“A GREAT GENTLEMAN”
The fourth husband of “Building Bess” was no less a person than George
Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. Though the name does not appear in the
great roll of the prominent soldiers at the battle of Hastings, the
first Talbot—then Talebot—of whom anything noteworthy is recorded, won
the first title, a barony, for his family at the close of the career of
William the First. Thenceforward the Talbots march magnificently through
the history of England—great gentlemen, castellans, commanders,
governors, judges, lords-lieutenant. They wielded authority in Wales,
fought in France, Scotland, Ireland, Castile, occasionally fell under
suspicion of conspiracy, and emerged without hurt. Once and once only
was their pride humbled in the dust, when the hitherto invincible
tactics of John Talbot, the greatest general of his day, the chief glory
of all the Talbots before and since, were overcome by the generalship of
the Maid of Orleans. It must have hit the great general very hard to
find himself in prison on French soil for three long years at the hands
of a woman. Neither force nor strategy freed him, but mere money. He had
married a rich wife—heiress to all “Hallamshire,”[8] including the
castle of Sheffield. In 1432 he agreed to pay a large ransom, and
hurried back to England, bursting with purpose and revenge. Instantly he
raised a fresh force, rejoined the English army in France, and fought
with such terrible and triumphant results that his name, like that of
Bonaparte, figured for generations as a bogy with which to scare
fractious children. It was this tremendous campaign which won for his
race the great earldom of Shrewsbury.
George, the sixth earl, the great gentleman now dealt with, inherited
all the administrative qualities of his ancestors, though he was less
intimately associated with war than his father Francis. It was well also
that his duties should have been to a greater extent civil and defensive
than military and aggressive. For he had stepped into a great
inheritance, and his burdens, as householder and county magnate, were
stupendous. The manors and castles of Worksop, Welbeck, Bolsover,
Sheffield, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Rufford were all his. He came into
his own in 1560. The greatest gift he received in that year was the
Garter which the Queen bestowed on him. Five years later he was
appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the counties of York, Nottingham, and
Derby. Subsequently the post of High Steward in the place of the unhappy
fifth Duke of Norfolk was added to his honours. In the third year of his
lieutenancy the affair with Bess Hardwick was in full swing.
From both sides it was a reasonable and profitable alliance. He was a
widower with sons and daughters who needed mothering. Her children
needed a father. There was wealth enough to provide for all. Yet
possibly family dissensions might arise amongst the young folk. But
against this risk my lady had devised a splendid scheme of
protection—the intermarriage of some of the children. They were but
children, the two couples—Gilbert Talbot, the fifteen-year-old second
son of the Lord-Lieutenant and Mary Cavendish, and the bride’s son Henry
Cavendish, to whom Grace Talbot, the Earl’s daughter, was given as wife.
The aforesaid childish marriages were settled and carried through
forthwith. Shortly afterwards the wedding of their elders took place
with due magnificence, while the bride, besides her Cavendish and Barlow
properties, brought to her fourth husband the Gloucestershire estate of
St. Loe.
If the Cavendish epoch had been one of security and happiness, the
Shrewsbury epoch promised to be one of sheer brilliance and delight. It
is true there were one or two dissentient voices. Said a certain John
Hall, under subsequent examination upon his arrest for Scottish
conspiracy, that, though he served as a gentleman of the Earl’s
household for some years, he so misliked my Lord’s marriage with this
wife, as divers others of his friends did, that he resigned his post.
Yet the Queen and her circle approved. That was the main thing. The
following letter from a kinsman at Court emphasises the fact:—[9]
“May it please you to understand that Mr. Wingfield hath delivered your
venison to the Queen’s Majesty with my lord’s most humble commission,
and your Ladyship with humble thanks from both your honours for her
great goodness.
“[I] assure your Ladyship of my faith, her Majesty did talk one long
hour with Mr. Wingfield of my Lord and you so carefully, that, as God is
my judge, I think your honours have no friend living that could have
more consideration, nor more show love and great affection. In the end
she asked when my Lady meant to come to the Court: he answered he knew
not: then said she, ‘I am assured if she might have her own will she
would not be long before she would see me.’ Then said, ‘I have been glad
to see my Lady Saint-Loe, but now more desirous to see my Lady
Shrewsbury.’ ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘my Lady hath known my good opinion of
her; and thus much I assure you, there is no Lady in this land that I
better love and like.’ Mr. Batleman can more at large declare unto your
honour. And so with most humble commendations to my very good Lord, I
wish to you both as the Queen’s Majesty doth desire; and so take my
leave in humble wise. From St. John’s the 21st of October.
“Your honours to command,
“E. WINGFIELD.”
There was certainly nothing whatever in this marriage to upset
Elizabeth’s plans. Indeed, it really paved the way for her schemes and
made it easier for her to utilise not only the Earl’s wealth, his
authority and position, but all his country seats in turn for the
greater security of her life and throne.
My Lady Shrewsbury was forty-eight, my Lord had been but eight years an
Earl. Time had not yet marked on his face the lines of anxiety and care
which the next twenty-three years were to bring him. He was at the
zenith of his career, and the Queen hinted mysteriously that ere long
she would show him still more emphatic proofs of her trust and affection
in so splendid a servitor. It is in a very happy and devoted vein that
he writes love letters from Court just after marriage to his second
bride, in which he addresses her as “sweet none.”[10]
It is regrettable that these letters to his “none” are not more
numerous. Otherwise the Earl’s correspondence all his life was enormous,
and the masses of letters which mirror contemporary history and his
duties in connection with them are nearly all comprised in that rich
heritage of manuscript known as the Talbot Papers. Cecil is his constant
correspondent. As Lord-Lieutenant of three such great counties he would
naturally be kept _au courant_ of great happenings. Is there fear of
French invasion? Immediately the Lords of the Privy Council send him
instructions. He is to organise companies of demi-lances, to find horses
for them—“a good strong and well-set gelding and a man on his back meet
to wear a corselet and shoot a dagge” runs the specification. Did her
Majesty receive “letters out of Spain”? Copies of the same were sent to
the Earl “to the intent that you may thereby see what the humour and
disposition of those parties [i.e. the King of Spain and his emissary]
tend unto.” Did France goad Mary of Scotland into that unforgettable
offence—the adoption of the English royal arms? Then also must his
lordship be acquainted with the fact and its immense possibilities.
Presently active Scottish hostility seemed imminent, and the letter
which travelled to my Lord from Berwick to bid him have all his men in
readiness to move to the Border is cumbrously and theatrically endorsed
“Haste, haste, haste, haste, post haste with all possible haste.”
[Illustration:
_After a portrait at Rufford Abbey_
GEORGE TALBOT, EARL OF SHREWSBURY
]
[Illustration:
_After a portrait in the possession of the Duke of Portland_
ELIZABETH COUNTESS OF SHREWSBURY
Page 38
]
The marriage of Mary and Darnley, the exciting news of the force raised
by the rebellious Earls of Moray and Arran against their Queen
immediately after the ceremony, the perilous position of Mary betwixt
her enemies—between Moray’s force on one side, secretly encouraged by
Elizabeth, and Elizabeth’s forces, supplemented by two thousand Irish
and the Earl of Argyle’s company, on the other—the details of
field-pieces and “harquebusses,” all these events and matters passed in
review under the eyes of the splendid and cautious Earl of Shrewsbury.
Scarcely a day went by but some important paper or letter, official or
private, was put into his hands. At every turn he was helping to “make
history,” while he was a keen spectator of the Scottish drama up to the
point when Mary fled out of her own country to implore the aid and
protection of her sister sovereign.
It is now that the plot—Elizabeth’s plot which she had kept up her
sleeve—begins to peep out. The first authentic news of it apparently
went to the other Elizabeth, the newly made Countess of Shrewsbury, in
the following letter from the English Court. The signature is torn off,
but the correspondent has weighty news to tell, in spite of his
deprecatory attitude towards mere rumours:—
“My most humble duty remembered unto your honourable good Ladyship. If
it were not for my bounden duty’s sake I would be loth to write, because
there is so small certainty in occurrences, but (seeing I am bound to
write) it is but small that I see with my own eyes that is worth
writing, and therefore I am forced to supply by that I do hear; which I
write as I hear by credible report, otherwise I should not write at all,
and therefore if I do err it is pardonable. The news is here that my
Lord your husband is sworn of the Privy Council; and that the Scottish
Queen is on her journey to Tutbury, something against her will, and will
be under my Lord’s custody there.”
The rest of the letter is perhaps worth quoting, because it gives a
picture of public events and suggests such a spacious background for the
present life of Bess Hardwick. It deals with the war now beginning
between Spain and the Netherlands, owing to the barbarous treatment of
the latter by the Duke of Alva, and the commotion occasioned by it in
France.
“The report is that the Duke of Alva hath for the lack of money disarmed
the most part of his army; and they are not paid for that is past; but
rob and steal, and much molest the country. And being divers garrisons
at Maestricht of the Walloons the Duke sent to discharge them and sent
Spaniards in their place, who have shut the gates of the Spaniards and
refuse to deliver the town before they are paid their due.... In France
there is a great stir to let the Prince of Condé to join with the Prince
of Orange, so that the King divides his force, the Duke of Anjou to stop
the passage of the Prince of Condé, etc., etc.”
The letter ends with intimate details:—
“And so eftsoons Jesus preserve you and send my cousin Frances a good
hour and your honour a glad grandmother.
“Scribbled at London ... January, 1568.”
Evidently this “Frances” is the eldest daughter of the Countess, who
married Sir Henry Pierrepoint, and whose child is awaited.
Matters as regards the Earl of Shrewsbury did not move so fast as one
would expect. It was not till June of 1568 that the final orders reached
the Earl to make ready his “castle” of Tutbury for the reception of his
romantic royal prisoner. Mary was now at Carlisle, and the part which
the Earl was to play in her entourage as suggested in contemporary
letters has more the character of that of a prominent cavalier in a
princely retinue than that of a military gaoler. The description in the
French ambassador’s letter reads well:—
“A castle named Tutbury, which is only one hundred miles from
here”—London—“and is a very beautiful place as they say, especially for
hunting, in which, whenever it takes place, the Earl of Shrewsbury, who
has a portion of his estate in that neighbourhood, is ordered to give
her his company, along with other Lords and gentlemen thereabout.”
The Queen was feeling her way, slowly sounding the Shrewsburys’
relatives, careful always to assert her appreciation not only of lord,
but of lady. My Lord came to Court, and still her Majesty beat about the
bush.
The following letters[11] from the Earl belong to this epoch of the
lives of the newly wedded pair:—
“My dear none, being here arrived at Wingfield late yesternight from
Rofford, though very weary in toiling about, yet thinking you would be
desirous to hear from me, scribbled these few lines to let you
understand that I was in health and wished you anights with me. I picked
out a very good time, for since my coming from home I never had letters
but these this morning from Gilbert, which I send you. I mind to-morrow,
God willing, to be with you at Chatsworth: and in the meantime as
occurrences [befall] to me you shall be partaker of them. I thank you,
sweet none, for your baked capon, and chiefest of all for remembering of
me. It will be late to-morrow before my coming to Chatsworth, seven or
eight of the clock at the soonest: and so farewell, my true one.
“This 28th June.
“Your faithful husband,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
“My dear none, having received your letter of the first of December
which came in very good time, else had I sent one of these few remaining
with me to have brought me word of your health, which I doubted of for
that I heard not from you of all this time till now, which drove me in
dumps, but now relieved again by your writing unto me. I thank you,
sweet none, for your puddings and venison. The puddings have I bestowed
in this wise: [a] dozen to my Lady Cobham, and as many to my L. Steward
and unto my L. of Leicester: and the rest I have reserved to myself to
eat in my chamber. The venison is yet at London, but I have sent for it
hither.
“I perceive Ned Talbot hath been sick, and [is] now past danger. I thank
God I have such a none that is so careful over me and mine. God send me
soon home to possess my greatest joy: if you think it is you, you are
not deceived.
“I will not forget to deal with the Master of the Rolls for young
Knifton. He seems to be much my friend, and is now in dealing between
Denenge and me, for the lease of Abbot Stake, agreed upon by me and
Tamworth he should so do. He holds it at a thousand marks: and the
Master of the Rolls hath driven it to five hundred pounds, which
methinks too much for such a lease, yet because it lies so, as I am
informed, amongst Gilbert’s lands, I have made my steward to offer four
hundred pounds, and to get [delay] till the next term, because I would
have your advice therein. And for that I live in hope to be with you
before you can return answer again, you shall understand that this
present Monday in the morning finding the Queen in the garden at good
leisure, I gave her Majesty thanks that she had so little regard to the
clamorous people of Bolsover[12] in my absence. She declared unto me
what evil speech was against me, my nearness and state in housekeeping,
and as much as was told her, which she now believes with as good words
as I could wish, declaring that ere it were long I should well perceive
she did so trust me as she did few. She would not tell me therein, but
[I] doubt [not] it was about the custody of the Scottish Queen. Here is
private speech that Gates and Vaughan should make suit to have her, but
this day I perceive it is altered. I think before Sunday these matters
will come to some pass, that we shall know how long our abode shall be,
but howsoever it falls out, I will not fail but be with you before
Christmas, or else you shall come to me.
“The plague is dispersed far abroad in London, so that the Queen keeps
her Christmas here, and goeth not to Greenwich as it was meant. My Lady
Cobham, your dear friend, wishes your presence here: she loves you well.
I tell her I have the cause to love her best, for that she wished me so
well to speed as I did: and as the pen writes so the heart thinks, that
of all earthly joys that hath happened unto me, I thank God chiefest for
you: for with you I have all joy and contentation of mind, and without
you death is more pleasant to me than life if I thought I should long be
from you: and therefore, good wife, do as I will do, hope shortly of our
meeting, and farewell, dear sweet none. From Hampton Court this Monday
at midnight, for it is every night so late before I go to my bed, being
at play in the privy chamber at Premiro, where I have lost almost a
hundred pounds, and lacked my sleep.
“Your faithful husband till death,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“Wife, tell my daughter Maule that I am not pleased with her that she
hath not written to me with her sister: yet will I not forget her and
the rest, and pray God to bless them all.
“To my wife the Countess of Shrewsbury at Tutbury give this.”
The daughter “Maule” here named is evidently Mary. Besides Gilbert and
Grace Talbot, married as stated to the Cavendish daughter and son of
Lady Shrewsbury, the Earl’s children were Francis, the eldest (who
married Anne Herbert, daughter of William Earl of Pembroke, and did not
inherit, since he died in 1582); Mary, who married Sir George Saville,
Kt.; Catherine, who married Henry Earl of Pembroke; Edward, who married
Jane (elder daughter of Cuthbert Lord Ogle, co-heiress with the wife of
Charles Cavendish), and succeeded to his father’s title, after Gilbert,
as eighth earl; and Henry Talbot, who married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir
William Rayner, and left two daughters.
The next letter from the Earl gives the Queen’s important decision:—
“My dear none, I have received your letter of the 8th of December,
wherein appeareth your desire for my soon coming. What my desire is
thereunto, I refer the same to your construsion.[13] If I so judge of
time, methinks time longer since my coming hither without you, my only
joy, than I did since I married you: such is faithful affection, which I
never tasted so deeply of before. This day or to-morrow we shall know
great likelihood of our despatch. I think it will be Christmas Even
before I shall arrive at Tutbury. Things fall out very evil against the
Scots’ Queen. What she shall do yet is not resolved of.
“As it chances, I am glad that I am here: for if I were not I were like
to have most part of my leases granted over my head: there is such suit
for leases in reversion of the Duchy. My park that I have in keeping
called Morley Park is granted in reversion for thirty years, wherein I
have made some stir. My good neighbour hath a promise of it, and if I
can get it put in I am about to get a friend of mine to put the forest
of the Peak in his book. I have offered a thousand pounds for a lease in
reversion for thirty years. I must pay Denege five hundred and forty-one
for his lease of Stoke. How money will be had for these matters assure
you I know not. I will make such means to Mr. Mildmay for the stay of
Tutbury tithe, as I will not be prevented: for it is high time, for
there was never such striving and prancing for leases in reversion as be
now at this present.
“My L. Steward hath been sick and in danger, but now well. My L.
Sheffield is departed this life; and my L. Paget just after. Your black
man is in health.
“Your faithful husband till my end,
“G. SHREWSBURY.
“From the Court this Monday the 13th of December. Now it is certain the
Scots’ Queen comes to Tutbury to my charge. In what order I cannot
ascertain you.
“To my wife the Countess of Shrewsbury
at Tutbury give this.”
It was not till just the close of 1568 that Shrewsbury was certain of
his new duty and in a position to write that triumphant postscript.
Within a month, in the beginning of the New Year, he had taken over from
Sir Francis Knollys the task which was to prove so engrossing,
stupendous, so provocative of every imaginable complication, official
and domestic.
Imagine the excitement of my Lady at such a juncture! She knew the
Scottish Queen only by hearsay, and her curiosity must have been kept at
boiling pitch while her heart swelled with importance in the
anticipation of the additional chatelaine’s duties thrust upon her by
the august guest. She had known what it was to deal with a princess in
captivity, for she had been acquainted with Elizabeth before her
accession. The present matter was far more vital, more portentous. The
Queen who rode wearily from Bolton Castle to Sheffield and thence to
Tutbury must be humoured as Queen, served as queens are served, but a
network of rules were being prepared, not only for her own retinue and
the household, but for earl and lady.
The Earl, foreseeing all such domestic complications, had asked the
Council for directions as to the treatment of his prisoner.
“Remembrances for my L. of Shrewsbury” stands at the head of notes, in
his handwriting, all duly numbered. Of these No. 5 reads, “For my wife’s
access unto her, if she send for her.”
To this the reply in Cecil’s handwriting is, “The Queen of Scots may see
the Countess, if she is sick, or for any other necessary cause, but
rarely. No other gentlewoman must be allowed access to her.” The
remainder of the rules are strict enough, and the pleasant country-house
picture drawn by the French Ambassador, De la Forest, in the letter
quoted, is rudely effaced by these details. Shrewsbury is to be well
fortified by an array of facts against the Scottish Queen, lest her
pleading should win his sympathies and her captive condition arouse his
indignation too deeply. How the regulations at every turn reveal
Elizabeth of England—at once autocratic and apprehensive of her own
importance, at once trustful and suspicious! The document is so vital a
part of the household appanage of the Shrewsburys from this moment until
the close of their wardership that it is worth quoting in the concise
form in which, partly in the original and partly as abstract, it is
given in Leader’s admirable _Mary Queen of Scots in Captivity_.
“A memorial of certain thinges imparted by the Q. Matie to the erle of
Shrewsbery, for the causes following. Gyven at Hampton Courte, the
xxvjth day of January 1568, the xjth year of her Mates reign. The Q. has
chosen him in consequence of his approved loyalty and faithfulness, and
the ancient state and blood from which he is descended, to have the
custody of the Queen of Scots.
“The Earl is to treat her, being a Queen, of the Queen Elizabeth’s
blood, with the reverence and honour meet for a person of his state and
calling and for her degree. He must ask Lord Scrope and the Vice
Chamberlain [Knollys] about the ceremonies used by them towards her,
that ‘she may not find herself to be in the usage of herself abused, nor
by this removing to have her State amended.’
“Whatever honour he gives her he must take care that by no pretence she
finds any means to gain any rule over him to practise for her escape.
She must have no opportunity either to escape nor yet to practise with
anyone to help her to escape. He doubtless knows how important it is to
the Queen’s honour and reputation and quietness that Mary does not
depart without the Queen’s assent. No persons must be in conference with
her except those already placed about her as her ordinary servants, and
those who have special licence from the Queen. The latter for no longer
time than is mentioned in the licence.
“If any persons coming to visit the Earl or anyone in his household,
proffer to come to her presence, or to have conference with any
belonging to her, or if she invites them to come to her presence in the
house or abroad, under colour of hunting, or other pastime, he shall
warn them to forbear, and if needful use his authority to make them
desist, and send their names to the Queen.
“Persons coming out of Scotland to see her, if of degrees above that of
servants, or if noted to be busy men and practicers, must be remitted to
the Queen for licence. If they are mean servants or persons coming only
to have relief of her, he shall not be so straight towards them as to
give her occasion to say she is kept a prisoner, and yet he must
understand their errands and not suffer them to abide where she shall
be, or to hover about the country.
“He must make a view of all her ordinary servants when he first takes
the charge, and cause a household roll to be made of those necessary and
of those who were with her at Bolton. With the advice of the Vice
Chamberlain, he must reduce the number, omitting those who are
superfluous and who are fit rather for practices than service.... Her
diet must be kept at the former rate, and payments made by the clerk who
was sent for that purpose from the Queen’s household. He (my Lord
Shrewsbury) must consult the Vice Chamberlain as to the watching of the
house, as he knows her condition and the disposition of those about her.
The Queen intended her first to be placed at Tutbury Castle but as the
house is not fit, if she is nearer the Earl’s house of Sheffield than
Tutbury, she shall remain there till further orders. If she is at
Tutbury, it is left to the Earl’s discretion to allow her to remain, or
to remove her to Sheffield or any other of the Earl’s houses.
“Because it is thought that she will try to make the Earl think her
cause worthy of favour, and that she is not well used in being
restrained from liberty, the Queen has ordered, that beside the
knowledge which the Earl has of the presumptions produced against her
for the murder of her husband, and her unlawful marriage with the
principal murderer Bothwell, he shall also be informed of other
particulars too long to write here, that he may answer her and her
favourers. He may say, as of himself, that if she is known to utter any
speeches touching the Queen’s honour or doings, it may be an occasion to
publish all her actions, which once being done cannot be revoked, but
many things must follow to her prejudice.
“The Earl will be allowed wages for 40 persons at 6d. a day, to be used
at his discretion.”
As a matter of fact the house at Tutbury was certainly “not fit” for the
reception of any guest. The Shrewsburys made application to the Queen
for hangings and necessaries in the way of furniture; and these were
promised. But they did not arrive. Mary was growing obstreperous and
visited all her misery and annoyance on her present gaoler, Sir Francis
Knollys. He, poor man, was in despair, with his wife dying, and his
piteous requests for discharge from duty unheeded by Elizabeth. No
wonder he wrote at last to say that he would take the matter into his
own hands, “and as sure as God is in heaven, repair to Court, and suffer
any punishment that may be laid upon him, rather than continue in such
employment.”
And still the much-needed furniture was not in its place. At last my
Lady Shrewsbury, no doubt in desperation, took down such hangings as
there were at Sheffield, and with the help of the borrowed details set
to work to prepare Tutbury. A supplementary instalment of household
articles from Court helped to complete the necessaries. The journey from
Bolton began on January 25th, in morose, biting weather. It brought Mary
of Scotland to the single gate in the wall surrounding Tutbury on the
afternoon of February 4th, a Friday. The position of this place was fair
enough in the beautiful valley of the Dove, but it was not all the
French Ambassador imagined it, and my lady and her household were sore
put to it to make it habitable. The scene of commotion and bustle must
have palpitated with drama. With messengers bringing letters and the
rumours and counter-rumours which filtered through from the country folk
the ten days of Queen Mary’s journey southward must have been a period
of extraordinary tension for all immediately concerned. The condition of
that busy, expectant household at Tutbury under my Lady’s command is
best suggested in the imaginary dialogue overleaf.