Mistress of Hardwick Read online

  But while the rumours multiplied and the gossip spread, other plans were being laid for Arbella. In July, 1597, Thomas North, one of the Earl of Essex's foreign correspondents, wrote from Munich '. . . This doctor Turner

  and the Spanish legate have had conference with me touching Mistress Arbella, how beautiful, how virtuous and how inclined; yea, they seem how some plot may be laid for her conveyance out of England. Therein I answered fitting their humours.'

  This was not the first time such information had reached England. The English Catholics in exile and the missionary priests - shock troops trained at the seminaries at Douai and Rome, who willingly risked a horrible death to win their fellow countrymen back to the Faith - saw in Arbella, a young woman, unmarried and still malleable, a potentially useful tool in their campaign to restore the Catholic religion in England. Early in the 1590's the confession of a captured Jesuit priest indicated the existence of a plot to convey Arbella *by stealth out of England into Flanders, which, if it be done, I promise you she shall shortly after visit Spain'. This particular ploy seems to have been connected with an ambitious scheme by Sir William Stanley, a prominent figure among the English exiles, to kill the Queen and 'enter the realm with a number of men'. It was apparently hoped that 'the Queen being thus suddenly taken away, all in England would fall together by the ears, and extreme confusion ensue; and that Sir William Stanley's party would be able to prevail'.

  The Council took the matter seriously enough to send a warning to Bess and she responded with characteristic vigour. 'My good Lord', she wrote to Burghley, 'I was at the first much troubled to think that so wicked and mischievous practises should be devised to entrap my poor Arbell and me, but I put my trust in the Almighty, and will use such dihgent care as I doubt not but to prevent whatsoever shall be attempted by any wicked persons against the poor child ... I will not have any unknown or suspected person to come to my house. Upon the least suspicion that may happen here, any way, I shall give advertisement to your lordship. I have little resort to me;

  my house is furnished with sufficient company. Arbell walks not late; at such time as she shall take the air, it shall be near the house and well attended on. She goeth not to anybody's house at all. I see her almost every hour in the day. She lieth in my bedchamber. If I can be more precise than I have been, I will be. I am bound in nature to be careful for Arbell. I find her loving and dutiful to me, yet her own good and safety is not dearer to me, nor more by me regarded, than to accomplish her Majesty's pleasure and that which I think may be for her service. I would rather wish many deaths than to see this or any such like wicked attempt to prevail.'

  Bess assured Lord Burghley that she was keeping a sharp look out for ^seminaries' or similarly suspicious characters, and would not allow 'such traitorous and naughty persons' to be harboured near any of her houses, for they were 'the likest instruments to put a bad matter in execution'. She had had some doubts about 'one Morley who hath attended on Arbell and read to her for the space of three years and a half'. Morley had apparently claimed that Arbella had promised him an annuity and been unwise enough to show himself 'to be much discontented' when this did not materialise. Bess was not standing for that, 'and withal having some cause to be doubtful of his forwardness in religion, took occasion to part with him. After he was gone from my house', she went on, 'and all his stuff carried from hence, the next day he returned again, very importunate to serve without standing upon any recompense, which made me more suspicious and the more willing to part with him.' 'I will have those that shall be sufficient in learning, honest and well-disposed, so near as I can', wrote her ladyship firmly.

  The danger that Arbella might be spirited away and used as a figurehead by one of the factions, native and foreign, now beginning to jockey for power as the Elizabethan era drew towards its close was no illusion. There

  were a number of Catholic families among Bess's neighbours where a determined group of conspirators could have found shelter, and certain members of her own clan were not entirely above suspicion. Two women, one in her late seventies, the other barely out of her teens, living alone in a remote country district might have looked easy prey to some people (at least to those not personally acquainted with the Dowager Countess of Shrewsbury), but Bess was to prove more than a match for any would-be kidnappers. From now on the unfortunate Arbella, guarded day and night, became little more than her grandmother's prisoner.

  Far away in London the uncertain future continued to be discussed above her head. Everyone had their own ideas, their own hopes and fears. John Harington, Elizabeth's 'saucy godson', writing in the year after Essex's execution, tells us something of what the atmosphere was like at Court. *My Lady Arbella also now began to be spoken of and much commended, as she is well worthy for many noble parts, and the Earl of Essex in some glancing speeches gave occasion to have both himself and her honourable friends to be suspected of that which I suppose was no part of their meaning. But . . . the policy of the State thinking it time to have a heavier counterpoise against the King of Scots, a competitor grown now so famous over Europe for wisdom . . . the Infanta of Spain was entertained with many kind messages, goodly jewels and tokens, rebatoes and ruffes and such pretty puppets.' But now, wrote Harington, this Spanish conceit was 'grown out of request' and 'all is suddenly turned French'. So much so that 'some wise and honest men fear there is some strange matter in working ... I pray God all turn to the best', sighed honest John Harington, 'but I like it not.' As every good Englishman knew, 'the kindness and courtesy of France is often dangerous but ever costly to England'.

  The Spanish Infanta, daughter of Philip II, who could

  trace her descent from John of Gaunt, was naturally the favourite candidate of the Spanish bloc and their allies; although others of varying degrees of implausibility were suggested in a report prepared for the King of Spain based on 'information' and advice from the English Jesuit Father Persons. 'As your Majesty will not take the country for yourself, ran Person's report, 'they (the English Catholics) propose in the first place, for the succession, the Infanta Isabel; in the second, the Duke of Savoy, who being a widower might marry Arbella Stuart, who is a Catholic and has many friends; in the third place, the Duke of Parma or his son; in the fourth place, the son of the Earl of Worcester, an English Catholic of good parts, who, although he has no claim to the Crown, might marry the daughter of the Earl of Derby.'

  But while the Spanish Council of State solemnly deliberated; while James fretted in his bleak northern capital; while Arbella paced the walks at Hardwick and Bess waited impatiently for news, the oracle herself remained inscrutable. The ageing Queen Elizabeth was still in excellent health and had no intention of putting either James or Bess out of their misery. Arbella was a useful pawn in the political game at chess. She could be dangled before this or that foreign prince as occasion demanded. If James showed signs of getting out of hand, the Queen could always suddenly discover a marked preference for her young kinswoman in Derbyshire. It suited her, though, to keep Arbella at Hardwick, where she would have little opportunity to make a party for herself and where, of course, Bess had to bear the expense and responsibility of keeping her safe.

  The months dragged by and Bess began to wonder if the hard work, good money and careful planning she had invested in her grand-daughter were going to be wasted after all.

  No opportunity was missed of propitiating the Queen

  with dutiful letters and expensive gifts and in January, 1600 one of Elizabeth's ladies wrote to the young Countess of Shrewsbury: *I have . . . presented your ladyship's New Year's gift, together with my Lady Arbella's, to the Queen's majesty, who hath very graciously accepted thereof, and taken an especial liking to my Lady Arbella's.' In spite of her quarrel with Bess, Mary Talbot kept a watching brief on Arbella's interests at Court and her informant's letter continued, 'Whereas in former letters of your ladyship's, your desire was that her Majesty would have that respect of my Lady Arbella that she might be carefully bestowed to her Ma
jesty's good liking . . . her Majesty told me that she would be careful of her, and withal returned a token to my Lady Arbella, which is not so good as I could wish it, nor so good as her ladyship deserveth.'

  This was cold comfort. Arbella had nov/ passed her twenty-first birthday and she was not even betrothed. Then, in March, 1602, the horizon brightened briefly. A French alliance was being actively discussed and a French Duke was to pay a State visit to London. 'The arrival of the Duke of Nevers is daily expected,' wrote a Jesuit priest to Father Persons. 'The Earl of Northumberland is appointed to meet him. Many of the most rich hangings are fetched out of the Tower to adorn the Court and great preparations made for his honourable entertainment. The general opinion is that he cometh out of curiosity to see the Court and country, but in special I hear he desireth secretly a sight of the Lady Arbella, for that some great person here, bearing the French in hand [tells him], that it shall be in his power to dispose of the succession after her Majesty's death, by preferring whom he please to match with the said lady. This duke, albeit a married man, being a great favourite, is fed in hope thereof for himself-if his wife die - or some friend, and thereupon under colour of some other embassy undertaketh this voyage.

  How probable this may be, I leave to your consideration . . . Only this much I can assure you, that the Lady Arbella is shortly to come to London.'

  The Duke of Nevers came to London and was suitably entertained. The Lady Arbella stayed at Hardwick, not allowed to speak to anyone but a carefully chosen group of attendants and her grandmother's friends. The Queen continued to ignore her existence. In Catholic circles abroad her prestige slumped as word got round that my Lady Arbella was a notable Puritan. All the same, in 1602, the Lady Arbella was still being regarded by some people as a feasible alternative to James. She had the advantage of being native born - the English prejudice against 'strangers' was notorious - and there were those who would have rallied to her support, given the right kind of encouragement. But secluded in Derbyshire, she had no popular following. It is probably no exaggeration to say that the great majority of the English people did not even know of her existence and, as John Harington remarked, 'we are not like to be governed by a lady shut up in a chamber from all her subjects and most of her servants, and seen but on holy days'. Arbella suffered from a worse disadvantage than this. She had inherited none of her grandmother's robust commonsense, none of Bess's opportunism - that unerring instinct for when to act, when to take a risk, when to remain meek and passive. Arbella, to her sorrow, was all Stuart with all the fatal Stuart capacity for self-delusion. Her visit to Court in 1587 is said to have ended in disgrace. According to a story picked up by the Venetian ambassador, she had 'displayed such haughtiness that she soon began to claim the first place; and one day on going into chapel she herself took precedence of all the princesses who were in her Majesty's suite; nor would she retire though repeatedly told to do so by the Master of the ceremonies, for she said that by God's will that was the very lowest place that could possibly be given her. At

  this the Queen in indignation, ordered her back to her private life without so much as seeing her before she took her leave, or indeed ever afterwards.' This item of gossip, related many years after the event, may well be exaggerated and inaccurate in details but it has an underlying ring of truth. It would have been natural enough if a child of eleven had let the excitement of the occasion go to her head - but it was a mistake that a child in Arbella Stuart's position could not afford to make; a mistake that Bess of Hardwick would not have made, even at that age, and nor would Elizabeth Tudor.

  J This Costly Countess

  By the end of the 1590's Bess of Hardwick, now approaching her eightieth birthday, was comfortably settled in her splendid new house with her grand-daughter Arbella, her son \'illiam Cavendish, William's wife and children, and a staff of between sixty and seventy servants. This was housekeeping on a grand scale, and even when the family dined alone formal ceremony was punctiliously observed.

  There were two meals a day at Hardwick; one at eleven in the morning, the other at five o'clock in the afternoon, but the ritual of laying the table and serving the food - a scaled down version of the ceremony observed at Court -started a full hour beforehand. It involved the Yeomen of the Ewer, Pantry, Buttery and Cellar, the Gentleman Carver, the Sewer and several waiters, all under the supervision of the Gentleman Usher.

  Ceremonial played an important part in Elizabethan life and there were sound practical reasons for much of this apparently time-wasting procedure. For one thing, the habit of employing large numbers of 'gentlemen' servants - often poor relations of the noble families they served, or the penniless younger sons of small landowners and squires - gave a home, a regular occupation and a start in life to a restless, ambitious section of the population which might otherwise have got into various kinds of dangerous mischief. The exaggerated deference paid to the heads of great households also helped to bolster authority in an age when the enforcement of law and order lay almost entirely in the hands of the magistrates - themselves masters of households. Tn pompous ceremonies a secret of government doth much consist', wrote a far-seeing contemporary, and the Elizabethan establishment, from the Queen downwards, fully exploited this simple axiom.

  Under the eye of its formidable mistress, the complicated machinery of Hardwick Hall ran on oiled wheels, but for Arbella Stuart the atmosphere of effortless luxury which surrounded her can only have served to emphasise the sterility of her life. Apart from occasional visits to relations, Arbella had spent all her life in Derbyshire, waiting for a sign from the Queen that she intended to recognise her as heir to the throne; or even that Elizabeth would arrange a suitable marriage for her young cousin. Time had passed and no sign had come. Arbella, now in her late twenties, remained with her grandmother, still being treated like a child, financially dependent on Bess and watched day and night in case she became the focus of some plot against the Crown.

  Studious by nature, Arbella sought solace in her books, her 'dead counsellors' as she called them. She passed some of the endless, empty days by learning Greek and Hebrew and reading with the Reverend John Starkey, tutor to her Uncle William's sons. But she was a high-spirited girl, brought up to beheve in the greatness of her destiny and not surprisingly she was finding life at Hardwick more and more intolerable. She told John Starkey that *she thought of all the means she could to get from home, by reason she was hardly used in despiteful and disgraceful words . . . which she could not endure; and this seemed not feigned'. Starkey was to declare, 'for oftentimes, being at her book, she would break forth into tears'. Starkey, moved by Arbella's distress, 'promised that, if it would please her to use my service, I would deliver her letters or messages while I stayed in town'. The tutor was also anxious to escape from Hardwick. He had been with the Cavendishes for ten years 'in servitude and homage', as he put it, in expectation of a living which Wilham continued to withhold. All the same, Starkey was very reluctant to risk offending the family and seems to have regretted his impulsive offer of help. But Arbella promised

  that in return she would employ him as her chaplain *if she were appointed to another place', and when Starkey left for London in the summer of 1602, he had agreed to do some errands for her. Before his departure, Arbella told him that Bess had threatened to take away what money and jewels she had, 'but she had prevented her by sending them away into Yorkshire'. She also hinted that 'she had good friends and more than all the world knew of.

  While Arbella and Starkey were making their arrangements over the study table, the daily round at Hardwick continued its accustomed pattern about them. Servants in an Ehzabethan household played an intrinsic part in their employers' Hves, acting as friends and confidants, companions and entertainers, but they themselves were organised according to a strict hierarchy. The Steward headed the list. He was his master's agent and right-hand man in the management of the household and estate, and occupied a position of considerable power and influence. The Steward had 'to see
what demesnes of his lord is most meet to be taken into his hands so well for meadow, pasture, as arable, and those to be employed to his lord's best profit. He is also to make choice of such bailiffs of husbandry for his lord's profit as shall be able to buy and sell with good discretion . . . He is to receive all sums of money of the Receiver General for the making of all provisions, so well ordinary as extraordinary, and for reparations, to pay bills of allowances and servants' wages . . . Besides, his hand is warrant to the Receiver for what sums soever for his lord's affairs, and he is forthwith to acquaint his lord, so often as conveniently he may, with the state of his household, and of his treasure and how it is laid forth and what he hath in remain . . .'

  Immediately below the Steward came the Comptroller of the Household and the Receiver General or Treasurer. The Gentleman Usher was concerned with 'governing all things above stairs', and his underlings included the