At the time of the Domesday Survey of William the Conqueror, Chatsworth belonged to the Crown, and was held by William Peverel, the entry being as follows: “In Langlie and Chetesuorde, Leuenot and Chetel had ten ox-gangs of land for geld [land for ten oxen]. This belonged to Ednesoure. William Pevrel keeps them for the king. Five villanes and two bordars have two ploughs and one acre of meadow there. Wood, pasturable, one mile in length and one in breadth, and a little underwood. In the time of King Edward it was worth twenty shillings; now, sixteen shillings.” The name of Chetesuorde, now altered into Chatsworth, was doubtless originally Chetelsuorde, from the name of one of its Saxon owners, Chetel. After the Peverels, the manor of Chatsworth was held by the family of Leche, who had long been settled there before they became possessed of the manor, and who held it for several generations. In the reign of Edward III. one member of this family, John Leche, of Chatsworth, whose father is said to have been of Carden (a line continued by a younger son), was one of the surgeons to the king. In the reign of Henry IV. Sir Roger Leche, knight, held, among other property, lands at Glossop. They also held, among others, the manors of Totley. Shipley, Willersley, Cromford, and the prebendal manor of Sawley. John Leche, surgeon to Edward III., was, it appears, grantee of Castle Warin and other lands, and had a son, Daniel Leche, whose son, John Leche, married Lucy de Cawarden, and thus became possessed of the manor of Carden. The family of Leche of Chatsworth became extinct in the reign of Edward VI., by the death of Francis Leche, who had, however, previously sold this manor to the Agards. One of the co-heiresses of Ralph Leche, of Chatsworth, uncle to Francis, married Thomas Kniveton, of Mercaston, father of Sir William and grandfather of Sir Gilbert Kniveton; another married a Wingfield, and the third espoused Slater, of Sutton, in the county of Lincoln. Francis Leche, to whom we have referred, married Alice, daughter of John Hardwick, of Hardwick, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of John Leake, of Hasland, a branch of the Leakes, Earls of Scarsdale. This Alice, on the death of her only brother, John Hardwick, without issue, became one of his co-heiresses, with her three sisters—Mary, who married, first, Wingfield, and, second, Pollard, of Devonshire; Jane, married to Godfrey Bosville, of Gunthwaite; and Elizabeth, better known as “Bess of Hardwick,” who married, first, Robert Barley, of Barley—second, Sir William Cavendish—third, Sir William St. Loe—and fourth, Gilbert, fourth Earl of Shrewsbury. This Francis Leche, as has just been stated, sold the manor and estates of Chatsworth to Agard, who shortly afterwards resold it to Sir William Cavendish, the husband of “Bess of Hardwick,” and, consequently, the brother-in-law of Alice Leche.
The family of Agard is of very ancient origin in the county of Derby, being settled at Foston as early as 1310. In the reign of Charles II. the Foston estate was sold by John Agard, and about the same time, one of the co-heiresses of Charles Agard, the last heir-male of the main line, married John Stanhope, of Elvaston, the ancestor of the Earls of Harrington. Another branch of the Agards settled at Sudbury, in the same county, and one of them married the heiress of Ferrars, of Tamworth. The Agards, as feodaries or bailiffs of the honour of Tutbury, were possessed of a horn (described in the “Archæologia”) which passed, with the office, to Charles Stanhope, Esq., of Elvaston, on his marriage with the heiress. Arthur Agard, born at Foston, in 1540, was an able and eminent antiquary, and was one of the members of the first Society of Antiquaries. His essays read to the Society occur in Hearne’s “Discourses,” and a treatise by him on the obscure words in Domesday-book, are, with other papers, in the Cottonian Collection in the British Museum. He held office as Deputy-Chamberlain of the Exchequer, and died in 1615. A John Agard founded a chantry at Lupton.
Shortly after acquiring Chatsworth by purchase from the Agards, Sir William Cavendish pulled down the old Hall of the Leches, and began the erection of the mansion which, in a few years after its construction, was destined to become a place of historical interest. Sir William Cavendish, it appears, died before his plans for building had been carried out to any great extent; and its completion, on a much larger scale than he had intended, was left to his widow (who ultimately became Countess of Shrewsbury), by whom Hardwick Hall and other places were erected; and of whom it was said that, having a firm belief she should never die so long as she continued building, kept on year after year; until at last, a terrible frost coming on, the masons were thrown out of work, when she languished and died. The mansion, commenced by Sir William Cavendish, and completed by his widow, was a quadrangular building, the west front of which had a square tower at each end, and the entrance, in the centre, was between four angular towers. Of this front of the building a representation is happily preserved at Chatsworth, which, through the kindness and courtesy of its noble owner, the present Duke of Devonshire, we are enabled to engrave.
The Old Hall as it formerly stood.
It was in this mansion that that truly unhappy sovereign, Mary, Queen of Scots, was kept so long a prisoner under the care of the Earl of Shrewsbury—the suite of rooms occupied by her being on the upper, or state-room story, of the east side of the quadrangle, and immediately opposite to the then principal entrance. The unfortunate queen was first brought captive to Chatsworth in May or June, 1570, from Tutbury Castle, probably spending a short time on her way at another of the earl’s residences, Wingfield Manor: here she remained for some months, and here, it is pleasant to know, the severity of her confinement was in some degree relaxed; yet the surveillance kept over her by the Earl of Shrewsbury was enough to disappoint a scheme laid for her release by two sons of the Earl of Derby, and a Derbyshire gentleman named Hall. At this time the Queen of Scots’ establishment consisted of thirty persons, among whom was John Beton, a member of the same family to which Cardinal Beton belonged. This faithful servant, who was her “prægustator”—an office in royal households of which frequent mention is made in the old writers of the Middle Ages—died while Mary was in captivity at Chatsworth, and was buried in the church of Edensor, close by, where a monument, which yet remains, was erected by his attached mistress. Of this monument we shall give an engraving later on. During this same year at Chatsworth it was that the series of personal negotiations which kept hope alive in the breast of the fair captive was commenced, and in which Cecil and Mildmay, who were at Chatsworth in October, took part. At this time the project of removing her to Sheffield was mooted, and on his return to court from Chatsworth, Cecil wrote his memorable letter, allowing her a little horse-exercise about the grounds of Chatsworth.
“Now for the removing of yt quene, hir Maty said at the first that she trusted so to make an end in short tyme yt your L. shuld be shortly ac’qted of hir; nevertheless when I told her Maty that yow cold not long indure your howshold there for lack of fewell and other thyngs, and yt I thought Tutbury not so fitt a place as it was supposed, but yt Sheffield was ye metest, hir Maty sayd she wold thynk of it, and wtin few dayes gyve me knolledg: Only I see her Maty loth to have yt Q. to be often removed, supposying that therby she cometh to new acqueyntance; but to that I sayd Yor L. cold remove hir wtout callying any to you but your owne. Uponn motiō made by me, at the B. of Ross’s request, the Q. Maty is pleased yt your L. shall, whan yow see tymes mete, suffer ye Quene to take ye ayre about your howss on horssback, so your L. be in copany; and therein I am sure your L. will have good respect to your owne company, to be suer and trusty; and not to pass fro yowr howss above one or twoo myle, except it be on ye moores; for I never feare any other practise of strangers as long as ther be no corruptiō amongst your owne.”
This letter was followed by another, giving the irate queen’s promise to remove Mary to Sheffield, whither she was taken a little before Christmas. The orders for the government of the household of the captive queen after her removal were so stringent and curious that they will, no doubt, be read with interest. The original document is preserved in the Cottonian Library in the British Museum. It is as follows:—
“To the Mr of the Scotts Queene’s household, Mr Beton.
“First,—That all your people wch appertayneth to the Queen shall depart from the Queen’s chamber or chambers to their own lodging at IX. of the clock at night, winter and summer, whatsoever he or she; either to their lodging within the house or without in the Towne, there to remain till the next day at VI. of the clock.