In 1568 Mary Stuart, flying into England, was placed in the custody of the Earl of Shrewsbury, and remained under his care for sixteen years, a long period of restless misery to the unhappy earl not less than to his wretched captive. In this dangerous and odious charge was involved the sacrifice of his domestic happiness, his peace of mind, his health, and great part of his fortune, His castle was converted into a prison, his servants into guards, his porter into a turnkey, his wife into a spy, and himself into a jailor, to gratify the ever-waking jealousy of Queen Elizabeth.[ 46] But the earl's greatest misfortune was the estrangement, and at length enmity, of his violent, high-spirited wife. She beheld the unhappy Mary with a hatred for which there was little excuse, but many intelligible reasons: she saw her, not as a captive committed to her womanly mercy, but as an intruder on her rights. Her haughty spirit was continually irritated by the presence of one in whom she was forced to acknowledge a superior, even in that very house and domain where she herself had been used to reign as absolute queen and mistress. The enormous expenses which this charge entailed on her household were distracting to her avarice; and, worse than all, jealousy of the youthful charms and winning manners of the Queen of Scots, and of the constant intercourse between her and her husband, seem at length to have driven her half frantic, and degraded her, with all her wit, and sense, and spirit, into the despicable treacherous tool of the more artful and despotic Elizabeth, who knew how to turn the angry and jealous passions of the countess to her own purposes.
It was not, however, all at once that matters rose to such a height: the fire smouldered for some time ere it burst forth. There is a letter preserved among the Shrewsbury Correspondence[ 47] which the countess addressed to her husband from Chatsworth, at a time when the earl was keeping guard over Mary at Sheffield castle. It is a most curious specimen of character. It treats chiefly of household matters, of the price and goodness of malt and hops, iron and timber, and reproaches him for not sending her money which was due to her, adding, "I see out of sight out of mind with you;" she sarcastically inquires "how his charge and love doth;" she sends him "some letyss (lettuces) for that he loves them," (this common sallad herb was then a rare delicacy;) and she concludes affectionately, "God send my juill helthe." The incipient jealousy betrayed in this letter soon after broke forth openly with a degree of violence towards her husband, and malignity towards his prisoner, which can hardly be believed. There is distinct evidence that Shrewsbury was not only a trustworthy, but a rigorous jailor; that he detested the office forced upon him; that he often begged in the most abject terms to be released from it; and that harassed on every side by the tormenting jealousy of his wife, the unrelenting severity and mistrust of Elizabeth, and the complaints of Mary, he was seized with several fits of illness, and once by a mental attack, or "phrenesie," as Cecil terms it, brought on by the agitation of his mind; yet the idea of resigning his office, except at the pleasure of Queen Elizabeth, never seems to have entered his imagination.
On one occasion Lady Shrewsbury went so far as to accuse her husband openly of intriguing with his prisoner, in every sense of the word; and she at the same time abused Mary in terms which John Knox himself could not have exceeded. Mary, deeply incensed, complained of this outrage: the earl also appealed to Queen Elizabeth, and the countess and her daughter, Lady Talbot, were obliged to declare upon oath, that this accusation was false, scandalous, and malicious, and that they were not the authors of it. This curious affidavit of the mother and daughter is preserved in the Record Office.
In a letter to Lord Leicester, Shrewsbury calls his wife "his wicked and malicious wife," and accuses her and "her imps," as he irreverently styles the whole brood of Cavendishes, of conspiring to sow dissensions between him and his eldest son. These disputes being carried to Elizabeth, she set herself with heartless policy to foment them in every possible way. She deemed that her safety consisted in employing one part of the earl's family as spies on the other. In some signal quarrel about the property round Chatsworth, she commanded the earl to submit to his wife's pleasure: and though no "tame snake" towards his imperious lady, as St. Loo and Cavendish had been before him, he bowed at once to the mandate of his unfeeling sovereign—such was the despotism and such the loyalty of those days. His reply, however, speaks the bitterness of his heart. "Sith that her majesty hath set down this hard sentence against me to my perpetual infamy and dishonour, that I should be ruled and overrunne by my wife, so bad and wicked a woman; yet her majesty shall see that I will obey her majesty's commandment, though no curse or plague on the earth could be more grievous to me." * * "It is too much," he adds, "to be made my wife's pensioner." Poor Lord Shrewsbury! Can one help pitying him?
Not the least curious part of this family history is the double dealing of the imperious countess. While employed as a spy on Mary, whom she detested, she, from the natural fearlessness and frankness of her temper, not unfrequently betrayed Elizabeth, whom she also detested. While in attendance on Mary, she often gratified her own satirical humour, and amused her prisoner by giving her a coarse and bitter portraiture of Elizabeth, her court, her favourites, her miserable temper, her vanity, and her personal defects. Some report of these conversations soon reached the queen, (who is very significantly drawn in one of her portraits in a dress embroidered over with eyes and ears,) and she required from Mary an account of whatever Lady Shrewsbury had said to her prejudice. Mary, hating equally the rival who oppressed her and the domestic harpy who daily persecuted her, was nothing loath to indulge her feminine spite against the two, and sent Elizabeth such a circumstantial list of the most gross and hateful imputations, (all the time politely assuring her good sister that she did not believe a word of them,) that the rage and mortification of the queen must have exceeded all bounds.[ 48] She kept the letter secret; but Lady Shrewsbury never was suffered to appear at court after the death of Mary had rendered her services superfluous.
Through all these scenes, the Lady of Hardwicke still pursued her settled purpose. Her husband complained that he was "never quiet to satisfy her greedie appetite for money for purchases to set up her children." Her ambition was equally insatiate, and generally successful: but in one memorable instance she overshot her mark. She contrived (unknown to her lord) to marry her favourite daughter, Elizabeth Cavendish, to Lord Lennox, the younger brother of the murdered Darnley, and consequently standing in the same degree of relationship to the crown. Queen Elizabeth, in the extremity of her rage and consternation, ordered both the dowager Lady Lennox and Lady Shrewsbury to the Tower, where the latter remained for some months; we may suppose, to the great relief of her husband. He used, however, all his interest to excuse her delinquency, and at length procured her liberation. But this was not all. Elizabeth Cavendish, the young Lady Lennox, while yet in all her bridal bloom, died in the arms of her mother, who appears to have suffered that searing, lasting grief which stern hearts sometimes feel. The only issue of this marriage was an infant daughter, that unhappy Arabella Stuart, who was one of the most memorable victims of jealous tyranny which our history has recorded. Her very existence, from her near relationship to the throne, was a crime in the eyes of Elizabeth and James I. There is no evidence that Lady Shrewsbury indulged in any ambitious schemes for this favourite granddaughter, "her dear jewel, Arbell," as she terms her;[ 49] but she did not hesitate to enforce her claims to royal blood by requiring 600l. a year from the treasury for her board and education as became the queen's kinswoman. Elizabeth allowed her 200l. a year, and this pittance Lady Shrewsbury accepted. Her rent-roll was at this time 60,000l. a year, equal to at least 200,000l. at the present day.
The Earl of Shrewsbury died in 1590, at enmity to the last moment with his wife and son; and the Lady of Hardwicke having survived four husbands, and seeing all her children settled and prosperous, still absolute mistress over her family, resided during the last seventeen years of her life in great state and plenty at Hardwicke, her birth place. Here she superintended the education of Arabella Stuart, who, as she grew up to womanhood, was kept by her grandmother in a state of seclusion, amounting almost to imprisonment, lest the jealousy of Elizabeth should rob her of her treasure.[ 50]
Next to the love of money and power, the chief passion of this magnificent old beldam, was building. It is a family tradition, that some prophet had foretold that she should never die as long as she was building, and she died at last, in 1607, during a hard frost, when her labourers were obliged to suspend their work. She built Chatsworth, Oldcotes, and Hardwicke; and Fuller adds in his quaint style that she left "two sacred (besides civil) monuments of her memory; one that I hope will not be taken away, (her splendid tomb, erected by herself,[ 51]) and one that I am sure cannot be taken away, being registered in the court of heaven, viz. her stately almshouses for twelve poor people at Derby."
Of Chatsworth, the hereditary palace of the Dukes of Devonshire, all its luxurious grandeur, all its treasures of art, it is not here "my hint to speak." It has been entirely rebuilt since the days of its founder. Oldcotes was once a magnificent place. There is a tradition at Hardwicke that old Bess, being provoked by a splendid mansion which the Suttons had lately erected within view of her windows, declared she would build a finer dwelling for the owlets, (hence Owlcots or Oldcotes.) She kept her word, more truly perhaps than she intended, for Oldcotes has since become literally a dwelling for the owls; the chief part of it is in ruins, and the rest converted into a farmhouse. Her younger daughter, Frances Cavendish, married Sir Henry Pierrepoint, of Holme-Pierpoint, and one of the granddaughters married another Pierrepoint—through one of these marriages, but I know not which, Oldcotes has descended to the present Earl Manvers.
The mansion of Hardwicke was commenced about the year 1592, and finished in 1597. It stands about a stone's throw from the old house in which the old countess was born, and which she left standing, as if, says her biographer, she intended to construct her bed of state close by her cradle. This fine old ruin remains, grey, shattered, and open to all the winds of heaven, almost overgrown with ivy, and threatening to tumble about the ears of the bats and owls which are its sole inhabitants. One majestic room remains entire. It is called the "Giant's Chamber" from two colossal figures in Roman armour which stand over the huge chimney-piece. This room has long been considered by architects as a perfect specimen of grand and beautiful proportion, and has been copied at Chatsworth and at Blenheim.[ 52]