The Stately Homes of England

by Llewellynn Frederick William Jewitt; S. C. Hall

The Earl of Shrewsbury, about whom strange rumours regarding his conduct and intentions towards his captive at the time of his discharge from his trust were afloat, and over whom a female domestic, Eleanor Britton, had gained an injurious ascendency, afterwards, in consequence, living a not very happy life with his second countess, died in 1590; and thus “Bess of Hardwick” became, for the fourth time, a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennett, “that, perhaps, never fell to the lot of one woman, to be four times a creditable and happy wife, to rise by every husband into greater wealth and higher honours, to have a numerous issue by one husband only; to have all those children live, and all, by her advice, be creditably disposed of in her lifetime; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty.”

The countess, besides being one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and captivating women of her day, was, without exception, the most energetic, business-like, and able of her sex. In architecture her conceptions were grand; while in all matters pertaining to the Arts, and to comforts and elegancies of life, she was unsurpassed. To the old Hall of her fathers, where she was born and resided, she made vast additions—indeed, so much so as almost to amount to a recreation of the place; and she entirely planned and built three of the most gorgeous edifices of the time—Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes—the first two of which were transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. “At Hardwick she left the ancient seat of her family standing, and at a small distance, still adjoining to her new fabric, as if she had a mind to preserve her Cradle, and set it by her Bed of State,” as Kennett so poetically expresses it.

Her “Bed of State”—the present Hall, erected by her—we have already described. Her “Cradle”—the old Hall, wherein she was born and nursed, but which is now in ruins—we shall describe presently.

The latter part of her long and busy life she occupied almost entirely in building, and it is marvellous what an amount of real work—hard figures and dry details—she got through; for it is a fact, abundantly evidenced by the original accounts, remaining to this day, that not a penny was expended on her buildings, and not a detail added or taken away, without her special attention and personal supervision. Building was a passion with her, and she indulged it wisely and well, sparing neither time, nor trouble, nor outlay, to secure everything being done in the most admirable manner. It is said, and it is so recorded by Walpole, that the countess had once been told by a gipsy fortune-teller that she would never die so long as she continued building, and she so implicitly believed this, that she never ceased planning and contriving and adding to her erections; and it is said that at last she died in a hard frost, which totally prevented the workmen from continuing their labours, and so caused an unavoidable suspension of her works. Surely the fortune-teller here was a “wise woman” in more senses than one; for it was wise and cunning in her to instil such a belief into the countess’s mind, and thus insure a continuance of the works by which so many workmen and their families gained a livelihood, and by which later generations would also benefit.

The Old Hall at Hardwick.

Besides Hardwick, Chatsworth (for which a good part of the old Hall at Hardwick was, at a later period, removed), Oldcotes, and other places, the countess founded and built the Devonshire Almshouses at Derby, and did many other good and noble works. She died, full of years and full of honours and riches, on the 23rd of February, 1607, and was buried in All Saints’ Church, Derby, under a stately tomb which she had erected during her lifetime, and on which a long Latin inscription is to be seen.

Of the countess—the “Bess of Hardwick,” who was one of the greatest of the subjects of that other “Bess” who sat on the throne of England—portraits are still preserved at Hardwick, and show that she must have been, as Dugdale says of her, “faire and beautiful.” Whatever faults of temper or of disposition she had—and she is said to have had plenty of both—she had good qualities which, perhaps, outbalanced them; and she, at all events, founded one of the most brilliant houses—that of Cavendish—which this nation has ever produced.

The old Hall at Hardwick, of the ruins of which we give an engraving, was, in its palmy days, a place of considerable extent and beauty, and from its charming situation—being built on the edge of a rocky eminence overlooking an immense tract of country—must have been a most desirable residence. In it a long line of the ancestors of the countess were born, and lived, and died; and in it she too was born and lived, as maiden, as four times wife, and four times widow. In it, if Mary, Queen of Scots, was ever at Hardwick, she must have been received, and in it the larger part of the great works of its remarkable owner must have been planned. It was her “home,” and her favourite residence; and it is said that when she began to build the new Hall—which, as we have said, closely adjoins the old one—she still intended making the older building her abode, and keeping the new one for state receptions and purposes of hospitality. This plan, however, if ever laid down, was ultimately discarded, and the old mansion, after all the improvements which had been made in it, was in great measure stripped and dismantled for the requirements of the new Hall, and of Chatsworth.

A tolerably good idea of the extent of the ruins of the old Hall will be gained from our engraving, which shows, perhaps, its most imposing side, with the green sward in front. In its interior, several rooms, in a more or less state of dilapidation, still remain, and can be seen by the visitor. The kitchens, with their wide chimneys, and the domestic offices on the ground-floor, amply testify to the almost regal hospitality which must at one time have characterized the place; while the chambers, the state-rooms, and the other apartments for the family, testify to the magnificence of its appointments.