This project was partly the outcome of her extraordinary pugnacity. Her neighbour, Sir Francis Leake, had designed and was building in the county a fine house, Sutton, which rivalled Hardwick in magnificence. Invidious comparisons were evidently drawn, and she declared scornfully that she would build as good a house “for owls” as he for men. The mansion she built was therefore called Owlcotes, and was not far from Hardwick.
The first year of Arabella’s royal post was certainly one fraught with peril, for it closed with the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh, accused, as all will remember, of plotting to dethrone James in favour of Arabella. Even Henry Cavendish was suspected of complicity. It is not necessary here to go into the details which proved Arabella’s innocence. It was quickly proved and her Court life went on as before, gaily, with masques, drawing-rooms, ballets, and even the nursery games in which it pleased the ladies of the Danish Anne to indulge.
At the close of her second year at Court (1605) another proposal, this time from the King of Poland, reached Arabella and was refused. She does not yet seem to have tired of the frivolous and exhausting life, though her letters—whimsical, affectionate, quaintly sententious, often highly graphic—are shortened at times, and, though loyal, she complains roundly of “this everlasting hunting.” For in their passion for sport King and Queen dragged their courtiers hither and thither, and the latter were often miserably housed and served during these expeditions.
From a photo by Richard Keene, Ltd., Derby, after the painting at Hardwick Hall
By permission of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire
JAMES THE FIFTH OF SCOTLAND
Page [344]
The Dowager at Hardwick was well informed of Court affairs, for she paid a handsome retaining fee to no less a person than the Dean of the Chapel Royal in order that he should keep her well posted. In this year (1605) she was taken seriously ill and summoned Arabella. The girl was evidently afraid of her, for she took precautions to insure welcome in the shape of a letter from the King himself, desiring the Countess to receive her granddaughter with kindness and bounty. This incensed the old lady a good deal. Though she was now more or less like a sleeping dragon guarding her hoard, as in the Norse legend, she could still rouse herself to snarl in a letter. She did not write to the King direct, but devised an epistle to the Dean, in which she emphatically declared her astonishment at the royal message. This he was ordered to show to the King. “It was very strange to her,” she said, “that my Lady Arabella should come to her with a recommendation as either doubting of her entertainment or desiring to come to her from whom she had desired so earnestly to come away. That for her part she thought she had sufficiently expressed her good meaning and kindness to her that had purchased her seven hundred pounds by year land of inheritance, and given her as much money as would buy a hundred pound by year more. And though for her part she had done very well for her according to her poor ability, yet she should always be welcome to her, though she had divers grandchildren that stood more in need than she, and much the more welcome in respect of the King’s recommendation; she had bestowed on Arabella a cup of gold worth a hundred pound, and three hundred pound in money which deserved thankfulness very well, considering her poor ability.”
James could afford to laugh at such a communication, which fortunately did not prejudice Arabella in his eyes. Her return to Court was not long delayed, for her grandmother recovered, and the Court lady was once more free to stand godmother to royal babies, play, hunt, and dance, and suffer perpetual financial embarrassment owing to the ridiculous expenditure to which courtiers of both sexes were put in making royal gifts and providing the costly, fantastic costumes which the successive masques entailed.
It was during the production of the famous “Masque of Beauty,” written for Twelfth Night, and produced in honour of the visit of the King of Denmark, that Bess Shrewsbury sank into her last illness. For this masque Arabella, it is recorded, appeared in jewels and robes worth more than £100,000. From such scenes of colour and luxuriance she was called to that stately, lonely deathbed at Hardwick.
Of the Countess’s danger her relatives were fully aware, and the various family partisans took good care to be on the look-out for any hostile movements with regard to property from their opponents. The following extract from one of Gilbert’s letters to Henry Cavendish gives an ugly little picture of the situation. The date is January 4th, 1607:—
“When I was at Hardwick she did eat very little, and not able to walk the length of the chamber betwixt two, but grew so ill at it as you might plainly discern it. On New Year’s Eve, when my wife sent her New Year’s gift, the messenger told us she looked pretty well and spoke heartily; but my Lady wrote that she was worse than when we last saw her, and Mrs. Digby sent a secret message that her Ladyship was so ill that she could not be from her day nor night. I heard that direction is given to some at Wortley to be in readiness to drive away all the sheep and cattle at Ewden instantly upon her Ladyship’s death.