THE JAPANESE GARDEN, RUFFORD ABBEY

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Arabella Stuart was born at Chatsworth, and thenceforth all Lady Shrewsbury's pride was fixed upon this granddaughter who might possibly become a queen. At Rufford there are two curiously touching portraits of this dreamy child, in whose sad little face one reads the promise of untoward fortunes. In 1576 the Earl of Lennox died, and two years later Queen Elizabeth took "oure lyttl Arbella" under her protection. When she was seven years old, this "very proper child" sent a specimen of her handwriting to her royal kinswoman, desiring the bearer to present her "humble duty to her Majesty, with daily prayers for her". The Queen of Scots in the following year maliciously informs her sister of England that "nothing has alienated the Countess of Shrewsbury from me but the vain hope, which she has conceived, of setting the crown of England on the head of her little girl, Arabella, and this by marrying her to a son of the Earl of Leicester. These children are also educated in this idea; and their portraits have been sent to each other."

Bess of Hardwick died in 1608, and in her will, which must have been made many years before, left £200 to purchase a golden cup for the Queen, "as a remembrance from her that has always been a dutiful and faithful heart to her highness". She craves, moreover, that Elizabeth may have compassion upon and be gracious to her poor grandchild Arabella Stuart. After the old lady's death, Arabella's connection with Rufford soon ceased.

Mary, Bess of Hardwick's daughter, who had married Earl Gilbert, lived at Rufford in her widowhood. This lady inherited a considerable share of her mother's ambition and lack of scruple. In a quarrel with Sir Thomas Stanhope, a Nottinghamshire knight from whom are descended three earldoms, she dispatched a servant with the following unpleasing message:—

"My lady hath commanded me to say thus much to you. That though you be more wretched, vile, and miserable than any creature living; and, for your wickedness, become more ugly in shape than any living creature in the world; and one to whom none of reputation would vouchsafe to send any message; yet she hath thought good to send thus much to you:—That she be contented you should live, and doth in no ways wish you death; but to this end, that all the plagues and miseries that may befal any man may light upon such a caitiff as you are, and that you should live to have all your friends forsake you; and without your great repentances, which she looketh not for, because your life hath been so bad, you will be damned perpetually in hell-fire."

From this beginning ensued one of the most noted and romantic feuds of the seventeenth century.

After the death of this outspoken lady—her husband's father had accused the great Bess of occasionally using the language of Billingsgate—the Rufford estate passed to the Savile family, her sister-in-law, Lady Mary Talbot, having married a Lincolnshire baronet of that name. Later, one of the Savile ladies, wife of Sir William, and daughter of Thomas, Lord Keeper Coventry, earned lasting fame by her bravery at the siege of Sheffield Castle. The Saviles were Royalists: in the Bodleian Library may be seen a letter to Cromwell from a certain unknown person who had been instructed to take into custody young Sir George and such friends as might be found at Rufford:—