“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.