten
yeres of age; if not then, for the use of our deare and only sonne the
prince of Scotland. In witness that this is owre will and desire to the
sayd Fowller we have gewen the present under our owne hand at Shefild
Manor, the XIX off September the year of our lord M.D. threscore and
nyntenth, and of our regne the thretty sixth.”[63]
In addition Mary wrote at this time to “Monsieur de Glasgo” one of her
Archbishops, in such a manner as shows her sincere attitude towards the
Lennox succession. This letter embodies the important fact of the
interposition of Queen Elizabeth, while the warrant just quoted awards
the care of the jewels not to the mother but the maternal grandmother of
the Stuart heiress.
“The Countess of Lennox, my mother-in-law died about a month ago, and
the Q. of E^d. has taken into her care her ladyship’s grand daughter
(Arabella S.). I desire those who are about my son to make instances in
his name for this succession, not for any desire I have that he should
actually succeed to it, but rather to testify that neither he nor I
ought to be reputed or treated as foreigners in England who are both
born within the same isle.
“This good lady was, thank God, in very good correspondence with me
these 5 or 6 years bygone, and has confessed to me by sundry letters
under her hand, which I carefully preserve, the injury she did me by the
unjust pursuits wh. she allowed to go against me in her name, thro’ bad
information, but principally, she said thro’ the express orders of the
Q. of Ed. and the persuasions of her council, who took much solicitude
that we might never come to good understanding together. But as soon as
she came to know of my innocence, she desisted from any further suit
against me.”[64]
Lady Shrewsbury may or may not have felt the support of Mary
ineffectual, but she must have hoped everything from Elizabeth, and to
Lord Burghley’s condolences wrote thus:—
“My honourable good Lord, your Lordship hath heard by my Lo. how it hath
pleased God to visit me; but in what sort soever his pleasure is to lay
his heavy hand on us we must take it thankfully. It is good reason his
holy will should be obeyed. My honourable good Lord I shall not need
here to make long recital to your Lo. how that in all my greatest
matters I have been singularly bound to your Lo. for your Lo. good and
especial favour to me, and how much your Lo. did bind me, the poor woman
that is gone, and my Arbella, at our last meeting at Court, neither the
mother during her life, nor can I ever forget, but most thankfully
acknowledge it; and so I am well assured will the young babe when her
riper years will suffer her to know her best friends. And now my good
Lo. I hope her Majesty upon my most humble suit will let that portion
which her Majesty bestowed on my daughter and jewel Arbella, remain
wholly to the child for her better education. Her servants that are to
look to her, her masters that are to train her up in all good learning
and virtue, will require no small charges; wherefore my earnest request
to your Lo. is so to recommend this my humble suit to her Majesty as it
may soonest and easiest take effect; and I beseech your Lo. to give my
son William Cavendish leave to attend on your Lo. about this matter. And
so referring myself, my sweet jewel Arbella, and the whole matter to
your honourable and friendly consideration, I take my leave of your Lo.
to pardon me for that I am not able to write to your Lo. with my own
hand. Sheffield this 28th January.
“Your L. most assured
loving friend
“E. SHREWSBURY.”[65]
Meanwhile the young King of Scotland took his own way, and Esmé Stuart
stepped eventually into the shoes of the newly appointed Lord Lennox—the
old Bishop of Caithness aforesaid—as intended by the nobles who
surrounded the Scottish throne.
There was from the standpoint of King James sufficient excuse for this
device. Esmé was the nephew of the late Lord Lennox, Arabella’s
grandfather, and a close kinsman of the young King. He had courtly
training, culture, and diplomacy in his favour. He was nine years older
than the little sovereign, and he came to Scotland from France as the
accredited though secret representative of Rome and the Guises, to win
Scotland at one stroke back to its alliance with France and its
obedience to the Pope. He made his presence felt quickly enough and the
first-fruits of his coming was the seizure and execution of Lord
Morton—erstwhile Regent, and creature of Elizabeth—as a prominent agent
in the murder of Lord Darnley. Here for the moment we leave Esmé Stuart,
in Creighton’s concentrated phrase, as “master of Scotland ... the
English party practically destroyed.”
Meanwhile, all the Countess of Shrewsbury could do was to write abject
letters to Elizabeth asking her to execute an order by which a settled
allowance should be conferred on Arabella.
The Countess could obviously now have nourished no hopes of utilising
Mary’s influence. The Earl was in receipt of all outside information in
regard to Scotland and the English Court. It was patent that no help for
Mary could come from James, well primed since his cradle by the lords
who hated his mother. Bess Shrewsbury’s glorious dream of a throne for
Arabella stared at her now as a somewhat sickly vision. The only hopes
for the child were from an influential marriage. That Arabella’s
grandmother did confide her dream to Mary is evident from the very
curious revelations which the latter makes in subsequent letters, when
the Countess, once so friendly and communicative, if at times brusque
and inquisitorial, had turned against her to the extent of grave
“scandilation,” in the language of those days.
This business of Arabella Stuart’s future marks a crisis in the
Shrewsbury household. It was like the tap given to a very vivid and
complex kaleidoscope, for it suddenly brought the relationship of the
three important personages—Earl, Countess, and Scottish Queen—into new
juxtaposition, and the true colour of the desires of the Countess shone
out more vividly for the changed order of things. To the mere onlooker
the matter is not made clear till much later. Only those immediately
concerned were aware of her gradual change of front, especially towards
her husband, and it was not yet that the full result of this apparent
volte face could be perceived. In order to understand how marked was
this change events must be anticipated by a year or two, and attention
given to an extraordinary letter from Queen Mary which betrays all sorts
of unauthorised intercourse between herself and Lady Shrewsbury. This
letter, penned by an always fanciful and extremely excitable woman, is
of course, an exaggeration of the Countess’s opportunism. Yet, there has
evidently been a gradual cessation of the friendly intimacy between the
two women, and a sufficient revelation of the Countess’s mind to give
Mary occasion to flare out to such a correspondent as the ambassador
Mauvissière. In this letter, of the year 1584, she speaks fiercely of
the treachery of Lady Shrewsbury—“La fausseté de mon honorable
hostesse”—which she wishes made clear to Elizabeth: “Rien n’a jamais
aliené la susdite de moy que la vaine espérance par elle conçue de faire
tomber cette couronne sur la teste d’Arbella sa petite-fille, mesmement
par son mariage avec le fils du comte de Leicester, divers tokens estant
passez entre les enfants nourris en cette persuasion, et leurs peintures
envoyées d’une part et l’aultre.” She goes on to say that but for this
imaginary hope—“une telle imagination”—of making one of her race royal
the countess would never have so turned away from Mary—“ne se fult
jamais divertye de moy”—for, the writer continues:[66] “she was so bound
to me, and regardless of any other duty or regard, so affectionate
towards me that, had I been her own queen, she could not have done more
for me; and as a proof of this say to the Queen, pretending that you
heard it from Mrs. Seton last summer when she went to France, that I had
the sure promise of the said countess that if at any time my life were
in danger, or if I were to be removed from here, she would give me the
means of escape, and that she herself would easily elude danger and
punishment in respect to this; that she made her son Charles Cavendish
swear to me in her presence that he would reside in London on purpose to
serve me and warn me of all which passed at the Court, and that he would
actually keep two good strong geldings specially to let me have speedy
intelligence of the death of the Queen, who was ill at the time; and
that he thought to be able to do this.... Thereupon the said countess
and her sons used every possible persuasion to prove to me the danger to
which I was exposed in the hands of the Earl of Shrewsbury, who would
deliver me into the hands of my enemies or allow me to be surprised by
them, in such a manner that, without the friendship of the said
countess, I was in very bad case. To begin with you need only put
forward these two little examples, by which the Queen can judge what has
gone to make up the warp and woof[67] of the intercourse during the past
years between myself and the said countess, whom, if I wished, I could
place in a terrible position by giving the names of those persons who,
by her express order, have brought me letters in cypher, which she has
delivered to me with her own hand. It will be sufficient for you to tell
the Queen that you heard these particulars from the said Mrs. Seton, and
that you are positive that if it pleased her to make skilful enquiry
into the misconduct of the said countess, I could disclose other
features of greater importance which would cause considerable discomfort
to others about her. Contrive, if possible, that she[68] shall keep the
matter secret without ever naming who had been induced to reveal these
things by devotion to her welfare, that in short she may recognise what
faith she can place in the said countess, who in your opinion could be
won over to my cause, if I thought well, by a present of two thousand
crowns.
“You have afforded me peculiar satisfaction by sending copies of my
letters ... into France and Scotland, by which the truth of these
rumours may be known, rumours which I am certain only proceed from the
said countess and her son Charles; but since the witnesses by whom I can
prove my case are afraid to incur the displeasure of the Queen, I am
constrained to bide until I can find others to assist at a public
explanation and reparation.
“Sheffield, 1584, March 21.”
This letter flies like a thunderbolt across the Shrewsbury heaven. The
lady’s ambition, according to her enemy, acknowledges no bounds, is no
respecter of persons. Mary she not only casts aside like an old glove,
but she assumes a triumphant, hostile attitude towards her. Through Lord
Leicester’s heir, Arabella will ensure the favour of the English throne,
while other means will be used to secure the Scottish throne itself for
the child. Portraits and “divers tokens” have passed between the
children. Bess is as sure of her power now as she was in the days when
she boasted that she could both assist Mary to escape and herself elude
retribution. Robust, rich, prosperous, swelled with her dreams, she
counts herself unassailable. Her mood of excitement tempts her, however,
further than her caution. Mary has spoken to Mauvissière of “rumours,”
reports so serious that they have reached even to Scotland and France.
She is sure that the Countess and her son Charles, once her sworn
servants, are the source of these. A letter, which must be quoted in
full here, written six months later to Mauvissière, makes the substance
of these rumours perfectly clear.
If the correspondence already quoted come like a thunderbolt, this next
letter conveys a shock even greater. There is one really extraordinary
passage in the first letter which, though it concerns the Earl, does not
prepare the onlooker for the scandalous matter of the second epistle.
This passage is the one in which his wife has the audacity, according to
Mary, to warn the latter against the Earl. What is the psychological
process which forces such a statement from the shrewd, worldly-wise
woman whose fortunes, socially, are entirely bound to those of her
husband? What can it be but blind jealousy arising from consciousness of
their opposite natures and from the hostility of sex? The intrigues with
Mary, the opportunism, the blatant ambition—these are comprehensible.
Was it all true? In the light of later letters from Mary all such
statements must be regarded very sceptically. Division there certainly
was in the great household: scolding and bitterness, a great weariness
of heart, a series of sordid misunderstandings. If in a wild reckless
mood the emotional, powerful spirit of Bess Shrewsbury had escaped
control, and she had uttered the ghost of such a warning as that quoted,
it must have sprung from nothing but the blind hatred of Mary and
jealousy of her husband, the last having its source in her fierce
consciousness of an utter clash of temperaments. Her opportunism, her
immense ambitions are conceivable; even, to a certain degree, the
longing to intrigue with Mary. They are comprehensible if one estimates
the Countess’s nature as one in which the love of domination, the quick
sense of advantage, and the keen perception of the melodrama of life
were combined. The Earl’s nature was the very opposite. To him she must
have acted latterly like a goad, while his obstinacy maddened her. His
dogged patience under unwilling service, his bitter and almost stupid
resignation under the meanness and suspicion of his Queen, his caution
and method, his intense sensitiveness to any unjust criticism, his
horror of plots, his dread of any unauthorised move, be it ever so
trifling, formed a granite barrier to his wife’s independent,
self-concentrated, restless spirit. Her pugnacity tussled with his
resolution, and discord ensued.
She whom Elizabeth darkly called “The Daughter of Debate,” the captive
Queen—was suddenly become as much of a thorn in the side of husband and
wife as in that of their sovereign. Wheresoever Mary was there stalked
complexity. This of itself, given the intricacies of her Stuart nature
and her extraordinary life and circumstances, was sufficient. But that
the Countess should have piled complexity upon complexity in such a way
as to wreck her own household reduces the observer to stupefaction. By
the second letter to Mauvissière it is seen that she was at Court. The
mere fact of her presence there seems to rouse Mary to a sort of fury at
her own helplessness. This letter is even more detailed, more excited
than the one just quoted:—
“Wingfield, October 18, 1584.
“No reply having come from the Queen of England concerning the treaty
proposed between her, me, and my son, and not having received any news
from you for six weeks I cannot but doubt that this delay has been
purposed to give time and advantage to the Countess of Shrewsbury, in
order that she may play her game and trouble those on every side
possible, to escape the just punishment of her fault and treason, and to
give the lie to the Queen her sovereign, to the malicious reports, so
harmful to me. I would make, with all affection possible, the request
from myself, and in the name of Monsieur, my good brother, and the
noblemen, my relations in France, that you will give a satisfactory and
clear explanation to the Queen of England and those of her Council of
the false and scandalous rumours that everybody knows have been invented
and spread abroad by the Countess of my intercourse with the Count of
Shrewsbury. I beg you to proceed with all haste in a public examination
or at least before the Council, and in your presence particularly, of
her and her two sons, Charles and William Cavendish, whether they will
confirm or refute the rumours and language they have previously
maintained, that in the cause of reason and justice they may be punished
as an example, there being no subject so poor, vile, and abject in this
kingdom to whom common justice can be denied. Such satisfaction would be
granted to the meanest subject, how much more to one of my blood and
rank, and so closely related to the Queen. But here I am, bound hand and
foot, and, I might say, almost tongue-tied. I can do nothing for myself
to avenge this atrocious and wicked calumny. May it please you to
remember the definite promise made to me by the Queen, which I have
mentioned before in four or five letters to you, that she had always
hated the liberty and insolence, so largely encouraged in this corrupt
age in the slander of Kings and primates, and that she would do all in
her power to repress this evil. I will give her the names of the guilty
originators of this scandal, and in proof of her words she will be
obliged to execute a rigorous and exemplary punishment upon them. I name
to her now the Countess of Shrewsbury and her son Charles especially, to
convict them of this unhappy slander. If not, I ask but their own
servants and those of the Count usually in the house should be put on
their oath to God, and their allegiance to the Queen, and examined, for
I know too well that some of them otherwise would never have the chance
of giving witness, and the Countess would maintain her rumours were
truth. One of her servants has told me that she has caused this scandal
to be spread in divers parts of the kingdom, and that they have heard
her in the room of the Count reproaching him similarly. And to come to
particulars, for some months at Chatsworth there was staying one of the
grooms of Lord Talbot specially to enquire concerning this. He has
nothing to say of me under the name of the Lady of Bath. I cannot but
think the Countess has power to silence her friends, who would otherwise
be too convincing witnesses of the falsehood of their rumours against
the Queen, her sovereign, so that she will do wisely not to force me to
rouse the witnesses, for if I demand justice on them, and am refused, I
will produce, before all the princes of Christendom, by articles signed
by my own hand, an account of the honourable proceedings of this lady,
as much against the Queen as against me, against whom she had formerly
spread this rumour. I will give a declaration of the time, persons, and
all friends, so necessary that it will not be pleasing to those who are
constant in condemning. And in the wrongs that she has done them, if
there are any of them to support her and to countenance those injuries
which I have received from her, or if in such a case there is a question
of my honour, it will always be to me more than earthly life. It may be
after so long and painful captivity I am constrained and obliged to put
before the public anything which may offend them or do harm. In that it
is for them to remedy and obviate by giving me reparation and
satisfaction for scandals and impostures. God grant that at the end I
may find true what the Countess has formerly told me, that the more she
could show herself my enemy, and work against me, she would be so much
the more welcome and more favoured at Court.
“MARIE R.”[69]
The scandalous rumours suggesting a liaison between Mary of Scotland and
Shrewsbury seem to have been on foot some two years previous to this
letter, and were naturally combined with the suggestion of his
connivance in her plans for escape and his vilification of his Queen.
There is a long, tedious, pitiful letter from the Earl on the subject
under the date of October 18th, 1582, addressed, of course, to Lord
Burghley. The “scandilation” is not mentioned as such, but the other
allegations are strictly denied. Shrewsbury reminds his friend that on
the last occasion on which he saw Elizabeth and “enjoyed the comfort of
her private speech” she did “most graciously promise that she would
never condemn” him without calling for his self-justification. He begs
for a hearing now. He adds: “Among the rest of my false accusations,
your Honour knoweth that I have been touched with some undutiful
respects touching the Queen of Scots; but I am very well able to prove
that she hath shewed herself an enemy unto me, and to my fortune; and
that I trust will sufficiently clear me.” The letter is dated from
Handsworth, the little manor which appears to have been the only place
in this and after years in which the harassed man could possess his soul
in quiet and dignity.
CHAPTER XVII
THE COIL THICKENS
That last plaint of George Talbot was in 1582. Previous to this the
curious letters quoted from Gilbert Talbot give a pretty graphic notion
of the acute irritation between his parents. They still sometimes acted
in concert. In 1583 (February 7th) both of them wrote simultaneously to
Burghley to desire his good offices in appeasing the Queen anent the
marriage of the Countess’s nephew, John Wingfield, to the Countess of
Kent. By 1584 the affair seems to have developed into a very unequal
family feud of five to two. As in a game of “oranges and lemons” Bess
Shrewsbury, already backed by her sons Charles and William Cavendish,
seems to have tugged not only her daughter Mary over to her side, but
also Mary’s husband. He is no longer Gilbert the go-between, but the
declared champion of his stepmother against his own father and his
stepmother’s eldest son Henry Cavendish. Family affairs are certainly in
a shockingly ungodly condition. William Cavendish is trying to screw his
stepfather over a matter of £1800, and the quarrel between the Countess
and Earl is so serious that the matter has passed into the hands of the
Master of the Rolls and the Lord Chief Justice, who take opposite sides.
The Countess has named her husband as “traytor” at Court, and he is
resolved to go and exonerate himself. His secret malady is betrayed to
Gilbert by a family servant named Steele, whose confidences can only
help to complicate matters. He has long conversations with Queen Mary’s
secretary, Curle, and seems to have access to all her retinue and to
know the attitude of every member of the Earl’s household towards
Gilbert. The only redeeming feature is the steadfast loyalty of Henry
Cavendish—heir to a portion of the Rufford and Langeford estates—to his
stepfather. Gilbert adroitly urges his own poverty and his wife’s
“necessite,” but is sharply silenced. Shrewsbury is very jealous of his
heir’s long absence at the hated Chatsworth, but at the same time
promises to defray the fees of the physician attending Mary—the
redoubtable Mary Talbot.
This lady is the true outcome of her mother. Bess Shrewsbury was
accustomed to speak of her many building enterprises as her “workes.”
One of her most pathetically characteristic “workes” was Mary Talbot.
Later on in regard to Arabella Stuart’s career history shows how the
mother’s intriguing match-making tactics repeated themselves in the
daughter. For the moment it is her pertinacity, her love of possessions,
her hot uncontrolled temper, and her vindictiveness which concern us.
Again we must anticipate by some years and include here as explanatory
and pertinent an episode which displays the violence and bitterness of
Mary Talbot’s nature.
Between the Stanhopes of Nottingham and the Cavendishes there was a
deadly feud in the course of which blood was shed on both sides. In the
height of this strife Mary Talbot (by that time Countess of Shrewsbury)
sent the following deadly message to Sir Thomas Stanhope of Shelford. It
was not written, but delivered by two messengers, and the message has
come down to posterity in this form, as quoted in Johnson’s _Extracts
from Norfolk Papers_:—
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the picture at Hardwick
Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
MARY CAVENDISH, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY
Page 252
]
“My Lady hath commanded me to say this much to you. That though you be
more wretched, vile, and miserable than any creature living; and, for
your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than the vilest toad in the
world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any
message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you—that she be
contented you should live (and doth noways wish your death) but to this
end—that all the plagues and miseries that may befall any man may light
upon such a caitiff as you are; and that you should live to have all
your friends forsake you; and without your great repentance, which she
looketh not for, because your life hath been so bad, you will be damned
perpetually in hell fire.” The chronicler goes on to say that the
heralds added many other opprobrious and hateful words, which could not
be remembered, because the bearer would deliver it but once, as he said
he was commanded, but said if he had failed in anything, it was in
speaking it more mildly and not in terms of such disdain as he was
commanded.
It was this free-tongued, easily infuriated nature with which the Earl
had to cope in addition to his wife’s excitability and financial
ambitions, his son’s cry of “Give, give!” the suspicions of his Queen,
the lies and slanders of his enemies, and the intrigues of his
captivating captive. The wonder is that he could be even so generous,
affectionate, and level-headed as the following letter shows; that he
could forgive Gilbert, and laugh with my Lord of Rutland, who seems to
have visited Shrewsbury solely to pour balm on his friend’s wounds and
put him in a happier frame of mind, so that at Gilbert’s coming the
difficulties of a business discussion about the disposal of Welbeck—at
which place the Countess eventually established her son Charles
Cavendish, and concerning which she appears to have had important
financial transactions with her husband—was made easy. Owing to the
guest’s _bonhomie_, father and son are placed on a footing which enables
them to discuss things composedly, and Gilbert is informed of the false
reports of his father’s attitude towards Mary Talbot.
_Gilbert and Mary Talbott to the Countess of Shrewsbury_
(1583).
“My bounden duty, duty, etc.—On Friday at night my L. sent to me to be
with him the next morning early. I came to Worsop about 9 o’clock, and
found the two earls together, but saw them not till dinner was on the
table. After ordinary greeting at the board, my L. speaking of Welbeck,
my L. of Rutland said he was sure my L. would pay for it, and ‘so,’
quoth he, ‘you promised me yesternight,’ which my L. denied; ‘but,’ said
my L., ‘your L. was exceeding earnest with me so to do’; whereat they
were both very merry; and he still was earnest with my L. therein, but
he laughed it off. After dinner my L. called me to him in his chamber,
and told me a long tale of the cause of his meeting with that Lord; the
effect in substance was to continue friendship with him; and recited
many reasons that he had to trust him better than any nobleman; and said
that I had like cause to do so, both in respect of kindred, and that he
loveth me exceeding well; and sware by God he was never more earnestly
dealt with than he had been by him since his coming, for me; both to be
good to me in present and hereafter; and bade me take knowledge thereof
and give him thanks, and that in any case I should go to Newark to him.
And before had ended all that it seemed he would have said, he was
called away by the other being ready to go down to horse. So when I came
out I briefly gave him thanks for what my L. had told me; and he wished
he were able to do me any pleasure, desired me to come to Newark, and he
would tell me more, and none living be better welcome; and so we parted.
Then I rode some part of my L. way with him. He told me that the cause
he would not have me carry my wife to London was, for that he thought
your La. would go up to London, and then would my wife join with you in
exclaiming against him, and so make him to judge the worse of me, with
much to that effect. I alleged the necessity of my wife’s estate; how
ill I could live here without any provisions; but he cut me off, saying
he looked hourly for leave to go up, and after he had been there
himself, I might carry her if I would, and if I did before, he could not
think I loved him; and for her health, he said physicians might be sent
for, though he bare the charges; and would not suffer me to speak a word
more thereof, but bade me now do it if I would. Then he told me that
Lewis being at Newark, Hercules Foliambe told him that he heard my L.
had commanded me to put away my wife; and called Lewis, and he affirmed
it, and so my L. willed me to charge Foliambe therewith and make him
bring out his author. Then he told me that the matters were hard between
your La. and him; that Sir W. M. and the Master of the Rolls were wholly
on your side, and would have set down an order clean against him; but
that the Lord Chief Justice would not thereto consent, but stuck to him
as friendly as ever man did. He would honour and love him for it whilst
he lived; and that the order was deferred till Thursday last; and that
this last week he had found out and sent up all the pay books written by
Ryc. Cooke, of all manner of conveyances whatsoever, whereby it appeared
that Knifton and Cooke dealt the most treacherously with him that ever
any men had done; but recited not wherein, saying that he hath not
Hardwick and the West country lands without impeachment of waste, as he
would be sworn his meaning was. Further that W. Cavendish he said was
not ashamed to demand £1800 for [it] and made such a matter of it, as
was never heard; whereof he spake so out of purpose, as it were in vain
to write it. Then commended H. Cavendish exceedingly for maintaining his
honour, which he said he should fare the better for; and told that
divers noble men had of late answered for him very stoutly, especially
the Earl of Cumberland. Then told that Bentall, hearing how evil he was
spoken of at London, and for that your La. had called him traitor, he
desired leave to go up, either to be cleared or condemned, and that he
hath written by him to my L. Treasurer and my L. of Leicester that he
might be thoroughly tried, and have as he had deserved. As for his
knowledge of him, he wrote he had found him the truest and most faithful
servant that he ever had. He said Bentall rather chose to go up of
himself than to be sent for; and that he had been twice examined before
my L. Treasurer and my L. of Leicester, and had sped well, and so would
do he hoped. These are all the special points that I can remember he
spoke of. I began many times to tell him my griefs, and to open my
estate, but he would not suffer me to speak, but said he loved me best
of all his children, and that I had never given him cause of offence but
in tarrying so long at Chatsworth; which thing he also would not suffer
me to answer, but said it was past, and he would not hear more thereof.
When I was parted with my L. I met Style[70] with the stuff. The secret
he told me of the estate of my L. body was that swelling which he said
he thought none but himself did know, but when I told him where it was,
he marvelled that I knew it. He told me that Bentall persuaded my L.
that he was able to do him such service above as he never had done him,
and to discover the secrets of all things, especially by his brother
that serves my L. of Leicester; but Steele said he verily thought he
should be laid up in prison. He said he talked with Curle all the day
before he went, and all that morning, but I could get out no particular
thing of him besides his continual familiarity with all the Scots. He
said there is not any about my L. but Stringer but seeketh my undoing.
“I am in hope to meet Mr. Serjante Roods at Winkfield. Herein is
enclosed a note for your La. to read. The remainder of Rufford and
Langford is assuredly [rested] in my brother H. Cavendish, as the other
lands that are unrevocable are.
“I desire to know whether your La. thinketh that her Majesty will be
offended with my going to Newark to that Earl or not, considering what
speeches she used to me of him. If it be not in that respect, I think it
is very necessary I go thither, seeing that he hath used so good offices
for me to my L. My L. said to one that my L. of Leicester was Bentall’s
great friend. God prosper your La. in all things. We most humbly beseech
your La. blessing to us all.
“G. TALBOTT. MARY TALBOTT.”
It is patent which way the wind blows, and how the Earl is regarded by
his principal antagonists. There is open war; his words are repeated,
his moves watched, and he is simply become a fine grape to be squeezed
for their advantage.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
HARDWICK HALL, SHOWING ENTRANCE GATEWAY
Page 258
]
Things were brewing to a head, and in 1584 Chatsworth, the beautiful,
the detested of the Earl, was literally besieged by him. It must be
recalled here that his wife had already divided her own two houses
amongst her two elder sons. On Henry, as eldest Cavendish she had
bestowed Chatsworth; on William, her best beloved, her own Hardwick. For
Charles, her youngest, as instanced, she had other plans, namely,
Welbeck. Now Henry had married the Earl’s daughter, Lady Grace. The
quarrel naturally concentrated itself on Chatsworth, which, through
Grace, was shared by the Talbot side of the family. The Earl refused to
be done out of certain rights in this property. His lady, irritated by
the fact that Henry was on the Earl’s side, bore down upon the house,
dismantled it, and sent the greater part of the contents to Hardwick,
while Charles and William Cavendish practically manned the empty
building. Up rode the Earl with his gentlemen and servants to demand
admittance, and was, according to his own statements,[71] resisted by
William “with halberd in hand and pistol under his girdle.” The whole
position was naturally rendered more and more painful by this
undignified occurrence, and all parties concerned were foolishly guilty
of wanton waste of a good summer’s day. Meanwhile the Countess was
practically without a suitable house, since she could now share none of
her husband’s lordly residences. Here follows a tragic and unforgettable
letter from the Earl, almost alone, as it were with his back against a
wall. He writes not to Burghley this time, but to Lord Leicester.
Ostensibly the letter is one of condolence. Leicester’s son by Lettice
Knollys died in babyhood in July of this year, at the time when the Earl
and his retinue hammered at the doors of Chatsworth. It was open to
Shrewsbury to requite his friend’s sanctimonious epistle, previously
quoted, on the death of Francis Talbot by just such another. The soldier
Earl, however, is of different stuff from the courtier. His heart cannot
dissemble, and the occasion becomes an excuse for bitter confidences,
elicited evidently by a letter from Leicester which informs him of the
blow and makes kindly allusion, possibly admonitory, to Gilbert Talbot,
who himself had lost an only son and heir.
“My good Lord,
“For that I perceive your Lordship takes God’s handiwork thankfully, and
for the best, doubt not but God will increase you with many good
children, which I wish with all my heart. And where it pleases you to
put me in mind of Gilbert Talbot, as though I should remember his case
by my own, truly, my Lord, they greatly vary. For my son, I never
dissuaded him from loving his wife, though he hath said he must either
forsake me, or hate his wife, this he gives out, which is false and
untrue. This I think is his duty; that, seeing I have forbad him for
coming to my wicked and malicious wife, who hath set me at naught in his
own hearing, that contrary to my commandment, hath both gone and sent
unto her daily by his wife’s persuasion, yea and hath both written and
carried letters to no mean personages in my wife’s behalf. These ill
dealings would he have salved by indirect reports, for in my life did I
never seek their separation; for the best ways I have to content myself
is to think it is his wife’s wicked persuasion and her mother’s
together, for I think neither barrel better herring of them both. This
my misliking to them both argues not that I would have my son make so
hard a construction of me that I would have him hate his wife, though I
do detest her mother. But to be plain, he shall either leave his
indirect dealings with my wife, seeing I take her as my professed enemy,
or else indeed will I do that to him I would be loth, seeing I have
heretofore loved him so well; for he is the principal means and
countenance she has, as he uses the matter, which is unfit; yet will I
not be so unnatural in deeds as he reports in words, which is that I
should put from him the principal things belonging to the Earldom. He
hath been a costly child to me, which I think well bestowed if he come
here again in time. He takes the way to spoil himself with having his
wife at London; therefore if you love him, persuade him to come down
with his wife and settle himself in the country; for otherwise, during
his abode with his wife at London, I will take the £200 I give him
yearly besides alienating my good will from him, ... If he allege it be
her Majesty’s pleasure to command him to wait, let his wife come home,
as more fit it is for her.
“The assurance of your Lordship’s faithful friendship towards me hath,
by so many years’ growth, taken so deep root as it cannot now fade nor
decay, neither any new friendship take my faithful goodwill away, as
time and occasion shall try; and so hoping your Lordship will be
satisfied without further doubt or scruple therein, I commend your
Lordship to the discretion of the Almighty.”
This letter is not signed by Shrewsbury, but simply endorsed: “The copy
of my letter of 8th Aug., 1584,” which fixes the date.
That the dignified George Talbot should stoop to such a slang expression
as “neither barrel better herring” in regard to his once adored and
brilliant Countess shows the complete wreckage of all their joy, their
high comradeship, their mutual reverence.
Into the same confessional, the ear of the astute Treasurer, Bess
Shrewsbury poured out her side, writing from Hardwick on August 2nd: her
husband was using her very hardly, he sought to take Chatsworth from
her, he had induced her son Henry to deal most unnaturally with her,
wherefore she hoped that Burghley would remonstrate, as his letters
would do more with the Earl than those of any other living person, etc.
etc. A little over a fortnight after, the Earl, who had already given
his version of the Chatsworth affair, placed details of the “insolent
behaviour” of William Cavendish before the Privy Council. The State
Papers show that the Council took prompt action here, but to their reply
informing the Earl of the committal of William to prison, and expressing
their opinion that it was not meet that a man of his mean quality should
use himself in a contemptuous sort against one of his Lordship’s station
and quality, they add a clause stating that the Queen desired that “he
should suffer the Cavendishes to enjoy their own lands unmolested.”
To all this quarrel over possessions, which reads for all the world like
a prolonged act out of a new version of the ancient drama
_All-for-Money_, was added the distasteful business of the now
flourishing scandal about Queen Mary and the Earl. Doubtless his wife
and stepsons were ready to bite out their tongues by the time the
scandal they apparently fostered of his intimacy with Mary of Scots was
generally known. Though their nerves were less sensitive they could not
but see that the affair was passing beyond their control and that only
harm could ensue. The time was approaching when they must be publicly
called to account. Meanwhile lesser persons were already being
interrogated. The actual details of the slander are located in the
extract from a letter in diary[72] form written by the Recorder of
London, William Fletewood, to Lord Burghley:—
“Thursdaie,[73] the next daie after, we kept the generall sessions at
Westminster Hall for Middlesex. Surelie it was very great! We satt the
whole daie and the next after also at Fynsburie. At this sessions one
Cople and one Baldwen my Lord of Shrewsburie’s gent. required me that
they might be suffered to indict one Walmesley of Islyngton an
Inn-holder for scandilation of my Lord their master. They shewed me two
papers. The first was under the clerk of the council’s hand of my Lord’s
purgation, in the which your good Lordship’s speeches are specially set
downn. The second paper was the examinations of divers witnesses taken
by Mr. Harris; the effect of all which was that Walmesley should tell
his guests openlie at the table that the Erle of Shrowsbury had gotten
the Scottish Quene with child, and that he knew where the child was
christened, and it was alleged that he should further adde that my Lord
should never go home agayne, with lyke wordes, etc. An indictement was
then drawne by the clerk of the peace the which I thought not good to
have published, or[74] that the evidence should be given openlie, and
therefore I caused the jurie to go to a chamber, where I was, and heard
the evidence given, amongst whom one Merideth Hammer, a doctor of
divinitie and Vicar of Islyngton was a witnes, who had dealt as lewdlie
towards my Lord in speeches as did the other, viz. Walmeslye. This
doctor regardeth not an oathe. Surelie he is a very bad man: but in the
end the indictement was indorsed Billa Vera.”
Of course this true bill was satisfactory in one sense. At the same time
mud sticks, and the publicity of such a case always helps to arouse
wider interest in the possible rumours. Both Queen Mary and the Earl
were rampant and eager for a proper official enquiry. She even sent a
message to Elizabeth on the subject when in committee with an emissary
of the Queen in regard to other matters. This talk was duly noted down
and is included among the Marian MSS.:—
“She thanked her Majesty for the promise to punish the authors of the
slanders against her; Toplif [Topcliff] was one, and Charles Candish
another; the Countess of Shrewsbury did not bear her that goodwill which
the Queen supposed, ‘who with her divers times laughed at such reports,
and now did accuse her. It touched his Lordship as well as her,
wherefore she trusted as a nobleman he would regard his house.’ She
wished this to be signified to the Lord Treasurer, Leicester, and
Walsingham, desiring their favour in this suit.”
It is interesting and piquant to find that Mary’s suspicions should
alight upon that egregious Papist-baiter Topcliffe, but this pompous
gentleman does not appear to have been successfully impugned in this
case. Otherwise Mary eventually had her will. The Earl at last succeeded
in obtaining permission to go to Court to clear himself, and to
relinquish finally his heavy duty. Indeed, he was soon formally
delivered from his charge, but the change of officers did not take place
immediately. Some time elapsed before formalities and details were
carried through, and he and his prisoner paid in July, 1584, their last
visit in company to Buxton. There Mary wrote her famous Latin couplet
with a diamond on a window-pane:—
Buxtona quae calidae celebraris nomine Lymphae,
Forte mihi post hac non adennda, Vale.
The permission for which the Earl longed came in August, and his
successor was Sir Ralph Sadler, who has previously figured in this
record. It was not an easy transfer. The poor Earl’s departure was
complicated by the business of transferring his prisoner to Wingfield
Manor from Sheffield. There were delay and trouble, so that the
cavalcade did not leave till early in September, and it was not till the
7th of that month, after fifteen years of hard service, that he was a
free man.
CHAPTER XVIII
“FACE TO FACE”
A free man, a free agent! But at what a price was Shrewsbury free!
His honour was undermined by his own family, his fortunes impaired by
his Queen’s penuriousness, his prime was past, his best given in return
for apparently naught. Even the gratitude of his captive—and she never
seems to have been regardless of such leniency as he was permitted to
show her—had it been emphatically expressed, would have been no real
reward to him, for it would only have placed him under suspicion. He had
but one testimonial to his credit—the fact that in the midst of Mary’s
dangers and terrors she felt that she was safer in his keeping “than in
that of any other.” His farewell to her cannot have been anything but a
strained and painful matter, with the hateful barrier of “scandilation”
to mar the dignity and courtesy of it on both sides. She wished him to
convey her letters to Elizabeth. He declined, and her new gaoler sent
them with his official correspondence. Thus parted, after the strange
intimacy of fifteen years, Mary of Scotland and George Talbot. When they
met again it was as principal actors in the “tragedy of Fotheringay” in
the autumn of 1586.
The Earl travelled to London with his retinue of gentlemen and grooms—a
business of four to five days. Face to face he and his sovereign stood
at last and the second formal step in the scandal affair was taken.
He was “very graciously used by her Majesty,” who showed herself “very
desirous to comprehend the controversies between him and the lady, his
wife.” Walsingham, commenting on this, writes that he feared this
reconciliation would “not be performed over easily.” Elizabeth kept her
promise and set to work at once. The Lords of the Council were summoned
to testify to his loyalty, uprightness, and honour, and he was called to
face them and receive their magnificent and pompous declaration, “a
memorable testimonial by Queen Elizabeth and the Lords of the Council as
to the discharge of his duty faithfully, and trust in the custody of the
Queen of Scots.” It is not necessary to quote the whole document here.
The actual domestic scandal is only touched very vaguely in it thus:—
“And if in some trifles, and private matters of small moment, not
appertaining to the Queen’s Majesty, his Lordship thought that his
honour and reputation had been touched by the evil reports of any, he
was required to think that the same was common to them and others as
well as to himself in this world, howbeit, if any person could be
particularly charged by his Lordship, it was reason that he should be
called to answer the same; and, therefore, his Lordship was desired to
assure himself of this their Lordships’ good and honourable opinion
concerning his Lordship, and so to sit down as a person that was very
meet for the company, then to serve her Majesty and the realm; and so,
therewith, he took his place in Council according to his degree and
office.”
Thus did their Lordships pour oil on the bruises of their battered
colleague. But he needed more than words. The pain was too deep to be
healed by that bland reminder of the general prevalence of false
witnesses in the world. The phrase “if any person could be particularly
charged ... it was reason that he should be called to answer the same”
is far more curative. Two such persons had been dealt with. But his lady
was not to escape. Beale, his good friend, took a serious view of the
situation. “I have dealt with the Earl,” he wrote to Walsingham,
“touching his son, and find him well affected towards him save that he
says he is ruled by his wife, who is directed by her mother. I think his
hatred for her will hardly be appeased, as he thinks the slanders and
other information made to her Majesty have proceeded from her.”
Both Mary and Shrewsbury were to have their full satisfaction. Mary was
from the first most explicit, and, not content with her excited
outpourings to the French Ambassador, herself wrote to Elizabeth at this
date from Wingfield Manor after Shrewsbury and she had parted. She
alludes in this letter to Elizabeth’s “honourable promise.” She declares
that she will never desist from her demands for satisfaction until her
reputation is formally cleared in regard to the Countess’s slanders. It
is a final challenge which Elizabeth could not in decency resist.
In December of this year Bess Shrewsbury with William and Charles were
called to their account before the Lords of the Council. Full
satisfaction was received—of a kind. There could be nothing very
triumphant about it from Mary’s point of view. There was really none of
that magnificent abasement of her trio of enemies which she painted
subsequently to a correspondent in one of her letters after her removal
to Chartly. This is her version:—
“The Countess of Shrewsbury (I thank God) hath been tried and found to
her shame, in her attempt against me, the same woman indeed that many
have had opinion that she was, and at the request of my secretary Nau,
he being at the Queen of England’s Court in the month of December, ’84,
the said lady upon her knees, in presence of the Queen of England and
some principals of her Council, denied to her the shameful bruits by
herself spread abroad against me.”[75]
As a matter of fact, the accused three unanimously asserted total
ignorance of the entire scandal and its possible sources alike, and
their declaration made before the Privy Council was solemnly recorded,
and is included in the mass of State documents, while an exact copy of
it is among the Talbot papers. It is not a very interesting or savoury
little document, but highly important to George Talbot and his heirs as
a second certificate of merit. It covers exactly the same ground as the
extract quoted from Fletewood’s “dyarium.” At its conclusion, after
testifying boldly to the dignity and honour of Mary, the mother and sons
offer to uphold the truth of their wholesale disclaimer against any
person whomsoever, whenever the occasion should arise. Thus, though
posterity is afforded that vision of their abject position “on their
knees in the royal presence” as stated by Mary, the attitude, contrasted
with their denial, is rather that of reverent dignity than of sheer
abasement.
Thus was the honour of the Talbots saved, but at such cost and after
such a pitiful process of the public washing of family linen that it
does very little real credit to the parties concerned. The poor Earl
could only point to his Queen’s testimonial and console himself by
thinking on his family doggerel:—
The Talbot true that is,
And still hath so remaynde,
Lost never noblenesse
By princke of spot distaynde:
On such a fixed fayth
This trustie Talbot stayth.
For there is no real honour left to a house divided against itself. The
quarrel of man and wife had become the property of the world. Matters
must be patched up somehow with the aid of friends and Court officials.
Everything, to the eye, was now put on a highly respectable basis. The
bland disclaimer by the Cavendishes paved the way at any rate for a more
decent family relationship.
For the fourth time in her life Bess Hardwick had faced and surmounted a
great danger. As Lady St. Loe she had laid herself in some way open to
back-biters, had triumphantly quashed them, and had escaped being deeply
involved in the affair of Lady Catherine Grey; as Lady Shrewsbury she
had braved the wrath of Elizabeth over the Lennox marriage, and now
triumphed over Mary and the Earl. Upon this last occasion she emerged
with a slate at least superficially clean.
Superficially. The thing extorts your admiration after the reading of
Mary’s detailed accusations. But there is yet one more letter which Mary
planned to send hurtling towards the Court. It is a bomb more deadly
than any of the rest, and had it found its mark even the indomitable
Lady Shrewsbury might have been annihilated—would certainly have been
hopelessly discountenanced. It is the production known to all students
of this historical period as “The Scandal Letter,” here translated with
the exception of passages which are best in the original French. Again,
full allowance must be made here for the overwrought condition of the
writer. This letter tallies with the spirit of the letters on the same
subject already seen. Moreover, it is on all sides adjudged by experts
to be a genuine document in Mary’s own hand. This epistle, which in
itself formed a safety-valve for the tumult of the writer’s brain,
either was not despatched and was afterwards found among her papers, or
may have been intercepted in full flight—possibly by Burghley, for it
rests to this day among the Hatfield MSS. Events show that it can never
have reached Elizabeth. The publication of such pernicious matter could
not have done any good or have diverted in any way Elizabeth’s
disapproval from her prisoner. Nor could it have altered Mary’s fate. If
there be, as one cannot but think, a certain basis of truth in it—the
Countess had a lively tongue, as the world knows—the road by which this
lady travelled between 1578 and 1584 must have literally overhung a
ghastly social precipice.
“Madame,[76]
“In accordance with what I promised you and have ever since desired, I
must—though with regret that such matters should be called in question,
still without passion and from motives of true sincerity, as I call God
to witness—declare to you that what the Countess of Shrewsbury has said
of you to me is as nearly as possible as follows. I assure you I treated
the greater part of her statements, while rebuking the said lady for
thinking and speaking so licentiously of you, as matters in which I had
no belief, either then or now, knowing the nature of the Countess and
the spirit which animated her against you.
“Premièrement, qu-un, auquel elle disoit que vous aviez faict promesse
de mariage devant une dame de votre chambre, avait couché infinies foys
avvesques vous, avecque toute la licence et privaulté qui se peut user
entre mari et femme; mais qu’indubitablement vous n’estiez pas comme les
aultres femmes, et pour ce respect c’estoit follie a tous ceulz
qu-affectoient vostre mariage avec M. le duc d’Anjou, d’aultant qu’il ne
se pourrait accomplir, et que vous ne vouldriez jamais perdre la liberté
de vous fayre fayre l’amour et avoir vostre plésir tousjours avecques
nouveaulx amoureulx, regrettant, ce disoit elle, que vous ne vous
contentiez de maister Haton et un aultre de ce royaulme: mays que, pour
l’honneur du pays, il lui fashoit le plus que vous aviez non seulement
engagé vostre honneur avecques un étranger nommé Simier, l’alant trouver
la nuit dans la chambre d’une dame, que la dicte comtesse blamoit fort a
ceste occasion là, où vous le baisiez et usiez avec lui de diverses
privautez deshonestes; mays aussi lui revelliez les segrets du royaulme,
trahisant vos propres conseillers avex luy. Que vous vous esties
desportée de la mesme dissolution avvec le Duc son maystre, qui vous
avoit esté trouver une nuit à la porte de vostre chambre, où vous
l’aviez rencontré avvec vostre seulle chemise et manteau de nuit, et que
par après vous l’aviez laissé entrer, et qu’il demeura avecques vous
près de troys heures.
“As for the aforenamed Hatton [it was said] that you literally pursued
him, displaying your love for him so publicly that he was obliged to
withdraw, that you gave Killigrew[77] a box on the ear because he did
not bring back Hatton when sent in pursuit, the latter having left your
presence in anger because of insulting remarks you had made about some
gold buttons on his coat. [The Countess said] that she had worked to
achieve the marriage of the said Hatton with the late Countess of
Lennox, her daughter, but that he would not listen to the proposal for
fear of you. Again, that even the Earl of Oxford durst not live with his
wife lest he should lose the advantages which he hoped to receive for
making love to you, that you were lavish towards all such persons and to
all who were engaged in similar intrigues; for example, that you gave a
person of the Bedchamber, named George, a pension of £300 for bringing
you the news of the return of Hatton; that towards all other persons you
were very thankless and stingy, and that there were but three or four in
your kingdom whom you had ever benefited. The Countess, in fits of
laughter, advised me to place my son among the ranks of your lovers as a
thing which would do me good service and would entirely disable the
Duke, whose affair, if allowed to continue, would be very prejudicial to
me. And when I replied that such an act would be interpreted as sheer
mockery, she answered that you were so vain, and had such a good opinion
of your beauty—as if you were a sort of goddess from heaven—that she
wagered she could easily make you take the matter seriously and would
put my son in the way of carrying it through.
“[She said] that you were so fond of exaggerated adulation, such as the
assurance that no one dared to look full into your face, since it shone
like the sun, that she and other ladies at Court were obliged to employ
similar forms of flattery; that on her last appearance before you she
and the late Countess of Lennox scarcely ventured to interchange glances
for fear of bursting into laughter over the way in which they were
openly mocking you. She begged me on her return to scold her daughter
because she could not persuade her to do likewise; and as for your
daughter Talbot she was assured that she would never fail to sneer at
you. The said Lady Talbot, immediately upon her return, after she had
made her obeisance to you and taken the oath as one of your servants,
related it to me as a mere empty pretence, and begged me to receive a
similar act of homage, one which she felt, however, more deeply and
rendered absolutely to me. This for a long time I refused, but in the
end, disarmed by her tears, I let her yield it to me, she declaring that
she would not for worlds be in personal attendance upon you, for fear
lest if you were angry you would treat her as you did her Cousin Skedmur
(whose finger you broke, pretending to those at Court that it was caused
by the fall of a chandelier), or as you did another, who while waiting
on you at table received a great cut on the hand from a knife from you.
In a word, from these latter details and the rumours of common gossip
you can see that you are made game of and mimicked by your ladies as if
they were at a play, and even by my women also, though, when I perceived
it, I swear to you that I forbade my women to have anything to do with
the matter.
“In addition the said Countess once informed me that you wanted to
induce Rolson[78] to make love to me and attempt to dishonour me, either
literally or by scandalous rumours, and that he had instructions to this
effect from your own lips; that Ruxby came here about eight years ago to
make an attempt on my life after being received by you personally, and
that you told him to do all that Walsingham should command and direct.
“That when the Countess was promoting the marriage of her son Charles
with one of Lord Paget’s nieces, while you on the other hand wanted to
secure her by the exercise of your unlimited and absolute prerogative
for a member of the Knollys family, she had raised an outcry against you
and declared it was pure tyranny that you should want to carry off all
the heiresses of the country according to your own fancy, and that you
had disgracefully abused the said Paget, but that in the end the
nobility of the kingdom would not stand it, even if you appealed to
other than those whom she knew well.
“Il y a environ quatre ou sinq ans que, vous estant malade et moy aussy
au mesme temps, elle me dit que vostre mal provenoit de la closture une
fistulle que vous aviez dans une jambe: et que son doubte, venant à
perdre vos moys, vous mourriez bientost.
“In this she rejoiced on the strength of a vain notion she has long
cherished, based on the predictions of one named John Lenton, and upon
an old book which foretold your death by violence and the accession of
another queen, whom she interpreted to be me. She merely regretted that
according to this book it was predicted that the queen who was to
succeed you would only reign three years and would die, like you, a
violent death. All this was actually represented in a picture in the
book, the contents of the last page of which she would never disclose to
me.
“She knows that I always looked upon all this as pure nonsense, but she
did her utmost to ingratiate herself with me and even to ensure the
marriage of my son with my niece Arbella.
“In conclusion I once more swear to you on my faith and honour that all
this is perfectly true, and that where your honour is concerned it was
never my intention to wrong you by revealing it, and that it should
never be known through me, who hold it all to be very false. If I may
have an hour’s speech with you I will give more particulars of the
names, times, places, and other circumstances to prove to you the truth
of this and other things, which I reserve until fully assured of your
friendship. This I desire more than ever. Further, if I can this time
secure it you will find no relative, friend, nor even subject more loyal
and affectionate than myself. For God’s sake, believe the assurance of
one who will and can serve you.
“From my bed, forcing my arm and my sufferings to satisfy and obey you.
“MARIE R.”
This letter, of course, is concentrated venom. Mary could embroider with
her pen as well as with her clever needle. She could entwine and order
her imaginings with magnificent effect. She had heaps of fantasy and
romance and could employ them more than puckishly. The document is a
_tour de force_ of craft and power. Its double aim is unerring. With
this one poisoned shaft the writer seeks to destroy the security of the
two Elizabeths—so similar in their autocratic natures, their vitality
and joy in intrigue. A fiendish delight lurks behind every suggestion
aimed at the person and amours of Elizabeth. Even these, taking into
account the ghastly suspense of her imprisonment and the wreckage of her
mental balance, might be forgiven to Mary. But the statement suggesting
Elizabeth’s betrayal of her State secrets to a mere envoy like the
Frenchman Simier, while admitting him to the grossest intimacy, is too
wickedly sane in its vindictiveness to be forgivable. In her most
impulsive, most overwrought moments Lady Shrewsbury would never have
dared to suggest a thing so base or so impossible. The letter condemns
itself throughout, and undermines the truth of many of the previous wild
complaints by Mary of the Countess’s words and deeds. Naturally, every
breath of scandal attaching to the Queen’s intercourse with the
innumerable persons of the opposite sex with whom her position brought
her into contact was treasured and retailed in all directions, and
exaggerated versions of every incident would, of course, be transmitted
to Mary. To achieve such a letter she had only to collect the titbits,
put them into the mouth of one she hated, profess to expose all the
rottenness of Elizabeth’s so-called friends, and serve up the whole
gallimaufry with a crowning _bonne bouche_ in the assertion of her own
innocence, truth, and loyalty. The Arch-Tempter guided her pen in this
hour, and that last plea of weakness and despair, “de mon lit, forçant
mon bras et mes douleurs pour vous satis fayre et obéir,” is scarcely
convincing. The devil was assuredly in it, and she must have saved up
all her energy for such a production. Don Bernardino de Mendoza, when
alluding in a letter of 1585 to the release of Shrewsbury from his task
and his retirement to his estates, declared that he thanked the Queen
for delivering him from two devils, the Scottish Queen and his wife:—
“El conde de Shreubury ha partido para ir en Darbissier siendo
lugartheniente de dos condados de Darbi y Stafford. Besso los manos a la
Regna de Inglaterra, diziendole, hazello por havelle librado de dos
diablos, que heran la Regna de Scozia y su muger.”
This is probably a partial exaggeration. Of course Elizabeth could not
free him from his wife. It was her pleasurable business to bring them
together again. A lengthy matter and badly begun!
CHAPTER XIX
HAMMER AND TONGS
There is no other title possible for the condition of things with which
this chapter deals. That public vindication of the Earl, it will be
remembered, was in 1584, coupled with his wife’s formal disclaimer of
the scandal circulated about him. Still there is nothing to heal the
estrangement, and the Earl, hearing disturbing reports, writes to Lord
Burghley from his country seclusion in the autumn of the following year,
1585:—
“My noble good Lord,
“Since my coming into the country, my wife and her children have not
ceased to inform her Majesty, most slanderously of me, that I have
broken her Highness’s order; and at length they have obtained her
gracious letters, and Mr. Secretary’s to me, the which I have answered,
and sent up my servant Christopher Copley with them; praying your
Lordship that he may, with your favour, attend on you, and acquaint you
thoroughly from time to time with my causes, and that it would please
you to further him with your advice and continuance of your good favour.
My Lord, she makes all means she can to be with me, and her children
have her living, whereunto I will never agree, for if I have the one, I
will have the other, which was thought reasonable by the Lord
Chancellor, and the Lord of Leicester; but by her letters she desires to
come to me herself, but speaks no word of her living.[79] I have been
much troubled with her, and almost never quiet to satisfy her greedy
appetite for money, to pay for her purchases to set up her children;
besides the danger I have lived in, to be compassed daily with those
that most maliciously hated me, that if I were out of the way, presently
they might be in my place. It were better we lived as we do, for in
truth, I cannot away with her children, but have them in jealousy; for
till Francis Talbot’s death, she and her children sought my favour, but
since those times they have sought for themselves and never for me.
Thus, with my hearty commendations, I commit your good Lordship to the
tuition of the Almighty.
“Sheffield, this twenty-third of October, 1585.
“Your Lordship’s most faithful friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
“My noble good Lord,
“Finding you so honest and constant a friend to me, I have been willing,
and yet doubtful to trouble you with my gouty fist, unless I had matters
of some importance, knowing your Lordship so troubled with her Majesty’s
affairs; but now, perceiving what untrue surmises have and are daily
invented by my wife and her children of me, and I think will be during
their lives, I am therefore to request your Lordship thus much; if they
shall exclaim of me from time to time without cause as they do,
considering how manifestly they have disproved in all their accounts,
that they may make trial of their complaints against me before they are
heard; and so shall her Majesty and her Council be less troubled with
these untrue surmises, and by the Grace of God, my doings and dealings
have and shall be such as I wish, my wife and her imps, who I know to be
mortal enemies, might daily see into my doings which I took for no less
but they will do their best. So, wishing your Lordship health as my own,
I take my leave.
“Sheffield, this ninth of November, 1585.
“Your Lordship’s most faithful ever assured friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The word “imp” in Elizabethan times really only implied “offshoot” and
“offspring” and was used also in an agricultural sense. But the
application of it here is maliciously grotesque to the modern sense. The
word strikes one oddly also in the epitaph of the son of Leicester, the
baby Lord Denbigh, described on his tomb as “this noble imp.”
On November 9th from Sheffield Castle Shrewsbury reopens his formal
campaign, and the real tussle in London begins. Lord Leicester, his good
friend, is no longer on the spot, owing to his absence in the
Netherlands. In the long letter to this Lord, quoted hereafter, though
belonging to a date slightly previous, it will be seen that mention is
made of the Queen’s preliminary arbitration in the quarrel. The main
points showing the fluctuations of this strife are set forth in the
State documents, and the whole of Vol. CCVII is devoted to them, showing
that the years 1586–7 are given up to a regular formal ballyragging on
both sides. On the 31st of January, 1586, the Earl is found appealing to
Walsingham, requiring that his wife should be ordered to make public
retractation of her slanderous speeches about him. (This evidently
refers to fresh backbiting, for as regards the great scandal already
named matters had been thrashed out long since.) He adds that he must
bend his mind to trouble though his years do otherwise move him;
meanwhile he has brought a suit against Charles Cavendish and Henry
Beresford, accusing them of the same slander. The Queen intervenes and
requests him to stay the suits. Shrewsbury, however, persists on the
score of the statute “De scandalis magnatum.”[80] The Cavendishes on
their side pleaded for the abandonment of the two suits just named and
for the impartial examination of witnesses. Evidence is next included by
Shrewsbury’s servants of the prejudicial statements of Beresford, while
the Cavendishes employed a servant of the Countess to attest the great
partiality with which the examination of Beresford was conducted, to the
disadvantage of the Countess’ case. Upon this the Queen sent to Sir
Charles Cavendish for details of the exact state of affairs between his
mother and stepfather. These he submitted to Walsingham in March. On May
the 12th the Queen wrote to the Earl expressing her earnest desire that
all controversies between him and his lady and her younger sons should
cease, and by her mediation be brought to some good end and accord. She
reminded him that his years required repose, especially of the mind, and
stated that she enclosed an order for the settlement of the dispute, the
result of her conference with the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Leicester, and the Treasurer and Chief Secretary of State.
Lady Shrewsbury meanwhile objected strongly to all the Earl’s
proceedings, accused him of displacing certain of her tenants, and
assured the Queen that he refused to restrain the slander suits. This is
a fragment of her many complaints, and is endorsed:—
“Objections used by the Countess to the Earl of Shrewsbury’s answers,
who has not obeyed the Queen’s last letter.
“To all these answers drawn by my Lord’s learned counsel, as may appear,
who never want words to answer whatsoever:—
“I allege that for her Majesty’s order I must appeal to her own gracious
remembrance, which particularly was expressed by her last letter to my
Lord, though not obeyed. And (I) do avow on my whole credit with her
Majesty for ever that the things he hath entered to is worth nine
hundred pounds a year, and that he hath repaid but eight and fifty pound
of near two thousand pounds, which in that (case?) would have been to my
sons and me. That he displaceth sundry tenants, and as myself allegeth
meaneth to continue the suits.
“In all these things I most humbly beseech speedy redress if they be
true, and discredit and her Majesty’s disfavour if they be found untrue.
“May, 1586.”
On June 15th Shrewsbury, writing to Walsingham, begged him to favour his
suit against the Countess, and asked that the Queen should banish her
from Court, adding that he was ashamed to think of his choice of such a
creature, and piteously entreated Walsingham to persuade his son Gilbert
Talbot to leave “that wicked woman’s company.”
The action went through against Beresford, for the next item in the
State record is a note upon the York Assizes in June. At the same time
the Countess petitioned the Council denying the charges of the Earl that
she had ever maintained her servant Beresford against him. Next follows
an important note by Charles Cavendish on the force and effect of the
Queen’s order which was intended to produce a united reconciliation and
cohabitation.
The Earl was by this time slowly coming to terms, but he required that
Henry Cavendish should be reinstated in Chatsworth and assured of
certain lands, while his debts, it was stipulated, were to be paid by
the Countess. The Countess and her two sons, on the other hand, stated
that they had been much out of pocket for three years by the Earl’s
aggressive proceedings, and begged for redress.
Into this hotchpotch are flung notes of the yearly allowances which the
Earl gave his Countess when they were together, of the amount of rent
paid by certain tenants, and all other disputes about the jointures of
the Countess, leases, houses, lands, and other property settled upon
various members of the family by father and mother. Not a single scrap
of personal or real estate seems to have been forgotten. The unhappy
couple tussled especially hard over their plate. In the Hatfield MSS.
catalogue the inquisitive will find a full list of the articles. They
include “a podinger” (of which the dish seems to be in my Lady’s hands,
while her Lord retains the lid), a “great silver salt having many little
ones within it to be drawn out,” one “George,” enamelled white and set
with diamonds, costing £38, “a cup of assay,” gilt “talbots,” ewers,
plates, standing-pots, bowls, candlesticks, trenchers, “parcel gilt and
double gilt.” Then there was the same pull-devil pull-baker business
over household linen, mattresses, and hangings—those hangings which were
always such a cause of bother to the couple all through their fifteen
years of menage in connection with their troublesome prisoner-guest. The
demands of the Earl on his part infuriate his wife, and there is a
scornful and sarcastic entry in the Hatfield MSS., endorsed by Burghley,
to the effect that “the parcels above demanded by the Earl are things of
small value and mere trifles for so great and rich a nobleman to bestow
on his wife in nineteen years.” The Countess then reminds him of her
share in the way of gifts: “the Earl hath received of her at several
times, pots, flagons, dishes, porringers, warming-pans, boiling-pot, a
charger or voider of silver, with many other things she now remembereth
not. Besides, better than £1000 of linen consumed by him, being carried
to sundry of his houses to serve his Lordship’s turn. And with his often
being at Chatsworth with his charge and most of his stuff there
spoiled.”
In addition, she quotes an annual contribution of 30 to 40 mattresses,
20 quilts, etc. etc.
All these absurd and pitiful obstacles made the Queen’s order for
cohabitation very distasteful, and in July the Earl lashed out in an
important and emphatic letter to Court. His wife had of her own will
left him, and he did not see why he should receive her under his roof
now simply because she offered to come. “It appeareth,” goes on the
statement, “by her words and deeds she doth deadly hate him, and hath
called him knave, fool, and beast to his face, and hath mocked and mowed
at him.” Here follow two letters from the contending parties. Her
Ladyship had written to my Lord on August 4th, 1586, to which he sends
the long reply quoted. She again writes on August 11th.
_Earl of Shrewsbury to his Countess._
“Wife, in the three first lines of your last letter dated Thursday, 4
August, 1586, you hold yourself importunate for demanding my plate and
other things, part whereof, in the same letter you confess, which at
your being with me you desired to have, and the residue of the plate and
hangings you pass over in silence, for which I take light occasion to be
displeased with you by writing (as you say) and demand this question of
me—What new offence is committed since her Majesty reconciled us? To the
first part of your letter I answer that there is no creature more happy
and more fortunate than you have been for when you were defamed and to
the world a byword, when you were St. Loo’s widow, I covered those
imperfections (by my intermarriage) with you and brought you to all the
honour you have, and to the most of that wealth you now enjoy.
Therefore, you have cause to think yourself happier than others, for I
know not what she is within this realm that may compare with you either
in living or goods; and yet you cannot be contented. The reconciliation
that her Majesty moved betwixt us was—that I should take a probation of
your good behaviour toward me for a year, and send you to Wingfield upon
my charges, to which I yielded (being much pressed by her Highness) with
these conditions: that I should not bed nor board with you; those
servants that were now about you, I would put from you and put others to
you; your children, nor Gilbert Talbot, nor his wife should come at you
whilst you were with me; your living I would have, and my goods (which
you and William Cavendish had taken) I would have restored. Yet you
still pressed her Majesty further, that you might come to me at my house
to Chelsea, which I granted, and at your coming I told you that you were
welcome upon the Queen’s commandment, but though you were cleared in her
Majesty’s sight for all offences, yet I had not cleared you, nor could
trust you till you did confess that you had offended me. Nor can I be
contented to accept of you, if you do not this in writing and upon your
knees and before such as her Majesty shall appoint. It was promised that
I should find you obedient unto me in all points. I thought it unfit
that there should be suits betwixt your children and me, if I should
accept of you, which made me to try you, and demand my plate of you,
etc. What greater disobedience could you shew unto me than deny me that
which is my own? You will hardly suffer me to be master of any of yours,
when you cannot be pleased to restore me mine own. Is it fit that you
should gage my plate and mine arms upon it? Can you do me greater
dishonour? You say that, if your estate were able, you would not stand
with me upon such toys. You never esteemed how largely you cut quarters
out of my cloth; but you have carried always this mind towards me, that,
if you once got anything of me, you cannot be contented to restore it
again. As (if you remember) you borrowed £1000 of me, etc., and gave me
your bill for it; I was not ignorant that I could not recover any money
by it, but it is a witness that you had the money and yet you never paid
it me again. As touching her Majesty’s order for your living, she
pronounced the same at Greenwich, and ordered me £500 a year and divers
other things which they thought fit, and we assented to be set down in
the draft of the books, as may appear. And as touching this, that if I
did at any time receive you and cohabit with you, the Lords thought it
reasonable—and you assented to it—that I should have your living during
the time of our cohabitation, and hereupon I refer myself to their
opinions. Marry, this difference there was, that if you disliked to
cohabit and dwell with me, then your sons to have your living, upon a
signification to be made, the form whereof could not be agreed upon, as
may appear. Your children’s names were used only for this cause, because
you were not capable yourself, but they were thought meetest to deal for
you, till I liked to take you to me. And I think their commission
extended to it, or else you would not have laboured their great pains
which they took in it, and they would have been glad then that I should
have taken you and your living also, which your children desired not, if
I could have agreed to it. I am sorry to spend all these words with you,
but assure yourself this shall be the last time that I will write much
to you in the matter or trouble myself; and likewise, if you intend to
come to me, advise yourself in these points before remembered, that I
will have you to confess that you have offended me, and are heartily
sorry for it, in writing, and upon your knees (without either if or
and). Your living you shall bring with you to maintain you with, and to
pay such debts as is expressed in the consideration of the deed. For
neither by the said deed, nor yet by her Majesty’s order, it was meant
that your sons should have your living, which appertaineth to me, being
my enemies, and have sought my defamation and destruction of my house,
and I to have you without that which the laws giveth me. My goods you
shall restore me before we come together. And, if you cannot be content
to do this I protest before God, I will never have you come upon me,
whatever shall [happen]. I could allege many causes why you have thus
disobediently behaved yourself against me. One chief cause was when I
had made you my sole executrix you persuaded me to make a lease in trust
to two of your friends for threescore years, minding thereby to have the
benefit thereof by the executorship. You caused me in my extremity of
sickness to pass my lands by deed enrolled—to your friends—in bargain
and sale, and the indenture which did lease the houses was not enrolled,
so that if I had then died, the same might have been embezzled, and so
my posterity for that land in the case of St. Loo. But, when I perceived
in what danger I stood, I put you out of my will, and have since started
to remedy those my great imperfections that I was not able to benefit my
children nor recompense my servants. At length it came to your ear,
though there were not many that knew it, and then you began to play your
part, and hath used me ever since in such despiteful sort as I was not
able to bear or abide it: and this is one of the causes that you deal
with me in this wise as you do, and not such causes as you allege to her
Majesty of my dislike of you. All offences done by you are esteemed
nothing as was the offence of Henry Beresford, that was found guilty of
such slanderous speeches that he had spoken of me, that, if they had
been true, as they be most false, had overthrown me and my house. Also,
in regard to your confederacy with him and his son, I cannot but
remember that the young fellow should swear he never spoke any such
speeches by me as was laid in my action which, till it was discovered,
moved great favour towards Beresford, and had like both to have abused
both her Majesty and Mr. Secretary, and clearly to have dishonoured me
(as Mr. Secretary informed me). This I take to be a grievous offence
done unto me. I thought good not to omit this, but to put you in
remembrance thereof, what great favour you have showed him, and was very
unfit to have been supported by you, when the case did touch me so near,
which I look for at your hands that you will confess.
“And thus I end.
“From Chelsea the 5th of August, 1586.”
_Endorsed_: “The copy of my Lord’s letter to the Countess his wife, V.
August, 1586.”
_The Countess of Shrewsbury to the Earl._
“My Lord, I hold myself most unfortunate that upon so slight occasion it
pleaseth you to write in this form to me: for what new offence is
committed since her Majesty reconciled us? If the denial of the plate be
the only cause, why then, my Lord, the true affirmation thereof in my
letter is more than my words, neither such a trifle I hoped could have
wrought so unkind effects; and were my state able I would not stand upon
such toys as those you speak of. Touching my son’s living, that is no
new cause, for it was long ago moved by you, and could never be
consented to by us, in respect of the reasons in my last letter
alleged.... My Lord, I know not how justly you can term me insatiable in
my desire of gaining, for my losses have been so great, with my charges,
that makes me desire honestly to discharge my debt with my children’s
lands, which you have no need of, and will not in my time discharge them
though we should live on nothing; and I am greedy of nobody’s lands, but
would keep the rest, which by all law, order, and conscience they ought
to possess. Neither my case and fortune hath been to maintain my
miseries with untruths, for receiving daily manifest discourtesies I
need not blush to speak truly.
“I assure you, my Lord, my meaning is not to molest or grieve you with
demanding, neither I trust it can be thought greediness to demand
nothing, for I desire no more than her Majesty’s order giveth, and wish
your happy days to be many and good....
“Touching the postscript, my desire hath been so great to be with you
and save your long delays, that made me be an humble suitor to her
Majesty to be earnest with you, but not as you write.
“For the other that I labour your stay, I assure you, my Lord, I did
not, but yet would be very glad that all were perfected here and then to
go down with you, and hoped also ere this we should have been on our way
into the country.
“So, beseeching Almighty God to make you better conceive of me, I end,
wishing myself, without offence, with you,
“Your obedient faithful wife,
“ELIZABETH SHREWSBURY.
“Richmond, this Thursday.”
Like a pedal note through the long jangle runs the Queen’s order, upon
which Sir Charles Cavendish comments more than once. The main part of
it, of course, deals with the disposal of property, the outcome of the
affair being that the couple should travel down to the country together,
and the lands belonging to the Cavendishes revert to them. A footnote to
one copy of the order says that the meaning of this is not to take away
anything in the way of concessions already arranged, but only “to better
the Countess’s part.”
Elizabeth was accused of partiality by the Earl. Her own attitude
towards him had been rather like that of some of his children, for she
had always made use of his possessions to suit her own purpose without
any intention of repayment. It is possible that from the innate
stinginess of her disposition she may have resented the fashion in which
he coupled accusations against his wife’s rapacity with his sore,
justifiable complaint that Mary’s imprisonment had impoverished him. In
a letter to Lord Leicester he can no longer control his feelings against
the Queen. Though written in 1585, it is quoted here as being pertinent.
Bitter and rambling, it is in reply to one from Leicester, which shows
plainly that the Queen, as arbitrator, has thrown her weight into the
balance with the Countess. The document is quoted by Lodge from a rough
copy endorsed “The Earl of Shrewsbury’s answer to the Earl of
Leicester’s letter ... ultimo Aprilis, 1585,” and is therefore unsigned.
“My good Lord,
“Since her Majesty hath declared her mind in the matter betwixt me and
my wife, and doubts not but in every respect I will observe it as her
Highness hath set it down and that the Lord Chancellor should take order
with me for the accomplishment thereof, well weighing her Majesty’s hard
censure of me and my causes; since my coming to Chelsea, I have not been
well, nor able to return my answer by your Lordship’s servant so
speedily as I would, but have now thought good to send this bearer, my
servant, Christopher Copley, unto your Lordship with this answer; that
as her Majesty doth demand and look for at my hands faith and due
obedience, as is the duty of every good subject to spend lands and life
in the defence of her Majesty’s person and realm, which I and my
ancestors have done and am ready at her Majesty’s commandment, so, for
the maintenance of my honour and credit, do I claim and demand of her
Majesty justice and benefit of her Majesty’s laws, never denied by her
Majesty nor by any of her noble progenitors, to any of the meanest of
her subjects before this; yet not doubting but that her Majesty will
have better consideration of me and my cause when she hath thoroughly
weighed of it; and that if she (for all my careful and faithful service,
to my great charges above my allowance in the keeping of that Lady for
sixteen years last past: with the extraordinary charges and expense of
her Majesty’s commissioners sent down, as of Sir Walter Mildmay, Mr.
Beale, and Sir Ralph Sadler, and others, their horse and men, for so
long time as they continued with me), will bestow nothing on me yet I
even thought she would have left me with what her Majesty’s laws had
given me. Since that her Majesty hath set down this hard sentence
against me, to my perpetual infamy and dishonour, to be ruled and
overrun by my wife, so bad and wicked a woman, yet her Majesty shall see
that I will obey her commandment, though no curse or plague in the earth
could be more grievous to me. These offers of my wife’s enclosed in your
letters I think them very unfit to be offered to me. It is too much to
make me my wife’s prisoner, and set me down the demesnes of Chatsworth,
without the house and other lands leased, which is but a pension in
money. I think it stands with reason that I should choose the £500 by
year ordered by her Majesty where I like best, according to the rate
William Cavendish delivered to my Lord Chancellor; or else I shall think
myself doubly wronged, which I am sure her Majesty will not offer unto
me. And thus I commit your Lordship to the tuition of the Almighty.”
The last sentence is entirely ironical after the preceding outburst.
Leicester was not the man to take spiritual counsel or to bestir himself
to his own disadvantage. He was essentially a “trimmer,” and the
guardianship of the Almighty was only a matter of speech for him. He
seems to have remained fairly neutral after this, to judge from what
Henry Talbot writes from London on the 6th of August to his father:—
“All your Lordship’s affairs here are well; and your wife doth exclaim
against my Lord Leicester, because, as she saith, he hath not been so
good as his promise. Her Majesty, praise to God, is well, and marvelleth
she can hear nothing from your Lordship, and she useth the best speeches
that may be of your Lordship.”
To this letter there is a delightful postscript giving a suggestive and
greedy message from one of Shrewsbury’s friends:—
“My Lord Mayor hath his humble duty remembered unto your Lordship, and
says he hopes your Lordship’s bucks are fat this summer.”
So did all the world sponge upon the once wealthy George Talbot.
Another letter from Henry Talbot is a sort of amplification of the
attitudes of his Queen and wife, and though he could not but be
flattered by that of the first there was everything to torture him
acutely in her professions after the treatment he had received:—
“May it please your Honour to be advertised that I came from Court upon
the 20th of this present where I left all things very well, and her
Majesty saith she doth marvel greatly that she hath received but one
letter from your Lordship since your going down. Moreover she herself
told me that she marvelled she heard no oftener from you, whom it
pleased to term her love, declaring further what care she had of your
health, and what a trouble your sickness was unto her; whereunto I
answered that your Lordship’s chiefest comfort, and speedy recovery of
your health, proceeded from her Majesty’s so gracious favour and
countenance bestowed upon you; whereat her Majesty smiled, saying,
“Talbot, I have not yet shewed unto him that favour which hereafter we
mean to do.””
Words, words! This was the coin in which Elizabeth paid the faithful
among her subjects, her kinsmen included. But to resume the letter: “As
touching your wife’s causes, she lieth still in Chancery Lane, and doth
give out that she meaneth to continue there and not to go into the
country. My Lord, my brother’s wife, and her brother, the
Knight”—meaning Sir Charles Cavendish—“do attend very diligently at
Court, and little respect there is had of them; nevertheless they cease
not to follow, to the end the world may say they are in credit.”
The nearest approach to a final and reasonable settlement was suggested
by the Earl’s proposal to settle £1500 a year on his wife, with
Chatsworth House and other lands, under certain conditions, a document
which raised a good deal of discussion on both sides. Out of this
cauldron of anger, misery, and sordidness emerged at last once more the
royal order, final and distinct: The Earl was to receive his wife, and
take probation of her obedience for one year, and if she proved
forgetful of her duty was to place her in her house at Chatsworth. Rents
and assurance of lands were also clearly set forth, and it was ordained
that all actions for plate, jewels, and hangings were to be stayed.
The Countess had the last word on this, for her practical instinct
prompted her instantly to request that her Majesty should appoint
someone to be an eye-witness “in house” with the Earl and herself.
Further, she begged that she might not, failing their final agreement,
be confined to Chatsworth House only, and besought her Majesty “to
conclude her honourable and godly work” as speedily as possible.
Early in August, 1586, the Queen passed this final order of
reconciliation. Assured of the willingness of the couple to cease their
strife, she summoned them to her presence, and “in many good words
showed herself very glad thereof, and the Earl and Countess in good sort
departed together very comfortably.” Wingfield was their destination,
and was named in the original order drawn up already in March.
THE QUEEN’S ORDER.
“An order pronounced by her Majesty between the Earl of Shrewsbury and
the Countess his wife in the presence of the Secretary (Walsingham).
“That the said Earl shall give present order for the conveying of the
said Countess to some one of his principal manor houses in Derbyshire,
furnished for her to remain in, with liberty to go either to Chatsworth
or Hardwick, and to return to the Earl’s house at her pleasure.
“That the said Earl shall allow to the said Countess towards the
defraying of the charges of household £300 and fuel until he shall yield
to cohabitation, and doth also promise in respect of her Majesty’s
mediation further gratuity of yearly provision for the maintenance of
her said house.
“That the said Earl shall appoint four or five of his own men to attend
upon the said Countess and shall pay them their wages.
“The said Earl promiseth her Majesty to resort sometimes to the house
where the said Countess shall lie, as also to send for the said Countess
upon notice given of her desire to some other house where he himself
shall remain, and in case she shall so behave herself toward him as one
that by good and dutiful ways [?] will do her best endeavour to recover
his former good opinion and love, then it is to be hoped that continual
cohabitation will follow, which her Majesty greatly desires.”
All this looks highly promising. It arouses glowing hopes in the minds
of the onlookers that after many toils and dangers, social and
political, such a man and such a woman, born to eminence and possessed
of great qualities, will enjoy many happy years together, quit of their
old intolerable burden, the care of “the Daughter of Debate.” Such a
letter as this from the faithful Gilbert Dickenson, which welcomes my
Lord home to his manor and his acres, telling of the folk who gather to
greet him, and of the fatted calf in preparation, completes the
picture:—
“May it please your Lo. to understand that divers honest men have heard
of your Lo. coming home and would have come to meet your Lo. but that I
have stayed them till I hear further of your Lo. pleasure; and there is
such running from house to house to tell that your Lo. did lie at
Wingfield all night and everyone preparing to meet your L.
“Your Lo. should come into the country with such love as never did man
in England, which is a greater comfort to us than any worldly riches,
and for sheep, oxen, and lambs shall not be wanting nor anything which
can be got, God willing.”
Alack for love and hope! Only two months after this stately cavalcade of
Earl and Lady travelled home, the Countess addressed the Treasurer
again. She had sore complaints to make of her husband.
“My singular good Lord,” she wrote, “I most humbly and heartily thank
your Lo. for your letter sent by my son William Cavendish. It is my
greatest comfort that it pleaseth your Lo. to have care of me, else
grief and displeasure would have ended my days. Since my coming into the
country my Lo. my husband hath come to his home Wingfield, where I most
remain, not past three times; more I have not seen him; he stayed not
over a day at a time at his being here.... Since my coming down, he hath
allowed me gross provisions as beef, mutton, and corn to serve my house,
but now not long since he hath sent me word that he will not allow me
any further and doth withdraw all his provision, not suffering me to
have sufficient fire.”[81] She goes on to say that if all were as her
Majesty desired and assured her, namely, that she might be always with
her husband, she would not need such allowances of provision, etc. etc.
This attitude of the Earl strikes one as a little petty at this
juncture. He had, after all, large estates and many houses, and there
was no need to starve his lady out of Wingfield, even if their
characters and moods were finally and utterly incompatible.
All through these years 1586–7 he was still worried by Gilbert’s
affairs. The letters which follow explain themselves.
The first is a denunciation of Gilbert’s extravagant wife:—
“Son Gilbert,
“I thank you for your pains taken in certifying me of those your sundry
news, being the very same in effect that I heard of the day before I
received your letter. For answer thereto, you shall understand my
meaning towards you is as good as it was at that our departure you put
me in mind of; but for any help about the payment of your debts I do
advise you altogether to rely on yourself, and the best discharge you
shall be able to make thereof, than any ways upon me; who, least my
silence in that behalf, and at this time, might breathe some hope
agreeable to your conceived opinion, do in sadness, as you did in jest,
return you a short answer for your long warning; willing you either to
provide for yourself, as you may, or else be disappointed; for during my
life, I would not have you to expect any more at my hands than I have
already allowed you, whereof I know you might live well, and clear from
danger of any, as I did, if you had that governance over your wife, as
her pomp and court-like manner of life were some deal assuaged. And, for
mine own part, and your good, I do wish you had but half so much to
relieve your necessities as she and her mother have spent in seeking,
through malice, mine overthrow and dishonour, and I in defending my just
cause against them: by means of whose evil dealings, together with other
bargains wherein I have entangled myself of late, I am not able either
to help you, or store myself for any other purpose I shall take in hand
these twelve months. Thus praying God to bless you, I bid you farewell.
“Sheffield Lodge, the 17th of June, 1587.
“Your loving father,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The next is from the newest mediator between Talbot and Cavendish, Sir
Henry Lee, a long-winded but delightful personage of romantic and
fantastic temperament. Lodge assures us that he was “bred from infancy
in Courts and camps,” and that this induced him not only to take a
leading part in tilts and tournaments, but led to his assumption of the
“self-created title of Champion of the Queen,” and that he made a vow to
present himself in the tiltyard in that character on the 27th of
November in every year, till disabled by age. This vow he kept, and upon
his retirement at the age of sixty installed as his successor the Earl
of Cumberland in the presence of Queen and Court, “offering his armour
at her Majesty’s feet, and clothing himself in a black velvet coat and
cap.”
_Sir Henry Lee to Lord Talbot._
“Sir,
“On Monday last I received your letter; on Thursday I went to Sheffield,
my Lord, your father’s, where I found him much amended, after his
physic, of the gout, which took him at Brierly, and troubled him until
then. My being there made him much better disposed, of whom I received
many sundry kindnesses and more favours than I have or ever may deserve.
Acknowledgment is small requital, but that I do and will, to him,
yourself, and yours, in as sundry ways as by my wit, will, and fortune I
may. Dinner done, and all rising saving his Lordship and my poor self, I
told him I had written to you, according to his liberty given me upon
such talk as his Lordship had last with me at Worksop; that I received
an answer which then I presented unto him. I left him alone; Mr. Henry
Talbot, Roger Portington, your very good friend, with myself, standing
at the window, where I, that knew the sundry contents of the letter,
might see any alteration in himself, as they that stood by imagined by
his sighs, guessed according to their humours. Your letter perused (and
well marked, as it did well appear unto me by his speeches immediately
after), rising from the board, with more colour in his cheeks than
ordinary, he led me by the hand into his withdrawing chamber, where he
told me he did well perceive the contents of your letter; that you had
been long a disobedient child to him; that you joined and practiced
against him, and with such as sought his overthrow, and consequently
your own undoing, and the espials and parties you had in his house did
show your care to be more for that he had himself; but, withal, he knew
you had many good parts, but those overruled by others that should be
better governed by yourself. More regard, he says, to your old father,
would do well; who has been ever loving unto you and must be requited
with more love and obedience, or else (by his divination) your credit
will slowly increase. He is glad, as he says, that you live in those
parts (but he speaks ironia) where some good may be learned, but more to
be shunned; yet all well where grace is, so you are able to go through
withal; but for the feeding of such vain time and superfluous excess as
should do best for yourself to diminish, he is not able, he says, and I
fear will never be willing, to maintain. He reckoned how many had been
in hand with him for the payment of your debts; my Lord Treasurer and
others. His answer was that, through the wilfulness of him, who shunned
his advice, and the imperfections of others, his undoing should not
grow, that they themselves might have cause to pity him in his age,
through his folly and their persuasions. There, my Lord, he told that
three thousand pounds nearly went out of his living to his children, and
many other sums to small purpose to remember. He confessed he sent you
such a letter as you write of, and written by a man of his, but
altogether by his direction. But he was old, lame of the gout, and now
no more able to write himself. He spake much of your inconstancy in your
friendships, and especially to my Lord of Leicester; sometimes, as you
favoured, there was not such; and laboured himself to rely more upon
him, altogether misliking such humours as favoured and disfavoured in
such sort, and in so short a time; but, for himself, he would fly such
variety, and perform his friendship and faith. Truly, my Lord, he used
many of these speeches before I interrupted him, and good reason I had
to forbear, for he spoke not without grief, as I guess, and passion, I
am sure; therefore [I] thought best to stay until the storm was somewhat
overblown. At the last I besought him to tell me whether these old
grievances were not remitted upon conference between yourselves; and
whether your abode there was not with his good allowance, that you
should procure yourself to be joined with him in his offices; further,
that you should, by good means, procure some honourable office for your
better understanding. All this he did not deny, but, touching his
discourse, I think not fit to set it down, my messenger is so uncertain,
and my meaning to do good, if I may, but no hurt. He is old and unwieldy
and deceived by such he trusteth, and you shun to assist him, and
therefore will let out all; but that I believe not. I found one thing in
your letter: I said that I feared, and made me sorry; that your
favouring so much your own credit, and finding so small means to answer
your creditors, you might fall into some hard course; and, before these
words were all out of my mouth, he said, ‘Yea, marry, some desperation.’
Therefore I took hold: ‘Good my Lord, license me to speak with your
favour, that speak nothing by practice again, but through a dutiful mind
to you, now in years, and for yours, by course of nature likely to
succeed you. If he should, as you have termed it, take any desperate
way, pass into those parts which this doubtful time brings, to many
dangers, and especially to our nation, were not this peril great, and,
by presumption, not to be recovered? You cannot be ignorant, for all
your mislike, what a son you have; esteemed of the highest, favoured of
the best, and the best judgments, and how much he differs from other
men’s sons of your own conditions; so much your love, care, and regard
should be the more by how much your loss were more (to be balanced by
reason) than all the rest put together. Your country may and will
challenge a part and party in him, as a wise man, fit and able to serve
it. You yet find not what a Lord Talbot you have; but if he should by
any extraordinary accident be taken from you, and not to be recovered,
yourself, with your grief, would accompany your white hair to your end
with a grave full of cares; and who doth sooner enter into desperation
than great wits accompanied with mighty and honourable hearts, which
hardly can away with want, but never with discredit?’ This, my Lord,
sunk somewhat into him. He confessed much of this. He mused long, and
spake little: he stayed, standing long, without complaining of his legs
(by reason he was earnest) one hour and a half at the least before we
parted. So, in many doubts, I left him, minding to send such letters as
you required, to Welbeck and thence to be sent to you: wherewith I took
my leave.
“I will never take upon me to advise you. You see now what passed, and
upon what grounds; therefore resolve, upon temperate blood and good
judgment, and free advice, for the time present: remembering both love
and duty, and that you deal with a kind man. I wish a sudden journey, at
the least to see him; he must needs take it well, and I know your age
may endure it; your friends desire it, and I among the rest (to see you
ere I go from these parts) that loveth you, whose being here with my
Lady, would have made this country to me far otherwise than it is, and
my abode much longer than it is like to be. I have troubled you long.
The news is that my Lady Talbot, the widow, and your sister my Lady
Mary, with my Lady Manners, as I take it came to Sheffield this night
past. I think my Lord will to Hatfield the next week that cometh, or the
week following, with such company as he hath, but the certainty I know
not: but whether he go there, or no, I wish you would haste to meet him.
My brother, Mr. Portington, Mr. Lascelles, with myself, and Mr. Fawley,
recommendeth our love and service to your good Lordship. I beseech you
let me be remembered humbly unto my Lady, and to good Sir Charles
Candishe and his family, wishing them both the best happiness.
“From Lettwell, the 13th of August, 1587.
“Your Lordship’s poor and faithful friend ever,
“HENRY LEE.”
_The Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir Henry Lee._
“Good Sir Henry Lee,
“I have perused that enclosed letter you sent me within yours, and do
account you most faithful and forward to do good where you profess
friendship. Neither can the eloquence of the one, nor the earnest desire
of the other, persuade me to do otherwise in that matter than I have
already, upon good consideration, determined. My son compares my words
with his own conceits, and means to save his credit as shall content me,
but when he sealeth I will assure. I proposed to leave him in better
case than my father left me, and if I give him so much as I cannot
withhold, I am not in his debt. I forgave him all his faults, but I
promised him not that I would trust him. He can bring the honour of his
house now to make for his purpose, but he remembereth not how he went
about to dishonour it. He laboured not to make sure my Lord of Leicester
of their side that went about to accuse his father of treason. He did
not countenance his wife and her mother against me in all their bad
actions. His deceits never moved me to be displeased. Well, if they did,
I pronounce forgiveness thereof to his friend, as I have done before
unto him. He knoweth whereof his grief grew; let him henceforth avoid
the occasions. He says he is not overruled by his wife, but attributes
that to my speeches: but I say, if he be not he will quickly recover,
and live better of his annuity than I could do when I bare his name,
with less allowance. Yet (notwithstanding his doubtful words of your
welcome hither, in respect you have moved me for his good) I beseech you
come ten times for every one past; assuring you that the most eloquent
orator in England can do no more with me than you have, till I perceive
a new course. Thus, with my hearty commendations, I bid you farewell.
“Sheffield, September 6th, 1587.
“Your loving friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The long letter from Sir Henry Lee gives a pathetic and vivid portrait
of the old Government official who feels himself at last like a worn-out
tool, unloved, unnecessary to the world—save when his position as a
premier peer required him to raise levies for the defence and contest of
Ireland, or county matters called him from retirement in his military
and judicial capacity. To the very end he was a prompt official, and his
family motto, “Prest d’Accomplir,” his watchword. In 1586 he was still
among those who receive urgent orders to arm and prepare bodies of
Derbyshire fighting men, and must give his attention to the most absurd
details of uniform, such as the “convenient hose and doublet, and a
cassock of motley ... either sea-green colour or russet,” noted among
the regulations issued by his fellows of the Privy Council.
These things are, however, only flashes in the pan. He is getting old.
All the world was growing old, and all his contemporaries, in the phrase
of the day, were “a little thing sickish.” The intrepid and laborious
Walsingham is described as being “troubled with his old diseases: the
tympany and carnosity,” and so is absent from Court. Letters still
flowed in to the Earl, news of the Netherlands campaign, from the now
depressed Lord Leicester, the Governor, news of the Queen’s movements,
of Spain, of the legal strife of his contemporaries and friends. They
are only sticks and straws flung into the deep and turgid current of his
lonely, embittered life.
It was in the midst of such disputes as these that the summons had come
to him from Fotheringay.
CHAPTER XX
FADING GLORIES
His own household and many of his tenants were faithful to the Earl
Marshal. Fortunately he had not at the moment much leisure for private
broodings. The Babington conspiracy had churned up the old alarms about
Mary, the Royal Commission for her trial was being appointed, and,
though he was fortunately able to plead illness as an excuse for once
more repairing to London to take his seat in this important meeting of
the Council, he was obliged by letter to Burghley to assert his
willingness to add his name to the decree of the Privy Council in regard
to Mary’s sentence, at the same time enclosing his seal and giving the
Lord Treasurer full authority to sign for him. Did he at the moment of
writing recall that broidered motto which must have flashed at him many
times from the dais which his prisoner contrived for herself in her
imprisonment: “En ma fin est mon commencement”? If so, the pride and
pathos of it must have struck home terribly. For he too was nearing his
end. He too had naught but sorrow in his heir, and though Gilbert,
Edward, and Henry Talbot still lived to carry on his name, it could not
be in a very hopeful spirit that he thought upon the continuance of his
line so long as he apprehended the renewal of family strife and could
not forgive or love again his high-handed lady.
Many things had happened to Mary since they parted, notably the failure
of the last great conspiracy for her freedom. Of all these he was fully
informed, and sums up her affairs in a single phrase in the ensuing
letter:—
“_To the Right Honourable my verie good Lord the Lord Burghley, Lord
Thresorer of England._
“My noble good Lord,
“I have received your Lordship’s letters both of the 12th November and
the 14th of the same, whereby I find myself greatly beholden unto your
Lordship for your good remembrance of me, with the proceeding of the
foul matters of the Scots Queen; sentence whereof, I understand by your
Lordship, is given and confirmed, and for execution to be had
accordingly. I perceive it now resteth in her Majesty’s hands; for my
own part I pray that God may so inspire her heart to take that course as
may be for her Majesty’s own safety; the which I trust her Majesty’s
grave wisdom will wisely foresee; which in my consent cannot be without
speedy execution.
“And thus wishing to your good Lordship as to myself, do bid you right
heartily farewell. Your Lordship’s assuredly,
“SHREWSBURY.
“Orton Longville, this 17th November, 1586.”
In spite of illness, Shrewsbury could not escape the wretched
responsibility of assisting at the tragedy of Fotheringay. There he was
forced, on February 8th, 1587, to stand upon the high stage, seven feet
square and five feet high, to receive Mary as she mounted it to her
death. “At the two upper corners were two stools set,” runs the
record,[82] “one for the Earl of Shrewsbury, another for the Earl of
Kent; directly between the said stools was placed a block one foot high,
covered with black, and before that stood a little cushioned stool for
the Queen to sit on while her apparel was taken off.... Being come into
the hall, she stayed and with a smiling countenance asked Shrewsbury why
none of her own servants were suffered to be present. He answered that
the Queen, his mistress, had so commanded. ‘Alas,’ quoth she, ‘far
meaner persons than myself have not been denied so small a favour, and I
hope the Queen’s Majesty will not deal so hardly with me.’ ‘Madam,’
quoth Shrewsbury, ‘it is so appointed to avoid two inconveniences: the
one that it is likely your people will shriek and make some fearful
noise in the time of your execution, and so both trouble you and us, or
else press with some disorder to get of your blood and keep it for a
relic, and minister offence that way.’ ‘My Lord,’ she answered, ‘I pray
you for my better quietness of mind let me have some of my servants
about me, and I will give you my word that they shall not offend in any
sort.’ Upon which promise two of her women and five of her men were sent
for, who coming into the hall and seeing the place of execution prepared
and their sovereign mistress expecting death, they began to cry out in
most woeful and pitiful sort; wherewith she held up her hand, willing
them for her sake to forbear and be silent, ‘for,’ quoth she, ‘I have
passed my word to these lords that you shall be quiet and not offend
them.’ And presently there appeared in them a wonderful show of
subjection and loyal obedience as to their natural prince, whom even at
the instant of death they honoured with all reverence and duty. For
though their breasts were seen to rise and swell as if their wounded
hearts would have burst in sunder, yet did they, to their double grief,
forbear their outward plaints to accomplish her pleasure.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
STATUE OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS AT HARDWICK HALL
Page 310
]
“As soon as she was upon the stage there came to her a heretic called
Doctor Fletcher, Dean of Peterborough, and told her how the Queen his
sovereign, moved with an unspeakable care of her soul, had sent him to
instruct and comfort her in the true words of God. At which she somewhat
turned her face towards him, saying, ‘Mr. Doctor, I will have nothing to
do with you nor your doctrine’; and forthwith kneeled down before the
block and began her meditations in most godly manner. Then the doctor
entered also into a form of new-fashioned prayers; but the better to
prevent the hearing of him, she raised her voice, and prayed so loud, as
he could not be understood. The Earl of Shrewsbury then spoke to her and
told her that he would pray with her and for her. ‘My Lord,’ quoth she,
‘if you will pray for me I thank you; but, in so doing, pray secretly by
yourself, for we will not pray together.’ Her meditations ended, she
arose up and kissed her two gentlewomen, and bowed her body towards her
men, and charged them to remember her to her sweet son, to whom she sent
her blessing, with promise to pray for him in heaven; and lastly to
salute her friends, and so took her last farewell of her poor servants.
“The executioners then began, after their rough and rude manner, to
disrobe her, and while they were so doing, she looked upon the noblemen,
and smilingly said, ‘Now truly, my Lords, I never had two such grooms
waiting on me before!’ Then, being ready for the block, one of her women
took forth a handkerchief of cambric—all wrought over with gold
needlework—and tied it about her face; which done, Fletcher willed her
to die in the true faith of Christ. Quoth she: ‘I believe firmly to be
saved by the passion and blood of Jesus Christ, and therein also I
believe according to the faith of the Ancient Catholic Church of Rome,
and therefore I shed my blood.’”
After this the Earl went home, evidently to Sheffield, with time enough
to brood once more upon his sickness and his troubles. In 1587 he was
certainly at Wingfield with his wife—at least for a brief space—for he
wrote to inform Burghley of the fact in obedience to her Majesty’s
request. But he was still thoroughly suspicious and distrustful of her
attitude. On one occasion, as it seems by the following letter from
Nicholas Kynnersley, my Lady had just left Wingfield when my Lord sent
his man Gilbert Dickenson to enquire her movements. The letter which
puts the magnificent pair in such a pitiful light is relieved by a
gracious allusion to little Arabella, left behind at Wingfield,
apparently in Kynnersley’s charge:—
“The night after John was come with my letter Elizabeth told me that
Gilbert Dickenson came to her in the [bakehouse] and asked if your Ho.
were here; and she answered ‘No.’ And he asked when you went away, and
she said ‘Yesterday.’ He asked when you would come again; she answered
‘Shortly as she thought.’ And late at night there came a boy from
Sheffield in a green coat, and talked with them in the stable, and said
he must go very early in the morning to Sheffield again. What the
meaning of these questions and the lackey coming so late and going so
early in the morning, I know not, except it be to bring me Lo. words of
your absence here, and so that he might come upon you sudden and find
you away. So I leave it to your Ho. wisdom to consider of it as you
think best; but I think good you were there. Mr. Knifton rode by to-day
to Sheffield as I was told, and called not as I ... told which I marvel
of. My La. Arbella at eight of the clock this night was merry, and eats
her meat well; but she went not to the school these six days; therefore
I would be glad of your La. coming, if there were no other matter but
that. So I beseech the Almighty preserve your La. in health, and send
you soon a good and comfortable end of all your great troubles and
griefs.
“Wingfield, this Tuesday, the 5th of November, at 8 of the clock at
night, 1588.
“Your Ho. most dutyful bound obedient servant,
“NICHOLAS KINNSLAY.
“To the right Ho. my singular good La. and Mistress the Countess of
Salop give this with speed.”[83]
While this “singular good lady” was still busy trying to induce the Earl
to live with her “in house,” he had sundry official business to
transact. In 1588 he was hard at work “routing recusants,” egging on the
Sheffield Commissioners appointed to that duty, and certifying himself
and the Queen of the military efficiency of the counties under his
lieutenancy—for the Spanish fleet hovered ever round the English coast.
More “seminary priests” did he rout, and used his energy in inducing
folk to go to the Established Church, offering his old “lame body” for
the Queen’s service, since “her quarrel should make him young again.”
Within a few months of his death he is mentioned in State records as
having successfully pounced upon a certain papistical Lady Foljambe and
committed her to polite imprisonment in the house of her relative.
This next letter from Gilbert and Mary Talbot to their mother shows
entire devotion to her at this difficult period, and is happily free
from the old tale-bearing and espionage of previous years:—
“Our bounden duty most humbly remembered. In like humbleness we render
your La. thanks for your letter; the last though not the least of your
infinite goodnesses towards us and ours. We are safely come hither to
Dunstable (we thank God) this Shrove Monday at night; and for that the
foul way is past, we think best to return your La. letter again from
hence.
“Such news as on the Queen’s highways we have met with, your La. shall
now understand. First that her Majesty (royally in person) was at the
parliament house the first day of this parliament; where Serjeant Snagge
was admitted for the Speaker of the lower house. My Lord of Derby is
Lord Steward during this session. That yesterday one told a man of mine
that as yet nothing of any moment hath been touched in the lower house,
neither any expectation that any great matters will be handled, but it
will shortly end. That a day or two before the parliament began, the
Lord Chancellor and the Lord Treasurer, with one or two more of the
privy council, and Mr. Attorney and Mr. Solicitor were with the Earl of
Arundel in the Tower; since which time there hath been no such speech of
his arraignment, as there was before. This is all the Queen’s highways
hath afforded us of news. Yet further we hear that all your
Ladyship’s ...[84] are very well. And thus in haste, most humbly
beseeching your La. blessing to us and all ours who pray evermore to the
most highest to grant unto your La. all contentment with long life, we
humbly cease, till our next letter, which shall not be long.
“Your La. most humble and obedient loving children,
“GILB. TALBOTT. MARY TALBOTT.
“We have desired your La. letter men to bring a letter to your La. from
Beskewood, where Mrs. Markham’s earnest entreaty made us to leave her
till the return thereof. I beseech the Almighty to send your La. my La.
Arball and the rest of your La.’s a most happy long life.
“To my Lady.”
The date of this is 1589. Shrewsbury by this time has lapsed into
retirement. He falls finally into old age. Elizabeth’s boasting promise
that she would give him still greater proof of her trust he would be
justified in receiving with a sardonic grunt. Of what use were her
favours to him now? She, well into her fifties, could dance, sing, ride,
pester her ladies, and flirt with her gentlemen. “The Queen,” writes a
friend of the Talbots in 1589, “is so well as I assure you: six or seven
gallyards in a morning, besides music and singing, is her ordinary
exercise.” This is just a year after the death of her adored Leicester,
immediately upon his return from his governorship of the Netherlands,
which he had so hated. The days of his departure for that task were the
days of Elizabeth’s disfavour. “My Lord,” he wrote pathetically to
Shrewsbury in 1585, “no man feeleth comfort but they that have cause of
griefe, and no men have so much neede of reliefe and comfort as those
that go in these doubtful services. I pray you, my Lord, help us to be
kept in comfort, for that we wyll hazard our lyfe for it.” Shrewsbury
and his Countess could echo that cry from the depths of their hearts,
for they too were of the company of those “that go in ... doubtful
services.”
Thus Leicester, the splendid lover, was dead—of a fever caught on his
way home to Kenilworth. Elizabeth still danced, still had zest and
appetite for masque and ceremonial. But Shrewsbury and Burghley, after
they had written their stately condolences to the Queen, corresponded
with one another about health matters. In 1589 the former sends a
pathetic old man’s gift to his friend of ointment for his joints and “a
small rug” to wrap about his legs “at times convenient,” while a flask
of fine “oyle of roses” was in these days more necessary than ale to the
once stalwart Earl Marshal of England.
From time to time Burghley sends to his friend the State news, with
suppressed allusions here and there to his illnesses and sorrows. Lady
Burghley was dead, and though her husband was able to write in his old
dignified fashion of affairs at Court, he avoids all its recreations.
“The Queen is at Barn Elms, but this night I will attend her at
Westminster, for I am no man meet for feastings,” runs a pathetic
postscript from him.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the painting by Zucchero at
Hardwick Hall_
_By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
QUEEN ELIZABETH
Page 316
]
To Elizabeth, Shrewsbury had played the part which she assigned to one
of her lovers, the Duke of Anjou, to whom she wrote apropos of his
persistency that she should never cease to love and esteem him as the
dog which, being often chastised, returns to its master: “comme le chien
qui estant souvent batu retourne a son maitre.” To her lovers she could
say such things with impunity, to her servants she only implied them.
Her beaten yet steadfast hound, Shrewsbury, true to his family’s emblem
of the faithful “Talbot dog,” lay chiefly in these days at his small
manor of Handsworth pouring out his soul in letters. There seem to be
none available from his wife during his last years, though she was to
the end truly anxious to be on happier terms with him, and made every
possible effort to achieve this. Once more Elizabeth used her good
offices with the honest intent to restore him to happiness. In what was
practically the last private letter she ever wrote him, despatched in
December, 1589, she addressed him as “her very good old man,” was
anxious for news of his health, particularly at this inclement season,
sympathised with his gout, and begged him to permit his wife sometimes
to have access to him according to her long-cherished wish. He seems to
have brooded heavily, as of yore—to a conscience so tender the brooding
nature is often a sorry twin brother—and to have discussed the matter
without any happy result. About this time he wrote to his intimate
friend the Bishop of Lichfield on the subject. The Bishop’s views are
set forth in his reply. His view of the married estate is a highly
morose one. Yet he begs the Earl, for decency’s sake, to patch up the
quarrel finally.
_The Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry to the Earl of Shrewsbury._
“Right honourable, my singular good Lord,
“I am bold according to my promise, to put you in remembrance of some
matters already passed between us in talk. It is an old saying, and as
true as old, a thing well begun is half ended. It pleased your good
Lordship, at my late being with you, to confer with me about divers
points touching the good estate of this our shire, whereof yourself,
next under her Majesty, is the chief governor; and I hope, as you then
begun them in good time, so very shortly they will be brought to very
good perfection.... Thus much for those common affairs we had in
conference; now the chief and last matter that we talked of, and a
matter indeed both in conscience chiefly to be regarded of you, and in
duty still to be urged and called upon by me, was the good and godly
reconciliation of you together, I mean my Lordship and my Lady your
wife. I humbly thank your good Lordship you were content then to take my
motion in good part, and to account it for a good piece of mine office
and charge to travel in such cases, as indeed it is, and therefore, I
trust you will be as willing now to see me write as you were then to
hear me speak in that matter; and the more, because I speak and write as
well of mere love and goodwill to yourself, as for any respect also of
discharging my duty unto God; and yet, also, you must think chiefly and
principally that I speak and write to discharge my duty to God, and must
take all that I do to proceed, not as from a common friend and
hanger-on, but as from a special ghostly father, stirred up of God
purposely, as I hope, to do good unto you both by my ghostly advice. My
honourable good Lord, I cannot see but that it must needs rest as a
great clog to your conscience, if you consider the matter as it is, and
will weigh the case according to the rule of God’s word: I say I cannot
see but that it must needs rest and remain a great clog and burthen to
your conscience to live asunder from the Countess your wife, without her
own good liking and consent thereto; for, as I have told you heretofore,
it is the plain doctrine of Saint Paul that the one should not defraud
the other of due benevolence nor of mutual comfort and company, but with
the agreement of both parties, and that also but for a time, and only to
give yourselves to fasting and prayer. This is the doctrine of Saint
Paul, and this doctrine Christ Himself confirmed in the Gospel when He
forbiddeth all men to put away their wives unless for adultery, a thing
never suspected in my Lady your wife. I could bring forth many
authorities and examples both of the Holy Scriptures and other, profane
writers, to prove that such kind of separations have always been holden
unlawful and ungodly, not only among the people of God, but also among
the heathen themselves that never knew God; and I could likewise show
what fearful judgments of God have followed such unlawful separations,
and what great plagues have fallen upon not only the offenders
themselves, but also upon their houses and children, and all their
posterity after them; but I shall not need to use any such discourse to
your Lordship, because so wise, so grave, so well disposed as indeed you
are of yourself if other evil counsellors did not draw you to the
contrary; who also shall not want their part in the play, for, as the
proverb saith, so experience proveth the same to be true, _consilium
malum consultori pessimum_, evil counsel falleth out worst to the
counsel giver.
“But some will say in your Lordship’s behalf that the Countess is a
sharp and bitter shrew, and therefore like enough to shorten your life
if she should keep you company. Indeed, my good Lord, I have heard some
say so, but if shrewdness or sharpness may be a just cause of separation
between a man and wife, I think few men in England would keep their
wives long; for it is a common jest, yet true in some sense, that there
is but one shrew in all the world and every man hath her; and so every
man might be rid of his wife that would be rid of a shrew. My honourable
good Lord, I doubt not but your great wisdom and experience hath taught
you to bear some time with the woman as with the weaker vessel; and yet,
for the speeches I have had with her Ladyship in that behalf, I durst
pawn all my credit unto your Lordship (and, if need be, also bind myself
in any great bond), she will so bridle herself that way, beyond the
course of other women, that she will rather bear with your Lordship,
than look to be borne withal; and yet to be borne withal sometimes is
not amiss for the best and wisest and patientest of us all. But
peradventure some of your friends will object greater matter against
her; as that she hath sought to overthrow your whole house; but those
that say so I think are not your Lordship’s friends, but rather her
Ladyship’s enemies, and their speech carrieth no resemblance of truth;
for how can it be likely that she should seek or wish the overthrow of
you or your house, when not only, being your wife, your prosperity must
needs profit her very much, but also, having joined her house with your
house in marriage, your long life and honourable state must needs glad
her heart to the uttermost; if not for your own sake, yet for the issue
of both your bodies, whom she loveth, I dare say, as her own life, and
would not see by her goodwill to fall into any decay, either of honour
or any other good state of life or livings; although, also, I dare say
she wisheth all good unto you for your own sake, as well as theirs, or
else she would not be so desirous of your life and company as she is.
And therefore, I beseech your Lordship remove all such conceits far from
you as are beaten into your head by evil counsellors, and rather think
this unlawful separation to be a stain to your house, and a danger to
your life; for that God, indeed, is not well pleased with it, Who will
visit with death or sickness all that live not after His laws, as of
late yourself had some little touch or taste given you of it by those or
the nearest friends of those whom you most trusted about you. For my own
part, I wish your Lordship all good, even from my heart; both long life
and honourable state, with all increase of honour, and joy and comfort
in the Lord to your own heart’s desire; but yet both I and you, and all
of us that are God’s children, must think that such visitations are sent
us of God to call us home, and if we despise them when they are sent, He
will lay greater upon us. Thus I am bold, my good Lord, both in the fear
of God and in goodwill towards yourself, to discharge the duty of your
well-willing ghostly father, and if your Lordship accept it well, as I
hope you will, I beseech you let me understand it by a line or two, that
I may give God thanks for it; if not, I have done my part; the success I
leave to God; and rest yours, notwithstanding, in what I may, and so I
humbly take my leave of your good Lordship.
“From Eccleshall, the 12th of October, 1590.
“Your Lordship’s in all duty to command,
“W. COVEN. AND LICH.”
It is not necessary to lay stress on the sheer fatuity and unwisdom of
three-fourths of such a letter. But the gross injustice of it has never
been fully appreciated by historians. In the first place, Bess of
Hardwick was not a mere shrew—as has been amply set forth. She was a
woman of great capabilities, and superabundant driving power which,
insufficiently controlled, ended in a blindness to any point of view but
her own, and so caused her to utter under provocation, stress, and
disappointment hard and foolish things which the Earl could not forget.
The estrangement had certainly gone too far for peace. The time for such
things as a renewal of trust and love between the two was past. Within a
month or two—in the January of 1591—the Earl died. Gossip—wise after the
event—declared that with his last breath he groaned over the
possibilities of disaster which would descend upon his family through
his wife’s schemes for Arabella.
In the previous year the great Walsingham, worn out by stress of affairs
and labour, succumbed also—to his “tympany and carnosity.”
And, since the world and his wife must be amused, and the Queen needed
distraction from heavy cares of State, she went forth to be entertained
at a public fête a day after the death of her much-enduring “good old
man.”
To the last he could not forget the great slander. Even his tomb
witnesses, in his own words, to his virtue. He must have brooded
carefully over this epitaph and the memorial which bears it in Sheffield
Church. All allusion to his second wife is omitted, and in regard to the
scandal he urges the fact of his official presence at the execution of
Mary as the surest proof of the innocence of his relations with her. All
he asked of his posterity was that upon his death the date should be
added to the tomb. This they omitted to do.
CHAPTER XXI
HEIR AND DOWAGER
A family circle made up of ingredients so pugnacious could scarcely be
expected to act unanimously when it came to a question of the division
of property after the Earl’s death. Instantly the fragments in the
Talbot kaleidoscope rearranged themselves. It was my Lady who now fought
practically single-handed, and the new Earl, Gilbert, and her own child
Mary were against her. They fought, as usual, in letters, and confided
largely in their friends. Gilbert and Mary in one of their previous
letters had called upon the Almighty “speedily to grant your Ladyship
all contentment with long life.” When this new family feud began they
must have regretted that wish. Had they foreseen that they had to
encounter her strong will and keen business instinct for the space of
another seventeen years they might possibly have compromised matters
more quickly. The fact is Gilbert and Mary were innately pugnacious. It
is written in their faces as they look down from the walls of the great
picture-gallery of Hardwick. Neither face is unrefined, both are shrewd,
and Mary’s, at any rate, has, added to a touch of scorn, a certain
humorous sparkle. Neither, however, possesses the dignity of the
parents. Mary has not her mother’s good features and innately
aristocratic air. Gilbert lacks the breadth and steadiness expressed by
the Earl.
Gilbert had taken his place now as seventh Earl, received the usual
pompous letters of condolence from Lord Burghley and others, and was
duly admitted to the order of the Garter. His notions of earldom
expressed themselves chiefly in a gorgeous style of living which (in
Hunter’s opinion) “alone earned for him the title of the great and
glorious Earl of Shrewsbury,” irrespective of either intellectual or
official distinction. Naturally his wife with her “pomp and court-like
ways” was in full accord with him, and the renewal of the
“All-for-Money” family fray was inevitable. In addition to his strife
with the old Countess, he fought with Henry Talbot his younger brother,
with Lady Talbot the widow of his elder brother Francis, with his own
mother’s people the Manners family, with a prominent neighbour Sir
Richard Wortley of Wortley, and, as aforesaid, with the Stanhopes of
Nottinghamshire, to whom his wife despatched the violent message of
hatred quoted in a previous chapter. It stands to reason also that he
could not live at peace with his tenantry. As an ordinary man he does
not seem to have been mentally vigorous enough, as a man of the world
not sufficiently master of his hates and prejudices to come to an
understanding with them. It was, after all, the most difficult task of
his Lordship, and one for which his Court and town experiences had not
fitted him in the least. Most pitiful of all was his deadly feud with
his brother Edward. As Gilbert’s letters show, this arose entirely out
of the dissensions over property, though Edward and Henry, appointed as
executors of their father’s will, were wise enough to decline the task
and allow it to devolve on to the experienced shoulders of their
splendid stepmother.
This feud between Edward and Gilbert flourished wickedly. There is no
need to bore the reader with the insertion of the pages of truculent
correspondence which ensued. Gilbert eventually challenged the other to
a duel, and Edward firmly declined to fight his own flesh and blood.
From the ancient chivalric standpoint this may look like a lack of
virility. But to fight would have been the height of unwisdom for two
young, well-born men, fathers of families, and in circumstances that
would have been wholly preposterous except for their absurd expenditure.
It is this very refusal of Edward Talbot which causes one to discount
the current story—set forth with the support of arguments,
probabilities, and reasons in the Harleian MSS.—to the intent that
Edward conspired, in Medici fashion, with Gilbert’s own physician, Dr.
Wood, against Gilbert’s life, the medium chosen for the murder being a
subtly poisoned pair of perfumed gloves.
Thus it was as well for the whole family that my Lady came to the fore
again and wrestled with Gilbert, for he had flattery enough from some of
his friends to feed his vanity in his new position. The garrulous
Richard Topcliffe covered several pages in a letter expressing gladness
that it had pleased God to set the heir in the seat of his noble
ancestors. “At such an alteration of a house as now hath chanced by your
father’s death, there is ever great expecting towards the rising of the
sun.” It is an absurd, toadying letter, of which the only sincere part
is the writer’s definition of it at the close as “my tedious dream.” Of
such letters Gilbert received his share, like his father, and was
flooded with all sorts of other correspondence—official, semi-official,
and private. He assumes his father’s office in the lieutenancy of three
counties, issues his orders for armament. He meant excellently well no
doubt, but was not in the worldly sense a success. He could never, like
his father, have borne the Queen’s heavy burdens from sheer devotion to
a patriotic ideal and from horror of incurring her disfavour. His
disputes with his tenantry so overpowered him that he was forced to
refer the matter to the Queen. Her opinion was against him and on the
side of the tenants. Meanwhile the Stanhope quarrel became a regular
county affair, and, as Hunter puts it, “was pursued by both parties with
such precipitation and violence that it was rendered impossible for the
neighbouring gentry to preserve neutrality.” It is not surprising that
five years after his father’s death he was thoroughly out of favour. Yet
Elizabeth could be very kind to his children. One of her gentleman
ushers, his friend, Richard Brakenbury, writing from Court, sent him in
a letter to Rufford a pretty picture of the way she fondled his little
girl:—
“If I should write how much her Majesty this day did make of the little
lady your daughter, with often kissing (which her Majesty seldom useth
to any) and then amending her dressing with pins, and still carrying her
with her Majesty in her own barge, and so into the Privy Council
lodgings, and so homeward from the running, you would scarce believe me.
Her Majesty said (as true it is) that she is very like my Lady her
grandmother. She behaved herself with such modesty as I pray God she may
possess at twenty years old.”
Indirectly the magnificent Dowager could only be gratified by such
favours. Her main energies now were given to “pushing” Arabella in the
great world. Incidentally also it was her affair to go on building,
building, that she might live and flourish. Constructive imagination of
a certain kind she undoubtedly had. She loved grandeur, comfort, and
domestic beauty, and could conceive and plan their achievement. She was
led to her building by her sense of importance, coupled with the
praiseworthy desire to establish her offspring in a fine house, and so
increase their social advantages. That was the beginning, and her
practical imagination aided her. But rumour says that it is not by the
golden light of imagination that she was helped to expand and continue
her enterprises, but by the glare of morbid superstition. Some
soothsayer she met—history does not say at what period of her life—told
her that so long as she went on building she would never die. All
hard-headed as she was she has not escaped the imputation of credence in
fortune-telling, for she went on building to the end. Moreover, there is
the more excuse for her superstition, since, as we know, crystal-gazers
and conjurers with their charmed plates of gold, their phials and
symbols, came and went in the country and about the English and foreign
courts. It is more than possible that such persons, though included in
Shrewsbury’s roll of “practicers” and suspects, occasionally found their
way into my Lady’s parlour in Chatsworth or Hardwick. There is behind
this old soothsayer’s story a deeper meaning. She built that she might
exist, but in her building she truly lived, for in her strongly
constructive instinct all her higher faculties, in their finest, their
Aristotelian sense, found their outlet, while her heart realised a
certain happiness.
By this time she was just seventy, and still in full vigour, though
tolerably scarred and embittered in heart and soul. Through Arabella and
her second son William, both of whom she really seems to have adored,
she had still a great hold upon life. It was her main business now to
fight old age, face her fourth widowhood resolutely, live in comfort,
and provide for those she loved or who were in any sense dependent on
her.
Arabella cannot, of course, have had a particularly joyous or smooth
childhood under the sway of that keen, tempestuous temperament, but at
any rate she imbibed and inherited an enormous amount of vitality. She
was too young to be overcast by the pitiful, short-lived love story of
her parents, and her grandmother brought her up jealously and in an
atmosphere of state which helped to single her out from the other
grandchildren of the family and from the family circle. A letter from
the Countess, written when Arabella was but a baby, may be included
here:—
“_The Countess of Shrewsbury to Lord Burghley, respecting the
assignment of an Income to the Lady Arabella._ A.D. 1582.[85]
“After my very hearty commendations to your good Lo. where it pleased
the Queen’s Majesty my most gracious Sovereign, upon my humble suit to
grant unto my late daughter Lennox four hundred pounds, and to that her
dear and only daughter Arbella two hundred pounds yearly for their
better maintenance, assigned out of part of the land of her inheritance:
whereof the four hundred pounds is now at her Majesty’s disposition by
the death of my daughter Lennox, whom it pleased God (I doubt not in
mercy for her good, but to my no small grief, in her best time) to take
out of this world, whom I cannot yet remember but with a sorrowful
troubled mind. I am now, my good L., to be an humble suitor to the
Queen’s Majesty that it may please her to confirm that grant of the
whole six hundred pounds yearly for the education of my dearest jewel
Arbella, wherein I assuredly trust to her Majesty’s most gracious
goodness, who never denied me any suit, but by her most bountiful and
gracious favours every way hath so much bound me as I can never think
myself able to discharge my duty in all faithful service to her Majesty.
I wish not to leave after I shall willingly fail in any part thereof to
the best of my power. And as I know your L. hath special care for the
ordering of her Majesty’s revenues and of her estate every way, so trust
I you will consider of the poor infant’s case, who under her Majesty is
to appeal only unto your Lo. for succour in all her distresses; who, I
trust, cannot dislike of this my suit on her behalf, considering the
charges incident to her bringing up. For although she were ever where
her mother was during her life, yet can I not now like she should be
here nor in any place else where I may not sometimes see her and daily
hear of her, and therefore charged with keeping house where she must be
with such as is fit for her standing, of whom I have special care, not
only such as a natural mother hath of her best beloved child, but much
more greater in respect how she is in blood to her Majesty: albeit one
of the poorest as depending wholly on her Majesty’s gracious bounty and
goodness, and being now upon seven years, and very apt to learn, and
able to conceive what shall be taught her. The charge will so increase
as I doubt not her Majesty will well conceive the six hundred pounds
yearly to be little enough, which as your Lo. knoweth is but so much in
money, for that the lands be in lease, and no further commodity to be
looked for during these few years of the child’s minority. All which I
trust your L. will consider and say to her Majesty what you think
thereof; and so most heartily wish your L. well to do.
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the painting at
Hardwick Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
ARABELLA STUART
Page 330
]
“Sheffield this 6th day of May.
“Your L. most assured loving friend,
“E. SHREWSBURY.
“To the right honourable and my very good Lord the Lord Burghley, L.
Treasurer of England.”
To this Arabella, aged seven, adds her pretty French postscript:—
“Je prieray Dieu Monsr. vous donner en parfaicte en entiere santé, tout
heureux et bon succes, et seray tousjours preste a vous faire tout
honneur et service.
“ARBELLA STEWARD.”
The new Hardwick, the present hall, was not actually finished till seven
years after the Earl’s death, and there and at the older house the
Dowager and the semi-royal grandchild spent many years together. The
former was, as has been instanced, busy betimes with making matches for
the child. After the disappointment about Lord Leicester’s little son,
the old ambitious spirit flares up gloriously in the proposal that
Arabella, who was just ten years old, should marry James of Scotland.
She was suggested by Walsingham, presumably at the Queen’s desire, as an
alternative bride to a Danish princess. James was not inclined to make
up his mind at the moment, and in the following year another bridegroom
was suggested—Rainutio, son of the Duke of Parma. Since the Duke was
suspected of laying claim to the English throne, these negotiations were
carried on secretly, not so secretly, however, that they escaped the
knowledge of Burghley. State papers show that he was well aware that a
servant of Sir Edward Stafford was employed “from beyond the sea, to
practise with” Arabella about this marriage. “He was sent once before
for her picture, and has been thrice to England this year,” is the
conclusion of the secret information sent to Court. It is likely that
the picture named might be a copy of one of the two hanging now in the
great gallery at Hardwick Hall. Both are deeply interesting, and one, in
which she is shown as a little, dignified, grandly dressed child of two
holding a gay stiff doll, is very moving. The other, of which the
original seems to be at Welbeck, shows her “in her hair,” in the old
phrase. Part of her hair is drawn over a puff above her forehead and
adorned with a drop jewel, and the rest hangs down fine and straight
like a soft veil behind her shoulders. Her dress is white, with sleeves
either of ermine or white velvet with black spots; her gold fan has a
dull red cord, and a girdle of jewels is about her waist. On either side
of her hangs a portrait of James VI as a little boy. In one he carries a
hawk—symbol of the passion for sport which seems to have been, save for
his obstinacy, his only strong point; in the other he is in correct
fashionable dress and plumed cap, and wears a tiny sword—symbol of the
courage he never possessed, and forerunner of the full-grown weapon
which he could carry with swagger, but dared not use on his mother’s
behalf. Even as his little presence hedges Arabella in this gallery on
both sides, so in life his position dominated hers most cruelly in years
to come.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, from the picture at Hardwick
Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
ARABELLA STUART
Page 332
]
The proposed marriage alluded to, which set abroad all manner of fears
of conspiracy in connection with Arabella in 1592, caused Lord Burghley
to write warnings to the Countess. All the old caution and authority
show in her reply:—
_The Countess of Shrewsbury to Lord Burghley: representing her care of
the Lady Arabella._[86]
“My honourable good Lord,—I received your Lordship’s letter on Wednesday
towards night, being the 20th of this September, by a servant of Mr.
John Talbott, of Ireland. My good Lord, I was at the first much troubled
to think that so wicked and mischievous practices should be devised to
entrap my poor Arbell and me, but I put my trust in the Almighty, and
will use such diligent care as I doubt not but to prevent whatsoever
shall be attempted by any wicked persons against the poor child. I am
most bound to her Majesty that it pleased her to appoint your Lordship
to give me knowledge of this wicked practice, and I humbly thank your
Lordship for advertising it: if any such like hereinafter be discovered
I pray your Lordship I may be forewarned. I will not have any unknown or
suspected person to come to my house. Upon the least suspicion that may
happen here, anyway, I shall give advertisement to your Lordship. I have
little resort to me: my house is furnished with sufficient company:
Arbell walks not late, at such time as she shall take the air, it shall
be near the house, and well attended on: she goeth not to anybody’s
house at all: I see her almost every hour in the day: she lieth in my
bedchamber. If I can be more precise than I have been I will be. I am
bound in nature to be careful for Arbell: I find her loving and dutiful
to me, yet her own good and safety is not dearer to me, nor more by me
regarded than to accomplish her Majesty’s pleasure, and that which I
think may be for her service. I would rather wish many deaths than to
see this or any such like wicked attempt to prevail.
“About a year since, there was one Harrison, a seminary, that lay at his
brother’s house about a mile from Hardwick, whom I thought then to have
caused to be apprehended, and to have sent him up; but found he had
licence for a time. Notwithstanding, the seminary, soon after, went from
his brother’s, finding how much I was discontented with his lying so
near me. Since my coming now into the country, I had some intelligence
that the same seminary was come again to his brother’s house: my son
William Cavendish went thither of a sudden to make search for him, but
could not find him. I write this much to your Lordship that if any such
traitorous and naughty persons (through her Majesty’s clemency) be
suffered to go abroad, that they may not harbour near my houses
Wingfield, Hardwick, or Chatsworth in Derbyshire: they are the most
likely instruments to put a bad matter in execution.
“One Morley, who hath attended on Arbell, and read to her for the space
of three years and a half, showed to be much discontented since my
return into the country, in saying he had lived in hope to have some
annuity granted him by Arbell out of her lands during his life, or some
lease of grounds to the value of forty pounds a year, alleging that he
was so much damaged by leaving the University, and now saw that if she
were willing, yet not of ability, to make him any such assurance. I
understanding by divers that Morley was so much discontented, and withal
of late having some cause to be doubtful of his forwardness in religion
(though I cannot charge him with papistry), took occasion to part with
him. After he was gone from my house, and all his stuff carried from
hence, the next day he returned again, very importunate to serve without
standing upon any recompense, which made me more suspicious, and the
more willing to part with him. I have no other in my house who will
supply Morley’s place very well for the time. I will have those that
shall be sufficient in learning, honest, and well disposed so near as I
can.
“I am forced to use the hand of my son William Cavendish, not being able
to write so much myself for fear of bringing great pain to my head. He
only is privy to your Lordship’s letter, and neither Arbell nor any
other living, nor shall be.
“I beseech your Lordship I may be directed from you as occasion shall
fall out. To the uttermost of my understanding, I have and will be
careful. I beseech the Almighty to send your Lordship a long and happy
life, and so I will commit your Lordship to His protection. From my
house at Hardwick the 21st of September, 1592.
“Your Lordship’s as I am bound,
“E. SHREWSBURY.”
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
THE PICTURE GALLERY FROM THE NORTH, HARDWICK HALL
Page 336
]
CHAPTER XXII
ARABELLA DANCES INTO COURT
The death of Mary Queen of Scots was the signal for the Countess to
insure that Arabella should be as near the Court as possible. She was
kept hard at her lessons, but, though the various members of the family
were at variance over property, the Dowager was far too wise to spoil
the girl’s prospects by forbidding her intercourse with her “Court-like”
aunt, Gilbert’s Mary. As regards the young Shrewsbury pair she was, of
course, at once a possible stumbling-block and a possible stepping-stone
to their advantage. Her parentage gave her social precedence, and though
her present worldly status was not very great, she might at any time, by
an important marriage, assume a position far above them and be regarded
as a source of Court favours. In fact, both sides of the complicated
family co-operated to help her on in the world.
Already at the age of thirteen she was introduced to the Court. Her
young uncle, Sir Charles Cavendish, writes of it with great
appreciation: “My Lady Arbell, has been once to Court. Her Majesty spoke
twice to her ... she dined in the presence, but my Lord Treasurer had
her to supper; and at dinner, I dining with her, and sitting over
against him, he asked me whether I came with my niece. I said I came
with her: then he spake openly, and directed his speech to Sir Walter
Rawley, greatly in her recommendation, as that she had the French, the
Italian, played of instruments, dances, and writ very fair; wished she
were fifteen years old, and with that rounded Mr. Rawley in the ear, who
answered it would be a happy thing.... My Lady Arbelle and the rest are
very well, and it is wonderful how she profiteth in her book, and
believe she will dance with exceeding good grace, and can behave herself
with great proportion to everyone in their degree.”[87]
Old Lady Shrewsbury worked hard for Arabella and played for Elizabeth’s
favour now more than ever, with a keen hope of seeing the girl named as
her Majesty’s successor. James of Scotland was, of course, playing a
similar game, and while he pressed the Queen in regard to the
succession, up to the point of making her angry, he kept on good terms
with Arabella, to whom he wrote now and then an affectionate, cousinly
letter. His tactics were practical, for he now proposed as her
bridegroom Esmé Stuart, a piece of diplomacy on which, under the
magnificent guise of her restoration to her own title of Lennox, he must
have prided himself enormously. This offer was declined; a shortsighted
refusal, as it proved both in the future and in the present, for matters
in regard to Elizabeth’s favour did not prosper. Old age and bitterness
made her resentful and increased her hydra-headed suspicion. It was
always so easy for any ill-minded person to raise a papistical scare and
accuse Arabella—whose aunt, the young Countess, was notoriously in
favour of the proscribed priesthood—as being the heart and soul of every
such plot.
Yet the Dowager Countess still laboured on. We find Arabella sending the
Queen a “rare New Year gift,” to which her Majesty’s return was
acknowledged by a confidential correspondent as a very poor one. The
Queen, however, in discussion with the writer announced her intention to
be kind and promised to be “very careful of Arabella.” Again this was a
case of “Words, words!”
It was in 1592 that Arabella refused Esmé Stuart. In 1596 no less a
person than the French King discussed her as a possible bride for the
Dauphin. Meanwhile she, who was in no sense an _intrigante_, and seems
to have inherited all the simplicity of her mother, with the energy and
the _joie de vivre_ of her grandmother, was in no way concerned in the
wretched schemes attributed to her by wild gossip. She was more desirous
of love and companionship than of place and glory, and of a decent
competence than the splendour of courts. In her twenty-eighth year
(1603) she attempted to make her own choice. It was a curious one as
regards discrepancy in age. She sought to betroth herself to a boy
fifteen years old, young William Seymour. This was no less than the
grandson of that same unhappy Earl Hertford who had wedded poor Lady
Catherine Grey. The whole affair would be puzzling if it were not for
the fact that Arabella’s thoughts were turned in this direction by the
fact that he, like herself, was partly of royal blood. At the same time,
he was not hampered by the possession of a crown, and with all the
attendant difficulties and dangers of a royal marriage. The matter did
not go very far, for the bare suggestion of such a thing aroused the
most absurd excitement in the Queen’s mind. Arabella was at once
arrested.
Elizabeth, it will be remembered, was already dying by inches in the
cold spring of 1603. The accusation that Arabella’s action killed her
has no ground whatsoever; but it was an unfortunate moment to incur
royal displeasure. Naturally when the question of succession came up
finally and Elizabeth was asked if she could contemplate young William
Seymour’s father, Lord Beauchamp, as her heir, the old irritation
against the Hertford marriage flared up in that memorable dying retort
of hers: “I will have no rascal’s son in my place.”
Bitterly indeed must Bess Shrewsbury have raved at Hardwick against the
unjust fate which caused the fortunes of her “juwell” to decline so
miserably at this critical moment. The succession of James was thereby
assured, and when it became fact was a bitter pill for Talbot and
Cavendish to swallow. By this time the good Burghley was dead, and his
son, Sir Robert Cecil, undertook to mediate for Arabella with James. She
was for the moment removed to polite imprisonment in the country, whence
she wrote breezy and innocent letters to her family, notably to her
step-uncle, Edward Talbot, in which she disclaims her guilt in a
somewhat veiled and fantastic manner. “Noble gentleman,” runs one
sentence, “I am as unjustly accused of contriving a comedy as you in my
conscience a tragedy.”
While she awaited the King’s pleasure James was making his first royal
progress, and Gilbert Shrewsbury had the honour of entertaining him
magnificently at Worksop Manor, which must have made the Dowager
fearfully jealous. Cecil set to work as soon as possible on his
protégée’s behalf, and, seeing that she presented no problem of
political danger, eventually procured her liberty—that is, with certain
reservations. He undertook that she should reside with the Marchioness
of Northampton at Sheen.
[Illustration:
_From an engraving by Walker, after a drawing by Malton_
WELBECK ABBEY
Page 340
]
All this while the Countess Dowager kept well in the background.
Arabella, she knew, was of an age to manage her own affairs, and could
deal shrewdly and promptly with Cecil in regard to her maintenance by
the King in her right as one of royal blood. She managed this difficult
situation so well that she was presently taken into the bosom of the
Court. This happy event was gracefully achieved thus. The arrival in
England of the Queen-Consort some months after her husband was the cause
for further display on the part of both Cavendishes and Talbots. Bess
Shrewsbury planned a great reception for Anne of Denmark at Chatsworth,
and tendered the invitation through Arabella. It was declined, and it
has been suggested that the royal motive for this was the unhappy
association of the great hostess with the mother of James. Though the
mere fact of the Countess’s former position of assistant-gaoler may not
have sufficed, memories of strife and “scandilation” would certainly
stick in the memory of those who surrounded James, and their advice
could scarcely favour the invitation. Arabella was, however, authorised
to go to Welbeck to assist her uncle, Sir Charles Cavendish, to receive
Anne. At the same time she was to be introduced to the young Princess,
to whom she was appointed State governess. Earl Gilbert’s house was once
more honoured, and his wife and he incited to impoverish themselves anew
for their second magnificent royal entertainment in the year of the
accession.
At Welbeck Sir Charles Cavendish vied with his half-brother and
contrived an elaborate sylvan pageant in which Arabella figured as
Diana. Poor Diana! At twenty-seven she could personate with zest the
chaste, invincible, tireless goddess. Could she have foreseen that rôle
assigned to her for life by the criminal selfishness of James, she would
have forsworn all courts in that hour, and preferred the groves in which
she and William Seymour would willingly have walked in years to come,
hand in hand, poor and happy.
So—as in Elizabeth’s day—the girl, spirited, cultured, good, and
warm-hearted, danced herself into the heart of Queen Anne, and above all
into that of the young Elizabeth, whom she charmed instantly. Away went
Arabella now to Court in the new Queen’s train, and thenceforward
appeared constantly in the company of her clever, tart, intriguing
Shrewsbury aunt. Her uncle Gilbert kept a steady eye on her. For she was
lively, brilliant; not beautiful, but of great magnetic attraction.
Withal, she was quick of tongue, and he feared lest she should slip into
indiscretion of speech and give advantage to back-biters at Court.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
THE DINING-ROOM, HARDWICK HALL
Page 342
]
She escaped at least one danger this autumn—infection from the plague.
In spite of all her duties and dangers she was in close touch with her
relatives. Naturally there were difficult moments. Now she displeases
her tremendous grandmother, and now her pugnacious aunt. Again and again
she tries to act as go-between, and at odd times secures favours for one
or the other—a barony for William Cavendish, a bride for his son. At
intervals she visited her grandmother, but generally with a view to
making peace between Gilbert and the hostess of Hardwick. To him she
wrote in a very touching manner after a visit to the old lady: “I found
so good hope of my grandmother’s good inclination to a good and
reasonable reconciliation betwixt herself and her divided family that I
could not forbear to impart to your Lordship with all speed. Therefore I
beseech you, put on such a Christian and honourable mind as becometh you
to bear to a lady so near to you and yours as my grandmother is. And
think you cannot devise to do me greater honour and contentment than to
let me be the only mediator, moderator, and peacemaker betwixt you and
her. You know I have cause only to be partial on your side, so many
kindnesses and favours I have received from you, and so many
unkindnesses and disgraces have I received from the other party. Yet
will I not be restrained from chiding you (as great a lord as you are)
if I find you either not willing to be asken to this good notion or to
proceed in it as I shall think reasonably.... If I be not sufficient for
this treaty never think me such as can add strength and honour to your
family.”
Such matters were hard for both sides, and one’s sympathy inclines to
the ageing, fighting, building Dowager. “Your unkindness sticks sore in
her teeth,” wrote one of Gilbert’s informants. To Gilbert, however, she
managed to maintain a proud front, and busied herself about a fresh
building enterprise.
This project was partly the outcome of her extraordinary pugnacity. Her
neighbour, Sir Francis Leake, had designed and was building in the
county a fine house, Sutton, which rivalled Hardwick in magnificence.
Invidious comparisons were evidently drawn, and she declared scornfully
that she would build as good a house “for owls” as he for men. The
mansion she built was therefore called Owlcotes, and was not far from
Hardwick.
The first year of Arabella’s royal post was certainly one fraught with
peril, for it closed with the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, accused, as
all will remember, of plotting to dethrone James in favour of Arabella.
Even Henry Cavendish was suspected of complicity. It is not necessary
here to go into the details which proved Arabella’s innocence. It was
quickly proved and her Court life went on as before, gaily, with
masques, drawing-rooms, ballets, and even the nursery games in which it
pleased the ladies of the Danish Anne to indulge.
At the close of her second year at Court (1605) another proposal, this
time from the King of Poland, reached Arabella and was refused. She does
not yet seem to have tired of the frivolous and exhausting life, though
her letters—whimsical, affectionate, quaintly sententious, often highly
graphic—are shortened at times, and, though loyal, she complains roundly
of “this everlasting hunting.” For in their passion for sport King and
Queen dragged their courtiers hither and thither, and the latter were
often miserably housed and served during these expeditions.
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the painting at
Hardwick Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire_
JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND
Page 344
]
The Dowager at Hardwick was well informed of Court affairs, for she paid
a handsome retaining fee to no less a person than the Dean of the Chapel
Royal in order that he should keep her well posted. In this year (1605)
she was taken seriously ill and summoned Arabella. The girl was
evidently afraid of her, for she took precautions to insure welcome in
the shape of a letter from the King himself, desiring the Countess to
receive her granddaughter with kindness and bounty. This incensed the
old lady a good deal. Though she was now more or less like a sleeping
dragon guarding her hoard, as in the Norse legend, she could still rouse
herself to snarl in a letter. She did not write to the King direct, but
devised an epistle to the Dean, in which she emphatically declared her
astonishment at the royal message. This he was ordered to show to the
King. “It was very strange to her,” she said, “that my Lady Arabella
should come to her with a recommendation as either doubting of her
entertainment or desiring to come to her from whom she had desired so
earnestly to come away. That for her part she thought she had
sufficiently expressed her good meaning and kindness to her that had
purchased her seven hundred pounds by year land of inheritance, and
given her as much money as would buy a hundred pound by year more. And
though for her part she had done very well for her according to her poor
ability, yet she should always be welcome to her, though she had divers
grandchildren that stood more in need than she, and much the more
welcome in respect of the King’s recommendation; she had bestowed on
Arabella a cup of gold worth a hundred pound, and three hundred pound in
money which deserved thankfulness very well, considering her poor
ability.”
James could afford to laugh at such a communication, which fortunately
did not prejudice Arabella in his eyes. Her return to Court was not long
delayed, for her grandmother recovered, and the Court lady was once more
free to stand godmother to royal babies, play, hunt, and dance, and
suffer perpetual financial embarrassment owing to the ridiculous
expenditure to which courtiers of both sexes were put in making royal
gifts and providing the costly, fantastic costumes which the successive
masques entailed.
It was during the production of the famous “Masque of Beauty,” written
for _Twelfth Night_, and produced in honour of the visit of the King of
Denmark, that Bess Shrewsbury sank into her last illness. For this
masque Arabella, it is recorded, appeared in jewels and robes worth more
than £100,000. From such scenes of colour and luxuriance she was called
to that stately, lonely deathbed at Hardwick.
Of the Countess’s danger her relatives were fully aware, and the various
family partisans took good care to be on the look-out for any hostile
movements with regard to property from their opponents. The following
extract from one of Gilbert’s letters to Henry Cavendish gives an ugly
little picture of the situation. The date is January 4th, 1607:—
“When I was at Hardwick she did eat very little, and not able to walk
the length of the chamber betwixt two, but grew so ill at it as you
might plainly discern it. On New Year’s Eve, when my wife sent her New
Year’s gift, the messenger told us she looked pretty well and spoke
heartily; but my Lady wrote that she was worse than when we last saw
her, and Mrs. Digby sent a secret message that her Ladyship was so ill
that she could not be from her day nor night. I heard that direction is
given to some at Wortley to be in readiness to drive away all the sheep
and cattle at Ewden instantly upon her Ladyship’s death.
“These being the reasons that move me thus to advise you, consider how
like it is that when she is thought to be in danger your good brother
will think it time to work with you to that effect, and—God forgive me
if I judge amiss—I verily think that, till of late, he hath been in some
hope to have seen your end before hers, by reason of your sickliness and
discontentment of mind. To conclude, I wish and advise you to take no
hold of any offer that shall be made unto you, etc.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
TOMB OF ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY
Page 346
]
“You have not been forgot to my Lady, neither for yourself nor for
Chatsworth, but we have forborne to write you thereof, knowing that one
of your brother’s principallest means to keep us all so divided one from
another, etc.”
“Your good brother” is certainly William Cavendish, of whom the whole
family were wildly jealous, and who planned to seize certain cattle
belonging to the Countess, in advance of his brothers, so soon as she
had drawn her last breath.
Very few details are extant of the death of the great Bess. Grateful
pensioners she had, and certainly some devoted servants. Her intimate
friends were few, and nearly all her contemporaries predeceased her. We
come across nothing more interesting as a bare record of her death than
the following entry in Simpson’s _National Records of Derby_ for 1607:—
“The old Countess of Shrewsbury died about Candlemas this year, whose
funeral was about Holy Thursday. A great frost this year. The witches of
Bakewell hanged.”
So into limbo this contemptuous entry dismisses a great lady. Pouf! Out
with the candles! The frost is over; some women have been hung at
Bakewell; an old lady is dead.
To the end she never ceased her doughty and defiant game with stone,
wood, and mortar. While her “home for owls” was in erection there came
that same “great frost” named in the old Derby chronicle. Naturally the
mortar at “Owlcotes” froze. The masons could do nothing. Instantly she
issued orders that it was to be thawed with boiling water. This was
unavailing, and the order came to use ale also, in the hope that the
thicker fluid might prevent crystallisation. About this there is the
true Elizabethan touch. But even ale, poured out like water, failed, and
my Lady went out—with the holy candles.
How Arabella—faithful, loyal, vital, intense—danced, toiled, and
loved—to her doom; how energetic, ambitious Mary Shrewsbury, like her
mother before her, enjoyed imprisonment in the Tower because of her
match-making intrigues; how William Cavendish became not only an earl,
but one of the first colonists in Virginia and Bermuda; how Henry
Cavendish died of his “sickliness and discontentment of mind”; how Henry
Talbot, also, passed away before he could share the splendour or the
thriftlessness of his race; how Charles Cavendish made Bolsover Castle a
fit guesthouse for the King, for whom his son prepared a famous masque
and banquet; how Gilbert Shrewsbury, his presence-chamber crowded with
spongers and creditors, pawned his plate and jewels, and how his younger
brother and chief enemy, Edward Talbot, became eighth Earl in his stead,
belong to an epoch which escapes the limit of this survey.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
ENTRANCE HALL, HARDWICK HALL
Page 348
]
CHAPTER XXIII
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.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
BOLSOVER CASTLE
Page 352
]
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.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
PICTURE GALLERY, HARDWICK HALL
(Showing the fireplace and a portrait of Mary Queen of Scots)
Page 354
]
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.
[Illustration:
_From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the picture by P.
Oudry
at Hardwick Hall, by permission of his Grace the Duke of
Devonshire_
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS
Page 356
]
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:—
[Illustration]
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:—
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS BED, NOW AT HARDWICK HALL
Page 358
]
“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.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
THE PRESENCE-CHAMBER, HARDWICK HALL
Page 360
]
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.
[Illustration:
_Photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby_
HARDWICK HALL FROM THE WEST GARDEN
Page 362
]
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
A
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
B
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
C
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
D
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
E
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
F
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
G
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
H
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
J
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
K
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
L
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
M
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
N
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
O
Ogle, Cuthbert Lord, 45
Ogle, Jane. _See_ Shrewsbury
Osborne, Peter, 24
Oseley, Solicitor-General, 34
Owlcotes, 343, 351
Oxford, Earl of, 101, 105, 273
P
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
R
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
S
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
T
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._
W
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
Z
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.
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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}.
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