Like Knole and Ham House, the interior is untouched, and every room is in the same condition since the time of its erection. Some of the wonderful old furniture came from the older Chatsworth House, including, as before stated, the bedroom furniture of Mary Queen of Scots. Nowhere in England may be seen finer tapestries than at Hardwick; they give a wealth of colour to the interior, and in the Presence-chamber the parget-work in high relief is also richly coloured. Here is Queen Elizabeth's State chair overhung by a canopy, and the Royal arms and supporters are depicted on the pargeting. The tapestries lining the walls of the grand stone staircase are superb, and the silk needlework tapestry in some of the smaller rooms a feast of colour. Everywhere are the grandest old cushioned chairs and settees, and inlaid cabinets and tables. The picture-gallery extends the entire length of the house, and abounds in historical portraits, including Bess of Hardwick dressed in black, perhaps for one of her many husbands, with a black head-dress, large ruff, and chain of pearls. Here also is a full-length portrait of her rival, the luckless queen, very sad and very pale, painted, during her nineteen years of captivity, at Sheffield in 1678, and a portrait of her little son James at the age of eight,—a picture sent to comfort the poor mother in her seclusion. The future king's cold indifference to his mother's fate was not the least unpleasant trait of his selfish character. In a discourse between Sir John Harrington and the monarch, the latter did his best to avoid any reference to the poor queen's fate; but he might have saved himself the trouble, for he was more affected by the superstitious omens preceding her execution. His Highness, he says, "told me her death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen, being, as he said, spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air." From James we may turn to little Lady Arabella Stuart in a white gown, nursing a doll in still more antiquated costume, in blissful ignorance of her unhappy future. She was the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick, and was born at Chatsworth close upon the time when the Queen of Scots was there. Looking at these two portraits of this baby and the boy, it is difficult to imagine that the latter should have sent his younger cousin to linger away her life and lose her reason in the Tower from the fact that she had the misfortune to be born a Stuart.
Horace Walpole in speaking of this room says: "Here and in all the great mansions of that age is a gallery remarkable only for its extent." But it is remarkable for its two huge fireplaces of black marble and alabaster, for its fine moulded plaster ceiling, for its fifteenth-century tapestry, and quaint Elizabethan easy-chairs. The great hall is a typical one of the period, with open screen and balustraded gallery, a flat ceiling, big open fireplace, and walls embellished with antlers and ancient pieces of armour. When the mansion was completed in 1597 the older one was discarded and the furniture removed, and the walls were gradually allowed to fall into ruin. It is now but a shell; but one may get a good idea of the style of building and extent, as well as of the internal decorations. It appears to be of Tudor date, almost Elizabethan in character, and over the wide fireplaces are colossal figures in bold relief, emblematic, perhaps, of the giant energy of Bess of Hardwick, who spent the greater part of her lifetime in those old rooms. Tradition says she died immensely rich, but without a friend. She survived her fourth husband seventeen years and was interred in the church of All-Saints', Derby, where the mural monument of her recumbent effigy had been erected under her own superintendence.
To the south-west of Hardwick, and midway between Derby and Sheffield, are the ruinous remains of another old residence of Lord Shrewsbury's, associated with the captivity of Mary Queen of Scots. This is South Wingfield manor-house, whither she was removed from Tutbury Castle prior to her first sojourn at Chatsworth, and whence she was removed back to Tutbury in 1585. By this time Shrewsbury had freed himself of the responsible custodianship: a thankless and trying office, for Elizabeth was ever suspicious that he erred on the side of leniency. A letter addressed from Wingfield Manor, from Sir Ralph Sadleir to John Manners, among the Belvoir manuscripts, and dated January 6, 1584-85, runs as follows: "The queenes majestie hath given me in chardge to remove the Queene of Scots from hence to Tutbury, and to the end she should be the better accompanyed and attended from thither, her highness hath commanded me to gyve warning to some of the gentlemen of best reputation in this contry to prepare themselfs to attend upon her at the time of her removing. I have thought good to signify the same unto you emonge others, and to require you on her Majesties behalf to take so much paine as to be heere at Wingfield upon wednesday the xiiith of this moneth at a convenient tyme before noone to attend upon the said queene the same day to Derby and the next day after to Tutbury." Of the State apartments occupied by her there are no remains beyond an external wall, but the battlemented tower with which they communicated, and from which the royal prisoner is said to have been in secret touch with her friends, is still tolerably perfect.
In the Civil War the brave old manor-house stood out stoutly for the Royalists, but at length was taken by Lord Grey. The governor, Colonel Dalby, was on the point of making his escape from the stables in disguise when he was recognised and shot. The stronghold shortly afterwards was dismantled, but in Charles II.'s reign was patched up again and made a residence, and so it continued until little more than a century ago. The village of Ashover, midway between Wingfield and Chesterfield, is charmingly situated on the river Amber amidst most picturesque scenery. Here in 1660, says the parish register, a certain Dorothy Mady "forswore herself, whereupon the ground opened and she sank overhead!" There are some old tombs to the Babingtons, of which family was Anthony of Dethick-cum-Lea, nearer Matlock, where are slight remains of the old family seat incorporated in a farmhouse. As is well known, it was the seizure of the Queen of Scots' correspondence with this young desperado, who with Tichborne, Salisbury, and other associates was plotting Elizabeth's assassination, that hastened her tragic end at Fotheringay.
Bolsover Castle, which lies directly north of Hardwick, has a style of architecture peculiar to itself. It is massive, and grim, and prison-like, with a strange array of battlements and pinnacles; and Bess of Hardwick showed her genius in making it as different as possible from her other residences. And the interior is as fantastic and original as the exterior. Altogether there is something suggestive of the fairy-tale castle; and the main entrance, guarded by a giant overhead and bears on either side, has something ogre-like about it. The rooms are vaulted and supported by pillars, some of them in imitation of the earlier castle of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. They are a peculiar mixture of early-English and Renaissance, but the effect is very pleasing and picturesque. The main arches of the ceiling of the "Pillar parlour" are panelled and rest on Elizabethan vaulting-shafts, and the ribs are centred in heavy bosses. The semicircular intersections of the walls are wainscoted walnut wood, richly gilt and elaborately carved, and there are early-Jacobean hooded fireplaces and queer old painted and inlaid doors and window-shutters. The largest of these rooms is the "Star chamber," so called from the golden stars on the ceiling depicted on blue ground, representing the firmament. In these gorgeous rooms Charles I. was sumptuously entertained by the first Duke of Newcastle. In what is called the "Riding house," a roofless Jacobean ruin of fine proportions, Ben Jonson's masque, Love's Welcome, was performed before the king and queen. Clarendon speaks of the stupendous entertainment (that cost some fifteen thousand pounds) and excess of feasting, which, he says, "God be thanked!—no man ever after imitated." The duke (then marquis), who had been the king's tutor, was a playwriter of some repute, though Pepys does not speak highly of his ability, saying his works were silly and tedious.[30] His eccentric wife had also literary inclinations, and wrote, among other things, a high-flown biography of her spouse, which the Diarist said showed her to be "a mad, conceited, ridiculous woman, and he an asse to suffer her to write what she writes to him and of him." This romantic and theatrical lady was one of the sights of London when she came to town in her extravagant and antiquated dress, and always had a large crowd around her. The practical joke played upon her at the ball at Whitehall, mentioned in de Gramont's Memoirs, is amusing, but commands our sympathy, and is a specimen of the bad taste of Society at the time.
The romantic situation of the castle, perched upon a steep promontory overlooking a dense mass of trees, must have been quite to the old duchess's taste; and one can picture her walking in state in the curious old gardens as she appears in her theatrical-looking portrait at Welbeck. According to local tradition there is a subterranean passage leading from the castle to the church, which was formerly entered by a secret staircase running from the servants' hall; and there are stories of a hidden chapel beneath the crypt, and ghosts in Elizabethan ruffles. The Cavendish Chapel in the church was erected by Bess of Hardwick's younger son, Sir Charles Cavendish, father of the first Duke of Newcastle, and contains his tomb, a gorgeous Jacobean monument.
GARLANDS, ASHFORD CHURCH.
(Photo by Rev. J. R. Luxmoore.)