of her father, and ultimately heiress to her brother, from whom she
inherited Hardwick and other estates. She was a most remarkable,
clever, and accomplished woman, and one of the most successful, in her
many marriages, in her acquisition of property, in the alliances of her
family, and in the erection of magnificent mansions; and no account
of Hardwick would be complete without, at all events, a brief notice
of her extraordinary and brilliant career. When very young—indeed,
it is said, when scarcely fourteen years of age—Elizabeth Hardwick
became the wife of Robert Barley, of Barley (or Barlow), in the
county of Derby, son of Arthur Barley, of Barley-by-Dronfield, by his
wife, Elizabeth Chaworth. This young gentleman, who was devotedly
attached to his young and charming wife, died within a few months
after their marriage, leaving his possessions to her. By this short
marriage there was no issue. Remaining a young, indeed childlike, widow
for some twelve years or thereabouts, she then married Sir William
Cavendish, as detailed in our former chapter, and so brought to him
the possessions of the Hardwicks, which she had inherited from her
father and brother, as well as those of the Barleys, acquired by her
first marriage. By Sir William Cavendish she had a family of three
sons and three daughters, viz., Henry Cavendish, of Tutbury, ancestor
of the Barons Waterpark; Sir William Cavendish, of Chatsworth, created
Baron Cavendish of Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire, and ancestor
of the present Ducal house of Devonshire; Sir Charles Cavendish, of
Bolsover Castle, ancestor of the Barons Cavendish, Viscounts Mansfield,
Earls, Marquises, and Dukes of Newcastle; Frances, wife of the Duke of
Kingston; Elizabeth, wife of Charles Stuart, Duke of Lennox, and mother
by him of Arabella Stuart; and Mary, wife of Gilbert, seventh Earl of
Shrewsbury.
[Illustration: _Hardwick Hall, from the Park._]
Sir William Cavendish died in 1557, and his lady was thus a second time
left a widow. A few years later she married her third husband, Sir
William St. Loe, Captain of the Guard to Queen Elizabeth, “owner of a
great estate, which,” as Bishop Kennett says, “in articles of marriage
she took care should be settled on her and her own heirs, in default of
issue; and, accordingly, having no child by him, she liv’d to enjoy his
whole estate, excluding his former daughters and brothers;” thus adding
his property to the already immense possessions she had acquired in her
own right and by her two former marriages. The death of Sir William
left her for the third time a widow; but she was soon after wooed and
won by George, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury, who had not long before lost
his countess, Gertrude Manners, daughter of the Earl of Rutland. Before
she would consent, however, to be united to the first peer of the
realm, she stipulated that he should give his daughter to her eldest
son, and that Gilbert Talbot, his second son (the eldest being already
married) should espouse her youngest daughter. These family nuptials
were solemnised at Sheffield on the 9th of February, 1567-8; her
daughter being at the time not quite twelve years old, and her husband
being under fifteen. Gilbert Talbot became seventh Earl of Shrewsbury.
The history of the events of her life while Countess of Shrewsbury
is that of the kingdom at large; for it was during this time, from
1568 to 1584, that Mary, Queen of Scots, was confided to the care of
the earl and his lady, and by them was kept a close prisoner. Into
these annals—known by every student of English history—it is not our
province now to enter. Suffice it to say, that the wearisome task,
imposed by a rigorous and arbitrary sovereign, was executed with a
zeal and with a diligence that were worthy a far better cause. In 1568
the earl received from his royal mistress the intimation of the trust
she was about to confide to him, and on the 20th of the following
January, 1569, the order for removing Mary from Bolton to Tutbury was
made. Here the poor captive was received by the Earl and Countess of
Shrewsbury; and here, kept a close prisoner, she remained for several
months, passing her time as best she might in needlework. “I asked
hir grace,” says White, “sence the wether did cutt of all exercises
abrode, howe passed the tyme within? She sayd that all the day she
wrought with hir nydill, and that the diversitie of the colours made
the worke seme lesse tedious, and contynued so long at it till veray
payn made hir to give over; and with that layd hir hand upon hir left
syde and complayned of an old grief newely increased there.” In June
the earl removed her to Wingfield Manor, in Derbyshire, now, like
Tutbury itself, a splendid ruin; and later on in the same year back
again to Tutbury. In 1570 Mary was removed to Chatsworth, and from
thence to Sheffield, also now a ruin. Here she remained, occasionally
staying at Chatsworth for some length of time. In 1584 she was again
removed to Wingfield, in 1585 to Tutbury, and in the following year to
Chartley, to Fotheringhay, and that fatal block, which will ever remain
a dark blot on the escutcheon of “good Queen Bess.” It is a somewhat
remarkable circumstance, touching the captivity of Mary under the
constableship of the Earl of Shrewsbury, that the places belonging to
him where she was confined, Sheffield Castle and Manor, Tutbury Castle,
Wingfield Manor, and Chartley (as well as Fotheringhay, where she was
executed), have all fallen to ruin, while Chatsworth and other places
which belonged to the countess still flourish.
It is not certain, although there is every probability that such was
the case, that Mary was ever at Hardwick. There can be but little doubt
she spent, at all events, a few days there; but this would, of course,
be at the old Hall, as will be shown later on.
The Earl of Shrewsbury, about whom strange rumours regarding his
conduct and intentions towards his captive at the time of his
discharge from his trust were afloat, and over whom a female domestic,
Eleanor Britton, had gained an injurious ascendency, afterwards, in
consequence, living a not very happy life with his second countess,
died in 1590; and thus “Bess of Hardwick” became, for the fourth time,
a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennett, “that, perhaps,
never fell to the lot of one woman, to be four times a creditable and
happy wife, to rise by every husband into greater wealth and higher
honours, to have a numerous issue by one husband only; to have all
those children live, and all, by her advice, be creditably disposed of
in her lifetime; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in
absolute power and plenty.”
The countess, besides being one of the most beautiful, accomplished,
and captivating women of her day, was, without exception, the most
energetic, business-like, and able of her sex. In architecture her
conceptions were grand; while in all matters pertaining to the Arts,
and to comforts and elegancies of life, she was unsurpassed. To
the old Hall of her fathers, where she was born and resided, she
made vast additions—indeed, so much so as almost to amount to a
recreation of the place; and she entirely planned and built three of
the most gorgeous edifices of the time—Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, and
Oldcotes—the first two of which were transmitted entire to the first
Duke of Devonshire. “At Hardwick she left the ancient seat of her
family standing, and at a small distance, still adjoining to her new
fabric, _as if she had a mind to preserve her Cradle, and set it by her
Bed of State_,” as Kennett so poetically expresses it.
Her “Bed of State”—the present Hall, erected by her—we have already
described. Her “Cradle”—the old Hall, wherein she was born and nursed,
but which is now in ruins—we shall describe presently.
The latter part of her long and busy life she occupied almost entirely
in building, and it is marvellous what an amount of real work—hard
figures and dry details—she got through; for it is a fact, abundantly
evidenced by the original accounts, remaining to this day, that not a
penny was expended on her buildings, and not a detail added or taken
away, without her special attention and personal supervision. Building
was a passion with her, and she indulged it wisely and well, sparing
neither time, nor trouble, nor outlay, to secure everything being done
in the most admirable manner. It is said, and it is so recorded by
Walpole, that the countess had once been told by a gipsy fortune-teller
that she would never die so long as she continued building, and she so
implicitly believed this, that she never ceased planning and contriving
and adding to her erections; and it is said that at last she died in a
hard frost, which totally prevented the workmen from continuing their
labours, and so caused an unavoidable suspension of her works. Surely
the fortune-teller here was a “wise woman” in more senses than one;
for it was wise and cunning in her to instil such a belief into the
countess’s mind, and thus insure a continuance of the works by which so
many workmen and their families gained a livelihood, and by which later
generations would also benefit.
[Illustration: _The Old Hall at Hardwick._]
Besides Hardwick, Chatsworth (for which a good part of the old Hall at
Hardwick was, at a later period, removed), Oldcotes, and other places,
the countess founded and built the Devonshire Almshouses at Derby, and
did many other good and noble works. She died, full of years and full
of honours and riches, on the 23rd of February, 1607, and was buried in
All Saints’ Church, Derby, under a stately tomb which she had erected
during her lifetime, and on which a long Latin inscription is to be
seen.
Of the countess—the “Bess of Hardwick,” who was one of the greatest
of the subjects of that other “Bess” who sat on the throne of
England—portraits are still preserved at Hardwick, and show that she
must have been, as Dugdale says of her, “faire and beautiful.” Whatever
faults of temper or of disposition she had—and she is said to have
had plenty of both—she had good qualities which, perhaps, outbalanced
them; and she, at all events, founded one of the most brilliant
houses—that of Cavendish—which this nation has ever produced.
The old Hall at Hardwick, of the ruins of which we give an engraving,
was, in its palmy days, a place of considerable extent and beauty,
and from its charming situation—being built on the edge of a rocky
eminence overlooking an immense tract of country—must have been a most
desirable residence. In it a long line of the ancestors of the countess
were born, and lived, and died; and in it she too was born and lived,
as maiden, as four times wife, and four times widow. In it, if Mary,
Queen of Scots, was ever at Hardwick, she must have been received, and
in it the larger part of the great works of its remarkable owner must
have been planned. It was her “home,” and her favourite residence; and
it is said that when she began to build the new Hall—which, as we have
said, closely adjoins the old one—she still intended making the older
building her abode, and keeping the new one for state receptions and
purposes of hospitality. This plan, however, if ever laid down, was
ultimately discarded, and the old mansion, after all the improvements
which had been made in it, was in great measure stripped and dismantled
for the requirements of the new Hall, and of Chatsworth.
A tolerably good idea of the extent of the ruins of the old Hall will
be gained from our engraving, which shows, perhaps, its most imposing
side, with the green sward in front. In its interior, several rooms,
in a more or less state of dilapidation, still remain, and can be
seen by the visitor. The kitchens, with their wide chimneys, and the
domestic offices on the ground-floor, amply testify to the almost regal
hospitality which must at one time have characterized the place; while
the chambers, the state-rooms, and the other apartments for the family,
testify to the magnificence of its appointments.
The principal remaining apartment—and of this we give an
illustration—is at the top of that portion of the building which
overlooks the valley. It is called the “Giants’ Chamber,” taking its
name from the two colossal figures in Roman armour, which they term
_Gog_ and _Magog_, in raised plaster-work over the fire-place. This
pargetting is bold in the extreme, and in very high relief, and the two
figures, between which is a remarkably free and artistic winged figure
with a bow, must have had a wondrous effect as they frowned down upon
the gay throng assembled in olden times on the rush-strewn floors. The
room, which has been wainscoted, is 55 feet 6 inches in length, 30 feet
6 inches in width, and 24 feet 6 inches in height; and of it Bishop
Kennett thus speaks: “That old house has one room in it of such exact
proportion, and such convenient lights, that it has been thought fit
for a pattern of measure and contrivance to the most noble Blenheim.”
[Illustration: _Interior of the Old Hall._]
In other apartments, pargetting of the same general character as
distinguishes the rooms in Hardwick Hall itself is to be seen over
the fire-places. In one place a figure or two; in another, animals of
the chase; in a third, a moated and fortified building; in another,
armorial bearings; and in yet another, the same motto—now from the
dangerous state of the walls and floors not discernible—which occurs
on the fine old table described in our last—
“The redolent smell of eglantyne
We stagges exault to the devyne”—
will be noticed, and all of the highest order of workmanship. Of the
moated and fortified building just alluded to, we give an engraving
on our initial letter, and beneath it, we have added the arms of the
present noble house of Cavendish.
We have, on a previous page, spoken of the marvellous aptitude for
business, and the careful attention to even the minutest details of
expenditure, &c., evinced by the Countess of Shrewsbury, and we purpose
now to make this a little more evident by giving some particulars of
the erection of Hardwick Hall built by her.
The Hall, as it now stands—for it is, in every essential part, just
as the countess left it—was, it is thought, commenced about the year
1576, and finished in 1599. The book of accounts of the wages paid is
very curious and interesting, and gives the names of all the various
wallers, ditchers, stone breakers, labourers, &c., with the gardeners,
thatchers, moss-getters, &c., employed by the countess between January,
1576, and December, 1580. The accounts are made up every fortnight
during that time, and all the items are carefully ticked off with a
cross by the countess, and each fortnight’s accounts signed by her. Of
one of the signatures we have engraved a fac-simile: it reads—“thre
ponde hyght pence. E. SHROUESBURY.”
[Illustration]
Of the items of which this fortnight’s accounts, amounting only to £3
0_s._ 8_d._ are composed, we copy the following:—
“This fortnight work begane one Munday beinge the xxjth of January,
viz.:—
George Hickete xj days v_s._ vj_d._
his mane xj days iij_s._. viij_d._
and his boy xj days iij_s._ viij_d._
Robert bucknail vj days ij_s._
his mane vj days xviij_d._”
In the park are some remarkably fine old oak and other forest trees,
round which almost countless herds of deer may be seen browsing. Some
of these trees are of gigantic size, of considerable girth, and of
great beauty. Our engraving on page 139 gives a distant view of the
Hall, with some of these fine trees in the foreground.
[Illustration: _Hault Hucknall Church._]
HAULT HUCKNALL (Haute Hucknall, as it is called in the early registers,
and Ault Hucknall, as it is now not unfrequently spelt) is the
parish in which Hardwick Hall stands; and it is therefore necessary,
especially as the two places are intimately connected in more ways than
one, to say a few words about its church and monuments. The church,
which is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, formerly belonged to the
Abbey of Beauchief, but was, with the impropriate rectory, granted
in 1544 to Francis Leake, from whom it passed to the Cavendishes, and
now belongs to the Marquis of Hartington. The church contains some
interesting remains of Norman and of Early English work, among which
are the aisle under the tower, the window in the west end of the north
aisle, and the old plain font,—the font now in use having been brought
here from Bamford Church in the same county. In the south wall of the
chancel is a pretty little piscina, and there are aumbries in the north
aisle and in the Hardwick Chapel. At these places it is supposed altars
formerly stood, and one of the altar-stones, with the five crosses
emblematic of the five wounds of our Saviour, may be seen forming one
of the paving-stones of the floor near the altar-rails. The porch has a
vaulted stone-roof, and in the nave are remains of wall-paintings.
Some portions of an elegant carved-oak screen which formerly separated
the Hardwick Chapel from the south aisle are still preserved, as are
also several of the original massive oak benches. In the east window
of the Hardwick Chapel, as shown in our engraving, the stained glass
represents our Saviour on the cross, with the figures of the Virgin
Mary and of St. John, &c. There are also some kneeling figures, and the
arms of Hardwick and of Savage.
Among the monuments in this interesting church are some deserving
especial attention. In the floor of the chancel is a monumental brass,
the figure belonging to which is unfortunately lost, commemorative
of Richard Pawson, 1536, sometime vicar of the parish, bearing the
following inscription in black letter:—
“Orate pro aia domini Ricardi Pawson Vicarii
Istius qui obiit die qua Vocavit eū d̄ns post an̄m
d̄ni millesimum quingentesimū tricesimū sextum
cujus aiē ppicietur deus. A.”
At the east end of the Hardwick Chapel, beneath the window, as shown
in the engraving on the next page, is an elegant tomb, of Derbyshire
marble, to the memory of Anne, daughter and co-heiress of Henry
Kighley, of Kighley, in Yorkshire, and first wife of the second Sir
William Cavendish, created, after her death, Baron Cavendish of
Hardwick, and Earl of Devonshire. She was the mother of William, second
Earl of Devonshire, and Gilbert Cavendish, author of “Horæ Subsecivæ,”
Frances, wife of Lord Maynard, and James, Mary, and Elizabeth, who all
died young.
The most interesting tomb, however, in this pretty church, is that of
Thomas Hobbes, who is best known as “Hobbes, of Malmesbury,” or as
“Leviathan Hobbes.”
[Illustration: _The Grave of Hobbes of Malmesbury in Hault Hucknall
Church._]
The monument to this great “philosopher” and free-thinker is a plain
slab of stone in the Hardwick Chapel—the raised slab shown on the
floor in this engraving—which bears the following inscription:—
CONDITA HIC SUNT OSSA
THOMÆ HOBBES,
MALMESBURIENSIS,
QVI PER MULTOS ANNOS SERVIVIT
DUOBUS DEVONIÆ COMITIBUS
PATRI ET FILIO
VIR PROBUS, ET FAMA ERUDITIONIS
DOMI FORISQUE BENE COGNITUS
OBIIT ANN^o DOMINI 1679,
MENSIS DECEMBRIS DIE 4º
ÆTATIS SUÆ 91.
Before speaking of Hobbes and his connection with Hardwick, where
he died, it will be well to note that the parish registers of Hault
Hucknall commence in the year 1662, and that the entry regarding the
burial of Hobbes, for the copy of which we have to express our thanks
to the Rev. Henry Cottingham, the respected vicar of the parish, is as
follows:—
“Anno Regni } 31 Law. Waine, { James Hardwick,
Caroli Sucund } _Vicar_. { Thomas Whitehead,
Anno dom. 1679. _Churchwardens_.
“Hardwick | Thomas Hobbs Magnus Philosophus,
Sepul. fuit et affidavit in Lana
Sepoliendo exhibit. Decem. 6” (or 8).
Thomas Hobbes[28] was born at Malmesbury on Good Friday, 1588, in
the year of “the Spanish Armada,” and it is said that his birth was
hastened by his mother’s terror of the enemy’s fleet, and that a
timidity with which through life he was afflicted was thus induced. He
and fear, he was wont to say, “were born together.” His being born on
Good Friday has also been turned to account in the way of accounting
for his wonderful precocity as a child, and his subsequent intellectual
progress. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Oxford, and there made
such progress that before he was twenty years old he was taken into
the service of Sir William Cavendish, who had a few years before been
created Baron Cavendish of Hardwick, as tutor to his sons, Gilbert,
who died before attaining his majority, and William, who became second
Earl of Devonshire. With the latter young nobleman, who married, as
already narrated, Christian, daughter of Lord Bruce, of Kinloss, Hobbes
travelled through France and Italy. At his death he left, besides
other issue, William, Lord Cavendish, who succeeded him as Earl of
Devonshire, and who, at that time, was only in the tenth year of his
age. This Lord Hardwick was, as his father had been before him, placed
under the tuition of Hobbes, “who instructed him in the family for
three years, and then, about 1634, travelled with him as his governor
into France and Italy, with the longest stay in Paris for all the
politer parts of breeding. He returned in 1637, and, when he soon after
came of age, his mother (Christian, Countess of Devonshire), delivered
up to him his great houses in Derbyshire all ready furnished.”
With this nobleman (who married Elizabeth, daughter of the Earl of
Salisbury, and was succeeded by his son, afterwards created Duke of
Devonshire) Thomas Hobbes remained for the rest of his life. “The earl
for his whole life entertained Mr. Hobbes in his family as his old
tutor rather than as his friend or confidant; he let him live under his
roof in ease and plenty and his own way, without making use of him in
any publick or so much as domestick affairs. He would often express an
abhorrence of some of his principles in policy and religion; and both
he and his lady would frequently put off the mention of his name and
say ‘He was an humourist, and that nobody could account for him.’”
Of Hobbes’s works—of his “De Cive,” his “Leviathan,” his “Elémens
Philosophiques de Citoyen,” his “Behemoth,” or his hundred other
writings—it is, of course, not here our province to speak; but one
of his smaller productions, because of its connection with the family
of his noble patron, his “De Mirabilibus Pecci,” may claim a passing
word. This is a Latin poem descriptive of the “Wonders of the Peak, in
Derbyshire”—the same subject which Charles Cotton, later on, wrote
upon in his “Wonders of the Peak”—wherein Hobbes describes a tour
which he, with a friend, took on horseback, starting from Chatsworth,
where he was residing, and visiting Pilsley, Hassop, Hope, Castleton,
Peak Forest, Eldon Hole, the Ebbing and Flowing Well, Buxton, Poole’s
Hole, Chelmorton, Sheldon, Ashford, and so back to Chatsworth, quaintly
describing all he saw on his journey.
If the earl was attached to Hobbes, he was at least amply repaid by the
devotion and fondness his old tutor showed to him and to his family.
Indeed, so intimate was the old man with the family of his patron,
that whenever the earl removed from one of his houses to another,
Hobbes accompanied them, even to the last of his long life. “There is a
tradition in the family,” said Bishop Kennett, in 1707, “of the manners
and customs of Mr. Hobbes somewhat observable. His professed rule of
health was to dedicate the morning to his health and the afternoon
to his studies. And therefore at his first rising he walk’d out and
climb’d any hill within his reach; or, if the weather was not dry, he
fatigued himself within doors by some exercise or other to be in a
sweat; recommending that practice upon this opinion, that an old man
had more moisture than heat, and therefore by such motion heat was to
be acquired and moisture expelled. After this he took a comfortable
breakfast, and then went round the lodgings to wait upon the earl, the
countess, and the children, and any considerable strangers, paying some
short address to all of them.” ... “Towards the end of his life he had
very few books, and those he read but very little, thinking he was now
only to digest what formerly he had fed upon. If company came to visit
him, he would be free in discourse till he was pressed or contradicted,
and then he had the infirmities of being short and peevish, and
referring to his writings for better satisfaction. His friends, who had
the liberty of introducing strangers to him, made these terms with them
before their admission—that they should not dispute with the old man,
nor contradict him.”