Besides these the following supernumerary servants were kindly allowed by the earl and approved by the queen:—
“Christilie Hog, Bastiene’s wyff.
Ellen Bog, the Mr cooke’s wyff.
Cristiane Grame, my Lady Leinstoun’s gentilwoman.
Janet Lindesay, M’rez Setoun’s gentilwoman.
Jannette Spetell.
Robert Hamiltoun, to bere fyre and water to the quene’s cuysine.
Robert Ladel, the quene’s lacquay.
Gilbert Bonnar, horskeippar.
Francoys, to serve Mre Castel, the phesitien.”
The earl, to insure her safe-keeping, took to himself forty extra servants, chosen from his tenantry, to keep watch day and night: so this must, indeed, have been a busy and bustling, as well as an anxious time, at Chatsworth and at Sheffield.
In the autumn of 1578 Mary was once more at Chatsworth, but in November was back again, as close a prisoner as ever at Sheffield. Again in 1577 she was, for a short time, at Chatsworth, at which period the Countess of Shrewsbury was still building there. It was in this year that the countess wrote to her husband the letter endeavouring to get him to spend the summer there, in which she uses the strange expressions, “Lette me here how you, your charge and love dothe, and commende me I pray you.” In 1581 Mary was again brought to Chatsworth, and probably was there at other times than those we have indicated. In any case, the fact of her being there kept a captive, invests the place with a powerful interest of a far different kind from any other it possesses. One solitary remain—“Mary Queen of Scots’ Bower”—of this ill-starred sovereign’s captivity at Chatsworth now exists; to this reference will be made later on.
It is also essential here to note, that during these troublous times, the ill-fated Lady Arabella Stuart—the child of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and of his wife Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of Sir William Cavendish, by his wife “Bess of Hardwick”—was born at Chatsworth. The beautiful, much-injured, and ill-fated Lady Arabella, whose sole crime was that she was born a Stuart, is thus in more ways than one, like her relative, Mary Queen of Scots, not only mixed up with Chatsworth, but with the family of its noble possessor. The incidents of the life of this young, beautiful, and accomplished lady, which form one of the most touching episodes in our national history—the jealous eye with which Elizabeth looked upon her from her birth—the careful watch set over her by Cecil—the trials of Raleigh and his friends—her troubles with her aunt (Mary, Countess of Shrewsbury)—her being placed under restraint—her marriage with Seymour—her seizure, imprisonment, sufferings, and death as a hopeless lunatic in the Tower of London, where she had been thrown by her cousin, King James I., are all matters of history, and invest her short, sad life with a melancholy interest. One of the old ballads to which her misfortunes gave rise, thus alludes to her connection with Derbyshire:—
“My lands and livings, so well known,
Unto your books of majesty,
Amount to twelve-score pounds a week,
Besides what I do give,” quoth she.
“In gallant Derbyshire likewise,