Who that has exulted over the heroic reign of our gorgeous Elizabeth, or wept over the fate of Mary Stuart, but will remember the name of the only woman whose high and haughty spirit out-faced the lion port of one queen, and whose audacity trampled over the sorrows of the other—
"Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride!"
But this is anticipation. If it be so laudable, according to the excellent, oft quoted advice of the giant Moulineau, to begin at the beginning,[ 41] what must it be to improve upon the precept? for so, in relating the fallen and fading glories of Hardwicke, do I intend to exceed even "mon ami le Belier," in historic accuracy, and take up our tale at a period ere Hardwicke itself—the Hardwicke that now stands—had a beginning.
There lived, then, in the days of queen Bess, a woman well worthy to be her majesty's namesake,—Elizabeth Hardwicke, more commonly called, in her own country, Bess of Hardwicke, and distinguished in the page of history as the old Countess of Shrewsbury. She resembled Queen Elizabeth in all her best and worst qualities, and, putting royalty out of the scale, would certainly have been more than a match for that sharp-witted virago, in subtlety of intellect, and intrepidity of temper and manner.
She was the only daughter of John Hardwicke, of Hardwicke,[ 42] and being early left an orphan and an heiress, was married ere she was fourteen to a certain Master Robert Barley, who was about her own age. Death dissolved this premature union within a few months, but her husband's large estates had been settled on her and her heirs; and at the age of fifteen, dame Elizabeth was a blooming widow, amply dowered with fair and fertile lands, and free to bestow her hand again where she listed.
Suitors abounded, of course: but Elizabeth, it should seem, was hard to please. She was beautiful, if the annals of her family say true,—she had wit, and spirit, and, above all, an infinite love of independence. After taking the management of her property into her own hands, she for some time reigned and revelled (with all decorum be it understood) in what might be truly termed, a state of single blessedness; but at length, tired of being lord and lady too—"master o'er her vassals," if not exactly "queen o'er herself"—she thought fit, having reached the discreet age of four-and-twenty, to bestow her hand on Sir William Cavendish. He was a man of substance and power, already enriched by vast grants of abbey lands in the time of Henry VIII.,[ 43] all which, by the marriage contract, were settled on the lady. After this marriage, they passed some years in retirement, having the wisdom to keep clear of the political storms and factions which intervened between the death of Henry VIII. and the accession of Mary, and yet the sense to profit by them. While Cavendish, taking advantage of those troublous times, went on adding manor after manor to his vast possessions, dame Elizabeth was busy providing heirs to inherit them; she became the mother of six hopeful children, who were destined eventually to found two illustrious dukedoms, and mingle blood with the oldest nobility of England—nay, with royalty itself. "Moreover," says the family chronicle, "the said dame Elizabeth persuaded her husband, out of the great love he had for her, to sell his estates in the south and purchase lands in her native county of Derby, wherewith to endow her and her children, and at her farther persuasion he began to build the noble seat of Chatsworth, but left it to her to complete, he dying about the year 1559."
Apparently this second experiment in matrimony pleased the lady of Hardwicke better than the first, for she was not long a widow. We are not in this case informed how long—her biographer having discreetly left it to our imagination; and the Peerages, though not in general famed for discretion on such points, have in this case affected the same delicate uncertainty. However this may be, she gave her hand, after no long courtship, to Sir William St. Loo, captain of Elizabeth's guard, and then chief butler of England—a man equally distinguished for his fine person and large possessions, but otherwise not superfluously gifted by nature. So well did the lady manage him, that with equal hardihood and rapacity, she contrived to have all his "fair lordships in Gloucestershire and elsewhere" settled on herself and her children, to the manifest injury of St. Loo's own brothers, and his daughters by a former union: and he dying not long after without any issue by her, she made good her title to his vast estates, added them to her own, and they became the inheritance of the Cavendishes.
But three husbands, six children, almost boundless opulence, did not yet satisfy this extraordinary woman—for extraordinary she certainly was, not more in the wit, subtlety, and unflinching steadiness of purpose with which she amassed wealth and achieved power, but in the manner in which she used both. She ruled her husband, her family, her vassals, despotically, needing little aid, suffering no interference, asking no counsel. She managed her immense estates, and the local power and political weight which her enormous possessions naturally threw into her hands, with singular capacity and decision. She farmed the lands; she collected her rents; she built; she planted; she bought and sold; she lent out money on usury; she traded in timber, coals, lead: in short, the object she had apparently proposed to herself, the aggrandisement of her children by all and any means, she pursued with a wonderful perseverance and good sense. Power so consistently wielded, purposes so indefatigably followed up, and means so successfully adapted to an end, are, in a female, very striking. A slight sprinkling of the softer qualities of her sex, a little more elevation of principle, would have rendered her as respectable and admirable as she was extraordinary; but there was in this woman's mind the same "fond de vulgarité" which we see in the character of Queen Elizabeth, and which no height of rank, or power, or estate, could do away with. In this respect the lady of Hardwicke was much inferior to that splendid creature, Anne Clifford, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Cumberland, another masculine spirit in the female form, who had the same propensity for building castles and mansions, the same passion for power and independence, but with more true generosity and magnanimity, and a touch of poetry and genuine nobility about her which the other wanted: in short, it was all the difference between the amazon and the heroine. It is curious enough that the Duke of Devonshire should be the present representative of both these remarkable women.
But to return: Bess of Hardwicke was now approaching her fortieth year; she had achieved all but nobility—the one thing yet wanting to crown her swelling fortunes. About the year 1565 (I cannot find the exact date) she was sought in marriage by George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury. There is no reason to doubt what is asserted, that she had captivated the earl by her wit and her matronly beauty.[ 44] He could hardly have married her from motives of interest: he was himself the richest and greatest subject in England; a fine chivalrous character, with a reputation as unstained as his rank was splendid, and his descent illustrious. He had a family by a former wife, (Gertrude Manners,) to inherit his titles, and her estates were settled on her children by Cavendish. It should seem, therefore, that mutual inclination alone could have made the match advantageous to either party; but Bess of Hardwicke was still Bess of Hardwicke. She took advantage of her power over her husband in the first days of their union. "She induced Shrewsbury by entreaties or threats to sacrifice, in a measure, the fortune, interest, and happiness of himself and family to the aggrandisement of her and her family."[ 45] She contrived in the first place to have a large jointure settled on herself; and she arranged a double union, by which the wealth and interests of the two great families should be amalgamated. She stipulated that her eldest daughter, Mary Cavendish, should marry the earl's son, Lord Talbot; and that his youngest daughter, Grace Talbot, should marry her eldest son, Henry Cavendish.
The French have a proverb worthy of their gallantry—"Ce que femme veut, Dieu veut:" but even in the feminine gender we are sometimes reminded of another proverb equally significant—"L'homme propose et Dieu dispose." Now was Bess of Hardwicke queen of the Peak; she had built her erie so high, it seemed to dally with the winds of heaven; her young eaglets were worthy of their dam, ready plumed to fly at fortune; she had placed the coronet of the oldest peerage in England on her own brow, she had secured the reversion of it to her daughter, and she had married a man whose character was indeed opposed to her own, but who, from his chivalrous and confiding nature was calculated to make her happy, by leaving her mistress of herself.