Mistress of Hardwick Read online

  William Harrison would certainly have approved of this sensible policy. 'Our elders have from time to time', he wrote, 'following our natural vice in misliking of our own commodities at home and desiring those of other countries abroad, most esteemed the Caen stone that is brought hither from Normandy; and many even in these days, do covet in their works almost to use none other . . . Howbeit, experience on the one side and our skilful masons on the other, do affirm that we have quarries enough and good enough in England sufficient for us to build withal, if the peevish contempt of our own commodities, and delectations to enrich other countries did not catch such foolish hold upon us.'

  Bess had far too much commonscnse to put her money unnecessarily into other people's pockets. Hardwick is built of sandstone cut from the quarry in the chfF below the Old Hall and carried up to the site of the new building on pack horses by Robert Holm and his labourer. The contract for the stonework was let to master mason John Roads and his brother Christopher. Taid to John Roads for hewing of two windows containing in measure sixty-four foot apiece for the turrets, forty-eight shilHngs.' The accounts continue: Taid Roads for hewing ninety-eight foot of window stuff for the highing of eight windows for two of the turrets upon the leads, three pounds, fifteen shillings . . . Paid John Roads for setting two hundred and eighteen foot of architrave, frieze and cornice for the two turrets at threepence the foot and so he is paid for setting of all the turrets.'

  As well as using local materials, Bess employed local craftsmen whenever she could. The most famous of these was Abraham Smith, the plasterer. Thirty years earlier Bess had written to Sir John Thynne, begging for the loan of the plasterer ^vho was 'flowering' the hall at Longleat. Then she discovered Abraham, who came from nearby Ashford, and no longer needed to ask for outside help. The use of plaster for interior decoration was a fairly recent innovation and the work was complicated and highly skilled. According to Harrison: Tn plastering of our fairest houses over our heads, we use to lay first a line or two of white mortar, tempered with hair, upon laths which are nailed one by another - sometimes upon reeds of wickers, more dangerous for fire - and finally cover all with the aforesaid plaster, which, beside the delectable whiteness of the stuff itself, is laid on so even and smoothly as nothing in my judgement can be done with more exactness.'

  Abraham Smith was more than just another skilled workman. He was an artist in his own right, and as such

  was a highly valued employee, paid by the quarter by Bess herself. One quarter's wages amounted to ^^3 . 6 . 8d. and in September, 1592, he received a present of forty shillings 'against his wedding'. Abraham more than repaid this generosity by the exquisite quality of his work at Hard-wick. He was equally at home as a mason and carpenter but it was in decorative plasterwork that he excelled. He was responsible for the famous frieze in the High Presence Chamber, for the moulded ceilings, the goddess Ceres in the Paved Room and the intricate strap-work designs over the hall chimneypiece. The great coat of arms in the hall is also his work.

  There were some spoilsports who disapproved of this kind of display. 'Everyone vaunts himself', complained John Stubbes, 'crying with open mouth, 'T am gentleman, I am worshipful, I am honourable, I am noble" and I cannot tell what. "Aly father was this, my father was that. I am come of this house, I am come of that. . ." ' The Countess of Shrewsbury would have paid no attention to such pusillanimous nonsense. Whatever her faults, Bess was not afflicted by false modesty and, anyway, for one of her dynastic ambitions the full - sometimes rather over-optimistic - representation of armorial bearings was a matter of important practical significance.

  Wherever Bess went in Hardwick Hall she was able to enjoy the fruits of her own planning and her own ingenuity. The staircase, for instance, does not, as one would expect, spring directly from the entrance hall. Instead, it is tucked away, almost secretively, leading upwards with a mysterious, seductive promise of further delights in store. Some people, such as Francis Bacon, had definite ideas on how a staircase should be constructed. 'Let the stairs to the upper rooms be upon a fair open newel - a pillar of stone or wood, where the steps terminate in a winding staircase - and finely railed in with images of wood, cast into a brass colour; and a very fair landing place at the

  top. But this to be if you do not appoint any of the lower roonis for a dining place of servants. For otherwise you shall have the ser^ants' dinner after your own: for the steam of it will come up as in a tunnel.'

  The thought of stale smells of cabbage wafting up the stairs at Hardwick is a vulgarity not to be contemplated. Neither is there any heavy, elaborately carved balustrade. Bess's staircase is simple to the point of starkness. The treads are of stone instead of the more usual timber and made very wide and shallow. Was this perhaps her sole concession to encroaching age ? On the half-landing there is a place to pause and rest, a place, too, to be quiet in, to have a private conversation before reaching the Long Gallery. The Gallery is 170 feet long - a place for taking exercise when the weather was bad, a place for entertaining, for gossiping or plotting in the window embrasures. The Long Gallery was a feature of all Elizabethan mansions, but typically enough none were as splendid as the Gallery at Hardwick.

  Here Thomas Acres, the marble mason, demonstrated his art on the elaborately carved chimneypieces. Acres was another master craftsman. Like Abraham Smith he was paid by the quarter and had two apprentices, Lawrence Dolphin and Miles Padly, w^orking under him. His was an exacting trade and his name appears frequently in the building accounts for 1596. Taid to Thomas Acres for his charge to Tutbury, twenty-one pence, and for shoeing his horse, threepence. His charges and his man's at Ashford, three shillings and fourpence for choosing of blackstone . . . Two stone of chalk for Thomas Acres to polish blackstone . . . Two pounds of rosin for Acres, four-pence. Haifa pound of wax, sixpence. For leather to polish blackstone with, fourpence and for a file to whet the blackstone saw, fourpence . . . Given the i oth of May unto Acres' wife in respect of her husband's device of sawing of blackstone to buy her a gown withal, forty shillings.'

  John Painter's wife also received twenty shillings to compensate her when she was robbed. Thoughtful gestures like these naturally endeared Bess to her workpeople. Although she was a hard mistress, demanding the highest standards, she was always ready to reward and appreciate good service.

  The ceiling and cornice in the Long Gallery were entrusted to another plasterer, John Marker, and the frieze was painted by John Painter - a name which may have been a convenient substitute for something un-pronouncably foreign. Painter occupied an important position, acting as a sort of general foreman as well as exercising his own craft, for which he had to be provided with a lot of special material. For example, four gallons of linseed oil at fourpence the gallon and a runlet to put the oil in. Two pounds of yellow ochre cost another four-pence and two hundredths of painting gold came to twelve shilUngs. He also needed a pound of red lead and six pounds of varnish which was bought at Nottingham at sixteen pence the pound, not to mention two pounds of verdigrease which cost six shillings and eightpence. Other exotic sounding commodities ordered by John Painter include fernando bark, brasill, blockwood, allorme, fusticke and coppris, but his list ends with a prosaic request for a pound of gum and two pounds of glue costing one and fivepence.

  So the work went on all through the 1590's, and a small army of masons, paviours and wallers, carpenters, joiners, sawyers, slaters and smiths, painters, plumbers and glaziers laboured to make Bess's dreams a reality. No detail of expenditure was too small to be recorded in her account books - half a thousand of twopenny nails for Abraham Smith, eightpence paid for making a cradle for the glazier, sevenpence for one horseload of lime, even a penny for mending pack saddles. The average wages of skilled men seem to have varied from between fourpence

  and sixpence a day, and again their names have been faithfully recorded. There was William Bromley, the carpenter, and his son Henry, another carpenter. Henry Neall, mason; John Ward, Thomas Beane, Thomas Durham, and William Plumb
er who brought up the water. There was Robert Gordley, who made the little lime kiln as big as the great and was paid two shillings for his labour. There were Walter Chellten and John Batley, Edward Worthington the slater, Richard Mallery and Gilbert Moore and a host of other homely, forgotten Englishmen, whose immortality lies in the beauty they made with their hands.

  When Bess and Arbella moved across from the Old Hall in 1597 some work was still going on, but Bess could congratulate herself on having created a setting fit for a future Queen. In planning Hard wick, Bess had retained some at least of the features she had known in the country houses of her youth. The Great Hall had once been the core of the great house, used for eating, living and entertaining - used by the whole household. But as 'The Family' gradually began to withdraw into separate quarters, the Great Hall began to decline. Bess was too much of a conservative to dispense with the Hall entirely, even though it was no longer used for its original purpose and became more of a place where visitors were greeted and servants lounged and gossiped and played cards. She also kept the minstrels' gallery and built it to act as a bridge, running across the Hall from one side of the house to the other.

  Hardwick was too far from London to make it a resort of important visitors in the normal course of events, but the great house was the natural centre of local society, where the Dowager Gountess could entertain her neighbours and those of her relatives with whom she was still on speaking terms. After Shrewsbury's death Bess had inevitably quarrelled with the new Earl, her old ally Gilbert Talbot and Gilbert's wife, her daughter Mary.

  I. Bess of Hardwick as Ladv C'avendish

  2. Sir William Cavendish

  3. Arbclla Stuart at two years old 4. Bess of Hardwick,

  Countess of Shrewsbui-'

  t). George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury

  7. Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity

  5. Queen Elizabeth

  8. Hardwick Hall: the West Front showing the pillared

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  main entrance with Bess's arms and initials on the skyhne

  g. Above: the Entrance Hall at Hardwick showing the Minstrels' Gallery

  10. Left: the main staircase at Hardwick

  . Top right: the Presence or High Great Chamber at Hardwick

  12. Bottom right: the Long Gallery

  13- The State Bedroom at Hardwick

  14. The mysterious 'Scots' Room at Hardwick

  Her youngest son, Charles, sided with the Talbots in this dispute and had fallen into similar disfavour. But William Cavendish, always his mother's favourite, spent a lot of time at Hardwick with his wife and family, and Bess remained on good terms with her eldest daughter Frances and her family.

  The Long Gallery was ideal for dancing, and it is not difficult to imagine Bess watching indulgently while her friends and the younger members of her family enjoyed themselves. Her thoughts would be far away, planning future triumphs, thinking of a day when a group of tired, mud-spattered men would ride their spent horses across the courtyard - of a day when Arbella, with Bess at her side, would stand in the Long Gallery waiting to receive the messengers who had come to tell her that Queen Elizabeth had named her to succeed to the English throne. Then Hardwick would indeed be a scene of brilliance and of splendour. The house, anchored like a great ship to the crest of the ridge, would blaze with light from end to end -the halls and galleries and chambers would be alive with stir and bustle and music. No distance would then be too far for the world to travel to pay its court to Bess of Hardwick's grand-daughter.

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  6 Cousin to King James

  Ever since the day of her birth in the autumn of 1575, Arbella Stuart had been the central pivot round which Bess of Hard wick's life revolved - the object of her love and care - the focus of her dynastic ambitions. In spite of all her other pre-occupations, Bess had lavished time, energy and money on the task of preparing her granddaughter for a great future. Now, as Arbella grew into womanhood, she was becoming important to certain other members of her family.

  King James of Scotland had a special reason for taking an interest in young Arbella Stuart. She was not merely his cousin, she was also his closest rival for the position of Queen Elizabeth's heir presumptive. As long as the Queen continued to refuse to name her successor, James could not be quite easy in his mind about the future and in December, 1591, he apparently decided it would be a good idea if he and Arbella got to know each other. 'Although the natural bonds of blood, my dear cousin,' he wrote, *be sufficient for the good entertainment of amity, yet will I not abstain from those common offices of letters.' James could no longer forbear to signify to Arbella the contentment he had received by hearing of her 'so virtuous behaviour', wherein he prayed her most heartily to continue. 'Not that I doubt thereof, he went on hastily, 'being certified of so full concourse of nature and nurriture, but that you may be the more encouraged to proceed in your virtuous demeanour, reaping the fruit of so honest estimation, the increase of your honour and joy, and your kindly affected friends, especially of me, whom it pleaseth most to see so virtuous and honourable scions arise of that race whereof we have both our descent. Now, hearing more certain notice of the place of your abode, I will the

  more frequently visit you by my letters, which I mean to be glad to do in person, expecting also to know from time to time of your estate by your own hand, which I look you will not weary to do, being first summoned by me, knowing how far I shall be pleased thereby.' But after this somewhat laborious attempt at cousinly amiability the correspondence lapsed - at least there is no record that Arbella ever replied.

  James was now in his mid-twenties and already married to Anne of Denmark. Why had he not taken Arbella as his wife ? Her claim would then have been merged in his -her competition removed. As for Arbella, her future w^ould have been assured, and although James might leave a good deal to be desired as a husband, she would have been spared much other unhappiness. The idea had been suggested. When Arbella was ten years old, an envoy had been sent up to Scotland by Francis Walsingham with instructions 'to deal particularly with the King about his marriage, and to recommend the King of Denmark's daughter to him or the Lady Arbella Stuart'. According to Mary Queen of Scots, Bess had also at one time hoped to match Arbella with James. But the plan came to nothing. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth had vetoed it: James and Arbella together might have become rather too powerful a partnership. James himself does not seem to have shown any enthusiasm, and finally settled on the Danish princess for reasons probably not unconnected with the size of her dowry. But he continued to take an anxious interest in Arbella's future. He was nagged by the fear that Elizabeth might decide on a foreign alliance for her, and the last thing James wanted to see was his cousin married to some powerful prince who would be in a position to enforce her claim. To try and prevent such a disaster, he put forward his kinsman Ludovic Stuart, on whom had devolved the dukedom (previously the earldom) of Lennox which had once belonged to Arbella's father. 'When I came hither

  first', reported Thomas Fowler to Lord Burghley from Scotland in 1589, *all the King's care was how he might procure the Lady Arbella for wife to the said Duke, and would have sent to the Queen's majesty therein; but asking my opinion I discouraged him. Then he thought to desire in general terms to have the bestowing of her. I answered that yet he was liker to succeed by dealing in special, for no doubt her Majesty would know how she should be bestowed.'

  James was by no means the only person interested in the question of how Arbella should be bestowed. As long as the English succession remained in doubt, her prospects would be discussed by statesmen in the capitals of Europe - whispered over in discreet Flemish taverns where Walsingham's agents and their informants gathered. In Paris and Munich, Brussels and Madrid, everyone was eager to know 'what reputation' the Lady Arbella was in -who was the latest candidate for her hand. Lord Burghley was informed that *the Duke of Lennox keeps an especial person in England to follow his causes there, and that still, by the advice
of great personages here (Scotland), he longs after Arbella'.

  In the reports which flowed in from English spies and undercover agents abroad during the last two decades of the century, Arbella's name keeps cropping up. 'I beseech you send me word whether you be not made acquainted with matters that one Barnes hath in handling, touching the Lady Arbella. I pray you send me her picture, for that there is some one very desirous to see it...' 'The Earl of Westmorland says that Barnes is treating a marriage between Lady Arbella and the Duke of Parma's son.' A spy in the household of the Adelantado of Castile, 'who on other occasions has given true reports', was asked 'what he had heard about the marriage of Arbella with the prince of Conde. He replied that although it was spoken of at first, he had heard no more about it . . .' In 1592 Reinold Boseley

  reported that 'Sir Edward Stafford's servant is employed from beyond sea to practise with Arbella about a marriage between her and the Duke of Parma's son. He was sent once before for her picture, and has been thrice in England this year . . .' According to 'J.B.' in Brussels, 'An English priest writing from Rome says that the Spanish ambassador has heard from France that the Queen will give Arbella in marriage to the French King and declare him her successor...' A month later 'J.B.' was writing again: 'The news that I told you before, sent in cipher in great secrecy, is now in the Roman Gazetteer, viz. that the marriage treaty between the French King and the great Duke (of Tuscany) cools, for the Queen of England has promised him a near cousin of her own, whom she loves much and whom she intends to make her heir and successor.' But the Venetian ambassador in Germany heard a different story. 'They say the Queen is very jealous of the prosperity of the French, her ancient rebels and foes', he told the Doge. 'Some weeks ago she told the Scottish ambassador that his most Christian Majesty had demanded in marriage Arbella, daughter of Charles Stuart . . . who is a pretender to the Crown no less than the King of Scotland. The Scottish ambassador complained to the French ambassador, who pointed out the improbability of this, as his Majesty had concluded a contract of marriage with Tuscany.' Elsewhere it was being said that Robert Cecil, old Lord Burghley's son 'intends to be king by marrying Arbella and now lacks only the name'. Others heard of a plan to marry her to the Earl of Hertford's younger son, and there was a 'report of a marriage between Duke Matthias (son of the Emperor Maximilian) and the Lady Arbella'.