ELIZABETH TALBOT, COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY, (1518-1608), better known by her nickname "Bess of Hardwick," was the daughter and co-heiress
of John Hardwicke of Hardwicke in Derbyshire. At the age of fourteen she was married to a John Barlow, the owner of a large estate, who did
not long survive the marriage, and as his estates had been settled on her and her heirs, she became a wealthy widow.
She remained single till the 20th of August 1540, when she married Sir William Cavendish, who, to please her, sold his lands in the south of
England and purchased the Chatsworth estates in Derbyshire. Six children were born of the marriage, three sons and three daughters. One of the
sons was the founder of the ducal family of Devonshire, and another of the ducal family of Newcastle. Sir William Cavendish having died on the
25th of October 1557, her third husband was Sir William St Lo (or St Loe or St Lowe), captain of the guard to Queen Elizabeth
and owner of an estate at Tormarton in Gloucestershire. She insisted that his lands should be settled on her and her heirs, and when Sir William
died without issue, she made good her claim to all his property to the detriment of his sister and cousins.
Bess of Hardwick was now the wealthiest subject in England. Her income was calculated to amount to £60,000, which was relatively a far
more important sum then than it is today.* She still retained much of her good looks; her charms and her wealth outweighed her reputation for
rapacity, and she was much sought in marriage. With the approval of Queen Elizabeth, who was not by habit a matchmaker, she was married in 1568
for the fourth time to George Talbot, 6th earl of Shrewsbury. Bess made her usual good bargain as to settlements,
and also insisted on arranging marriages between two of her children by Sir William Cavendish and two of the earl's by a former marriage.
In 1574 the countess took advantage of a visit of the countess of Lennox to marry her daughter Elizabeth to Charles Stuart, the younger son of
the Lennoxes and brother of Lord Darnley, the second husband of
the queen of Scots. She acted without the knowledge of her husband,
who declined to accept any responsibility. As the Lennox family had a claim to the throne this match was considered as a proof of the ambition
of the countess of Shrewsbury, and she was sent to the Tower by the queen, but was soon released. The child of the marriage was Arabella Stuart,
whom her grandmother treated at first with favour but later on with cruelty and neglect.
By this time the earl of Shrewsbury and his wife were on very bad terms with one another, and the former tried to obtain a divorce. The countess
revenged herself by accusing him of a love intrigue with the queen of Scots, a charge which she was forced to retract before the council. In the
meantime she had told some filthy scandal about Queen Elizabeth to Queen Mary, who made use of it in the extraordinary letter she wrote some time
in 1584. In 1583 the countess of Shrewsbury went to live apart from her husband, with whom she was afterwards reconciled formally by the queen.
After his death in 1600 she lived mostly at Hardwicke, where she built the noble mansion which still stands.
She was indeed one of the greatest builders of her time at Hardwicke, Chatsworth and Oldcoates. It is said that she believed she would not die
so long as she was building. Her death came on the 13th of February 1608 during a frost which put a stop to her building operations. She was
buried in All Saints' Church, Derby, under a fine monument with a laudatory inscription which she took care to put up in her lifetime. Two
portraits of her exist at Hardwicke, one taken in her youth, while the second, by Cornelius Janssen, engraved by Vertue, represents her as
an old woman. She had no children except by her second husband, and to them she left the vast estates she accumulated by her successive marriages.
* [AJ NOTE:
£60,000 in 1557 had roughly the same
purchasing power as £18 million in 2020.
Source: Measuring Worth]
Source:
Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed. Vol XXIV.
New York: The Encyclopedia Britannica Company, 1911. 1017.
Other Local Resources:
Books for further study:
Durant, D. Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast.
Peter Owen Publishers, 1999.
Hopkins, Lisa, ed. Bess of Hardwick: New Perspectives.
Manchester University Press, 2019.
Hubbard, Kate. Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick
and the Building of Elizabethan England.
Harper, 2019.
Levey, S. and P. Thornton, eds. Of Houshold Stuff: The 1601 Inventories of Bess of Hardwick.
National Trust, 2002.
Lovell, Mary S. Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder.
W. W. Norton, 2006.
Wiggins, Alison. Bess of Hardwick's Letters.
Routledge, 2016.
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This page was created on April 15, 2009. Last updated February 15, 2023.