HAMMER AND TONGS
There is no other title possible for the condition of things with which
this chapter deals. That public vindication of the Earl, it will be
remembered, was in 1584, coupled with his wife’s formal disclaimer of
the scandal circulated about him. Still there is nothing to heal the
estrangement, and the Earl, hearing disturbing reports, writes to Lord
Burghley from his country seclusion in the autumn of the following year,
1585:—
“My noble good Lord,
“Since my coming into the country, my wife and her children have not
ceased to inform her Majesty, most slanderously of me, that I have
broken her Highness’s order; and at length they have obtained her
gracious letters, and Mr. Secretary’s to me, the which I have answered,
and sent up my servant Christopher Copley with them; praying your
Lordship that he may, with your favour, attend on you, and acquaint you
thoroughly from time to time with my causes, and that it would please
you to further him with your advice and continuance of your good favour.
My Lord, she makes all means she can to be with me, and her children
have her living, whereunto I will never agree, for if I have the one, I
will have the other, which was thought reasonable by the Lord
Chancellor, and the Lord of Leicester; but by her letters she desires to
come to me herself, but speaks no word of her living.[79] I have been
much troubled with her, and almost never quiet to satisfy her greedy
appetite for money, to pay for her purchases to set up her children;
besides the danger I have lived in, to be compassed daily with those
that most maliciously hated me, that if I were out of the way, presently
they might be in my place. It were better we lived as we do, for in
truth, I cannot away with her children, but have them in jealousy; for
till Francis Talbot’s death, she and her children sought my favour, but
since those times they have sought for themselves and never for me.
Thus, with my hearty commendations, I commit your good Lordship to the
tuition of the Almighty.
“Sheffield, this twenty-third of October, 1585.
“Your Lordship’s most faithful friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
“My noble good Lord,
“Finding you so honest and constant a friend to me, I have been willing,
and yet doubtful to trouble you with my gouty fist, unless I had matters
of some importance, knowing your Lordship so troubled with her Majesty’s
affairs; but now, perceiving what untrue surmises have and are daily
invented by my wife and her children of me, and I think will be during
their lives, I am therefore to request your Lordship thus much; if they
shall exclaim of me from time to time without cause as they do,
considering how manifestly they have disproved in all their accounts,
that they may make trial of their complaints against me before they are
heard; and so shall her Majesty and her Council be less troubled with
these untrue surmises, and by the Grace of God, my doings and dealings
have and shall be such as I wish, my wife and her imps, who I know to be
mortal enemies, might daily see into my doings which I took for no less
but they will do their best. So, wishing your Lordship health as my own,
I take my leave.
“Sheffield, this ninth of November, 1585.
“Your Lordship’s most faithful ever assured friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The word “imp” in Elizabethan times really only implied “offshoot” and
“offspring” and was used also in an agricultural sense. But the
application of it here is maliciously grotesque to the modern sense. The
word strikes one oddly also in the epitaph of the son of Leicester, the
baby Lord Denbigh, described on his tomb as “this noble imp.”
On November 9th from Sheffield Castle Shrewsbury reopens his formal
campaign, and the real tussle in London begins. Lord Leicester, his good
friend, is no longer on the spot, owing to his absence in the
Netherlands. In the long letter to this Lord, quoted hereafter, though
belonging to a date slightly previous, it will be seen that mention is
made of the Queen’s preliminary arbitration in the quarrel. The main
points showing the fluctuations of this strife are set forth in the
State documents, and the whole of Vol. CCVII is devoted to them, showing
that the years 1586–7 are given up to a regular formal ballyragging on
both sides. On the 31st of January, 1586, the Earl is found appealing to
Walsingham, requiring that his wife should be ordered to make public
retractation of her slanderous speeches about him. (This evidently
refers to fresh backbiting, for as regards the great scandal already
named matters had been thrashed out long since.) He adds that he must
bend his mind to trouble though his years do otherwise move him;
meanwhile he has brought a suit against Charles Cavendish and Henry
Beresford, accusing them of the same slander. The Queen intervenes and
requests him to stay the suits. Shrewsbury, however, persists on the
score of the statute “De scandalis magnatum.”[80] The Cavendishes on
their side pleaded for the abandonment of the two suits just named and
for the impartial examination of witnesses. Evidence is next included by
Shrewsbury’s servants of the prejudicial statements of Beresford, while
the Cavendishes employed a servant of the Countess to attest the great
partiality with which the examination of Beresford was conducted, to the
disadvantage of the Countess’ case. Upon this the Queen sent to Sir
Charles Cavendish for details of the exact state of affairs between his
mother and stepfather. These he submitted to Walsingham in March. On May
the 12th the Queen wrote to the Earl expressing her earnest desire that
all controversies between him and his lady and her younger sons should
cease, and by her mediation be brought to some good end and accord. She
reminded him that his years required repose, especially of the mind, and
stated that she enclosed an order for the settlement of the dispute, the
result of her conference with the Lord Chancellor, the Earl of
Leicester, and the Treasurer and Chief Secretary of State.
Lady Shrewsbury meanwhile objected strongly to all the Earl’s
proceedings, accused him of displacing certain of her tenants, and
assured the Queen that he refused to restrain the slander suits. This is
a fragment of her many complaints, and is endorsed:—
“Objections used by the Countess to the Earl of Shrewsbury’s answers,
who has not obeyed the Queen’s last letter.
“To all these answers drawn by my Lord’s learned counsel, as may appear,
who never want words to answer whatsoever:—
“I allege that for her Majesty’s order I must appeal to her own gracious
remembrance, which particularly was expressed by her last letter to my
Lord, though not obeyed. And (I) do avow on my whole credit with her
Majesty for ever that the things he hath entered to is worth nine
hundred pounds a year, and that he hath repaid but eight and fifty pound
of near two thousand pounds, which in that (case?) would have been to my
sons and me. That he displaceth sundry tenants, and as myself allegeth
meaneth to continue the suits.
“In all these things I most humbly beseech speedy redress if they be
true, and discredit and her Majesty’s disfavour if they be found untrue.
“May, 1586.”
On June 15th Shrewsbury, writing to Walsingham, begged him to favour his
suit against the Countess, and asked that the Queen should banish her
from Court, adding that he was ashamed to think of his choice of such a
creature, and piteously entreated Walsingham to persuade his son Gilbert
Talbot to leave “that wicked woman’s company.”
The action went through against Beresford, for the next item in the
State record is a note upon the York Assizes in June. At the same time
the Countess petitioned the Council denying the charges of the Earl that
she had ever maintained her servant Beresford against him. Next follows
an important note by Charles Cavendish on the force and effect of the
Queen’s order which was intended to produce a united reconciliation and
cohabitation.
The Earl was by this time slowly coming to terms, but he required that
Henry Cavendish should be reinstated in Chatsworth and assured of
certain lands, while his debts, it was stipulated, were to be paid by
the Countess. The Countess and her two sons, on the other hand, stated
that they had been much out of pocket for three years by the Earl’s
aggressive proceedings, and begged for redress.
Into this hotchpotch are flung notes of the yearly allowances which the
Earl gave his Countess when they were together, of the amount of rent
paid by certain tenants, and all other disputes about the jointures of
the Countess, leases, houses, lands, and other property settled upon
various members of the family by father and mother. Not a single scrap
of personal or real estate seems to have been forgotten. The unhappy
couple tussled especially hard over their plate. In the Hatfield MSS.
catalogue the inquisitive will find a full list of the articles. They
include “a podinger” (of which the dish seems to be in my Lady’s hands,
while her Lord retains the lid), a “great silver salt having many little
ones within it to be drawn out,” one “George,” enamelled white and set
with diamonds, costing £38, “a cup of assay,” gilt “talbots,” ewers,
plates, standing-pots, bowls, candlesticks, trenchers, “parcel gilt and
double gilt.” Then there was the same pull-devil pull-baker business
over household linen, mattresses, and hangings—those hangings which were
always such a cause of bother to the couple all through their fifteen
years of menage in connection with their troublesome prisoner-guest. The
demands of the Earl on his part infuriate his wife, and there is a
scornful and sarcastic entry in the Hatfield MSS., endorsed by Burghley,
to the effect that “the parcels above demanded by the Earl are things of
small value and mere trifles for so great and rich a nobleman to bestow
on his wife in nineteen years.” The Countess then reminds him of her
share in the way of gifts: “the Earl hath received of her at several
times, pots, flagons, dishes, porringers, warming-pans, boiling-pot, a
charger or voider of silver, with many other things she now remembereth
not. Besides, better than £1000 of linen consumed by him, being carried
to sundry of his houses to serve his Lordship’s turn. And with his often
being at Chatsworth with his charge and most of his stuff there
spoiled.”
In addition, she quotes an annual contribution of 30 to 40 mattresses,
20 quilts, etc. etc.
All these absurd and pitiful obstacles made the Queen’s order for
cohabitation very distasteful, and in July the Earl lashed out in an
important and emphatic letter to Court. His wife had of her own will
left him, and he did not see why he should receive her under his roof
now simply because she offered to come. “It appeareth,” goes on the
statement, “by her words and deeds she doth deadly hate him, and hath
called him knave, fool, and beast to his face, and hath mocked and mowed
at him.” Here follow two letters from the contending parties. Her
Ladyship had written to my Lord on August 4th, 1586, to which he sends
the long reply quoted. She again writes on August 11th.
_Earl of Shrewsbury to his Countess._
“Wife, in the three first lines of your last letter dated Thursday, 4
August, 1586, you hold yourself importunate for demanding my plate and
other things, part whereof, in the same letter you confess, which at
your being with me you desired to have, and the residue of the plate and
hangings you pass over in silence, for which I take light occasion to be
displeased with you by writing (as you say) and demand this question of
me—What new offence is committed since her Majesty reconciled us? To the
first part of your letter I answer that there is no creature more happy
and more fortunate than you have been for when you were defamed and to
the world a byword, when you were St. Loo’s widow, I covered those
imperfections (by my intermarriage) with you and brought you to all the
honour you have, and to the most of that wealth you now enjoy.
Therefore, you have cause to think yourself happier than others, for I
know not what she is within this realm that may compare with you either
in living or goods; and yet you cannot be contented. The reconciliation
that her Majesty moved betwixt us was—that I should take a probation of
your good behaviour toward me for a year, and send you to Wingfield upon
my charges, to which I yielded (being much pressed by her Highness) with
these conditions: that I should not bed nor board with you; those
servants that were now about you, I would put from you and put others to
you; your children, nor Gilbert Talbot, nor his wife should come at you
whilst you were with me; your living I would have, and my goods (which
you and William Cavendish had taken) I would have restored. Yet you
still pressed her Majesty further, that you might come to me at my house
to Chelsea, which I granted, and at your coming I told you that you were
welcome upon the Queen’s commandment, but though you were cleared in her
Majesty’s sight for all offences, yet I had not cleared you, nor could
trust you till you did confess that you had offended me. Nor can I be
contented to accept of you, if you do not this in writing and upon your
knees and before such as her Majesty shall appoint. It was promised that
I should find you obedient unto me in all points. I thought it unfit
that there should be suits betwixt your children and me, if I should
accept of you, which made me to try you, and demand my plate of you,
etc. What greater disobedience could you shew unto me than deny me that
which is my own? You will hardly suffer me to be master of any of yours,
when you cannot be pleased to restore me mine own. Is it fit that you
should gage my plate and mine arms upon it? Can you do me greater
dishonour? You say that, if your estate were able, you would not stand
with me upon such toys. You never esteemed how largely you cut quarters
out of my cloth; but you have carried always this mind towards me, that,
if you once got anything of me, you cannot be contented to restore it
again. As (if you remember) you borrowed £1000 of me, etc., and gave me
your bill for it; I was not ignorant that I could not recover any money
by it, but it is a witness that you had the money and yet you never paid
it me again. As touching her Majesty’s order for your living, she
pronounced the same at Greenwich, and ordered me £500 a year and divers
other things which they thought fit, and we assented to be set down in
the draft of the books, as may appear. And as touching this, that if I
did at any time receive you and cohabit with you, the Lords thought it
reasonable—and you assented to it—that I should have your living during
the time of our cohabitation, and hereupon I refer myself to their
opinions. Marry, this difference there was, that if you disliked to
cohabit and dwell with me, then your sons to have your living, upon a
signification to be made, the form whereof could not be agreed upon, as
may appear. Your children’s names were used only for this cause, because
you were not capable yourself, but they were thought meetest to deal for
you, till I liked to take you to me. And I think their commission
extended to it, or else you would not have laboured their great pains
which they took in it, and they would have been glad then that I should
have taken you and your living also, which your children desired not, if
I could have agreed to it. I am sorry to spend all these words with you,
but assure yourself this shall be the last time that I will write much
to you in the matter or trouble myself; and likewise, if you intend to
come to me, advise yourself in these points before remembered, that I
will have you to confess that you have offended me, and are heartily
sorry for it, in writing, and upon your knees (without either if or
and). Your living you shall bring with you to maintain you with, and to
pay such debts as is expressed in the consideration of the deed. For
neither by the said deed, nor yet by her Majesty’s order, it was meant
that your sons should have your living, which appertaineth to me, being
my enemies, and have sought my defamation and destruction of my house,
and I to have you without that which the laws giveth me. My goods you
shall restore me before we come together. And, if you cannot be content
to do this I protest before God, I will never have you come upon me,
whatever shall [happen]. I could allege many causes why you have thus
disobediently behaved yourself against me. One chief cause was when I
had made you my sole executrix you persuaded me to make a lease in trust
to two of your friends for threescore years, minding thereby to have the
benefit thereof by the executorship. You caused me in my extremity of
sickness to pass my lands by deed enrolled—to your friends—in bargain
and sale, and the indenture which did lease the houses was not enrolled,
so that if I had then died, the same might have been embezzled, and so
my posterity for that land in the case of St. Loo. But, when I perceived
in what danger I stood, I put you out of my will, and have since started
to remedy those my great imperfections that I was not able to benefit my
children nor recompense my servants. At length it came to your ear,
though there were not many that knew it, and then you began to play your
part, and hath used me ever since in such despiteful sort as I was not
able to bear or abide it: and this is one of the causes that you deal
with me in this wise as you do, and not such causes as you allege to her
Majesty of my dislike of you. All offences done by you are esteemed
nothing as was the offence of Henry Beresford, that was found guilty of
such slanderous speeches that he had spoken of me, that, if they had
been true, as they be most false, had overthrown me and my house. Also,
in regard to your confederacy with him and his son, I cannot but
remember that the young fellow should swear he never spoke any such
speeches by me as was laid in my action which, till it was discovered,
moved great favour towards Beresford, and had like both to have abused
both her Majesty and Mr. Secretary, and clearly to have dishonoured me
(as Mr. Secretary informed me). This I take to be a grievous offence
done unto me. I thought good not to omit this, but to put you in
remembrance thereof, what great favour you have showed him, and was very
unfit to have been supported by you, when the case did touch me so near,
which I look for at your hands that you will confess.
“And thus I end.
“From Chelsea the 5th of August, 1586.”
_Endorsed_: “The copy of my Lord’s letter to the Countess his wife, V.
August, 1586.”
_The Countess of Shrewsbury to the Earl._
“My Lord, I hold myself most unfortunate that upon so slight occasion it
pleaseth you to write in this form to me: for what new offence is
committed since her Majesty reconciled us? If the denial of the plate be
the only cause, why then, my Lord, the true affirmation thereof in my
letter is more than my words, neither such a trifle I hoped could have
wrought so unkind effects; and were my state able I would not stand upon
such toys as those you speak of. Touching my son’s living, that is no
new cause, for it was long ago moved by you, and could never be
consented to by us, in respect of the reasons in my last letter
alleged.... My Lord, I know not how justly you can term me insatiable in
my desire of gaining, for my losses have been so great, with my charges,
that makes me desire honestly to discharge my debt with my children’s
lands, which you have no need of, and will not in my time discharge them
though we should live on nothing; and I am greedy of nobody’s lands, but
would keep the rest, which by all law, order, and conscience they ought
to possess. Neither my case and fortune hath been to maintain my
miseries with untruths, for receiving daily manifest discourtesies I
need not blush to speak truly.
“I assure you, my Lord, my meaning is not to molest or grieve you with
demanding, neither I trust it can be thought greediness to demand
nothing, for I desire no more than her Majesty’s order giveth, and wish
your happy days to be many and good....
“Touching the postscript, my desire hath been so great to be with you
and save your long delays, that made me be an humble suitor to her
Majesty to be earnest with you, but not as you write.
“For the other that I labour your stay, I assure you, my Lord, I did
not, but yet would be very glad that all were perfected here and then to
go down with you, and hoped also ere this we should have been on our way
into the country.
“So, beseeching Almighty God to make you better conceive of me, I end,
wishing myself, without offence, with you,
“Your obedient faithful wife,
“ELIZABETH SHREWSBURY.
“Richmond, this Thursday.”
Like a pedal note through the long jangle runs the Queen’s order, upon
which Sir Charles Cavendish comments more than once. The main part of
it, of course, deals with the disposal of property, the outcome of the
affair being that the couple should travel down to the country together,
and the lands belonging to the Cavendishes revert to them. A footnote to
one copy of the order says that the meaning of this is not to take away
anything in the way of concessions already arranged, but only “to better
the Countess’s part.”
Elizabeth was accused of partiality by the Earl. Her own attitude
towards him had been rather like that of some of his children, for she
had always made use of his possessions to suit her own purpose without
any intention of repayment. It is possible that from the innate
stinginess of her disposition she may have resented the fashion in which
he coupled accusations against his wife’s rapacity with his sore,
justifiable complaint that Mary’s imprisonment had impoverished him. In
a letter to Lord Leicester he can no longer control his feelings against
the Queen. Though written in 1585, it is quoted here as being pertinent.
Bitter and rambling, it is in reply to one from Leicester, which shows
plainly that the Queen, as arbitrator, has thrown her weight into the
balance with the Countess. The document is quoted by Lodge from a rough
copy endorsed “The Earl of Shrewsbury’s answer to the Earl of
Leicester’s letter ... ultimo Aprilis, 1585,” and is therefore unsigned.
“My good Lord,
“Since her Majesty hath declared her mind in the matter betwixt me and
my wife, and doubts not but in every respect I will observe it as her
Highness hath set it down and that the Lord Chancellor should take order
with me for the accomplishment thereof, well weighing her Majesty’s hard
censure of me and my causes; since my coming to Chelsea, I have not been
well, nor able to return my answer by your Lordship’s servant so
speedily as I would, but have now thought good to send this bearer, my
servant, Christopher Copley, unto your Lordship with this answer; that
as her Majesty doth demand and look for at my hands faith and due
obedience, as is the duty of every good subject to spend lands and life
in the defence of her Majesty’s person and realm, which I and my
ancestors have done and am ready at her Majesty’s commandment, so, for
the maintenance of my honour and credit, do I claim and demand of her
Majesty justice and benefit of her Majesty’s laws, never denied by her
Majesty nor by any of her noble progenitors, to any of the meanest of
her subjects before this; yet not doubting but that her Majesty will
have better consideration of me and my cause when she hath thoroughly
weighed of it; and that if she (for all my careful and faithful service,
to my great charges above my allowance in the keeping of that Lady for
sixteen years last past: with the extraordinary charges and expense of
her Majesty’s commissioners sent down, as of Sir Walter Mildmay, Mr.
Beale, and Sir Ralph Sadler, and others, their horse and men, for so
long time as they continued with me), will bestow nothing on me yet I
even thought she would have left me with what her Majesty’s laws had
given me. Since that her Majesty hath set down this hard sentence
against me, to my perpetual infamy and dishonour, to be ruled and
overrun by my wife, so bad and wicked a woman, yet her Majesty shall see
that I will obey her commandment, though no curse or plague in the earth
could be more grievous to me. These offers of my wife’s enclosed in your
letters I think them very unfit to be offered to me. It is too much to
make me my wife’s prisoner, and set me down the demesnes of Chatsworth,
without the house and other lands leased, which is but a pension in
money. I think it stands with reason that I should choose the £500 by
year ordered by her Majesty where I like best, according to the rate
William Cavendish delivered to my Lord Chancellor; or else I shall think
myself doubly wronged, which I am sure her Majesty will not offer unto
me. And thus I commit your Lordship to the tuition of the Almighty.”
The last sentence is entirely ironical after the preceding outburst.
Leicester was not the man to take spiritual counsel or to bestir himself
to his own disadvantage. He was essentially a “trimmer,” and the
guardianship of the Almighty was only a matter of speech for him. He
seems to have remained fairly neutral after this, to judge from what
Henry Talbot writes from London on the 6th of August to his father:—
“All your Lordship’s affairs here are well; and your wife doth exclaim
against my Lord Leicester, because, as she saith, he hath not been so
good as his promise. Her Majesty, praise to God, is well, and marvelleth
she can hear nothing from your Lordship, and she useth the best speeches
that may be of your Lordship.”
To this letter there is a delightful postscript giving a suggestive and
greedy message from one of Shrewsbury’s friends:—
“My Lord Mayor hath his humble duty remembered unto your Lordship, and
says he hopes your Lordship’s bucks are fat this summer.”
So did all the world sponge upon the once wealthy George Talbot.
Another letter from Henry Talbot is a sort of amplification of the
attitudes of his Queen and wife, and though he could not but be
flattered by that of the first there was everything to torture him
acutely in her professions after the treatment he had received:—
“May it please your Honour to be advertised that I came from Court upon
the 20th of this present where I left all things very well, and her
Majesty saith she doth marvel greatly that she hath received but one
letter from your Lordship since your going down. Moreover she herself
told me that she marvelled she heard no oftener from you, whom it
pleased to term her love, declaring further what care she had of your
health, and what a trouble your sickness was unto her; whereunto I
answered that your Lordship’s chiefest comfort, and speedy recovery of
your health, proceeded from her Majesty’s so gracious favour and
countenance bestowed upon you; whereat her Majesty smiled, saying,
“Talbot, I have not yet shewed unto him that favour which hereafter we
mean to do.””
Words, words! This was the coin in which Elizabeth paid the faithful
among her subjects, her kinsmen included. But to resume the letter: “As
touching your wife’s causes, she lieth still in Chancery Lane, and doth
give out that she meaneth to continue there and not to go into the
country. My Lord, my brother’s wife, and her brother, the
Knight”—meaning Sir Charles Cavendish—“do attend very diligently at
Court, and little respect there is had of them; nevertheless they cease
not to follow, to the end the world may say they are in credit.”
The nearest approach to a final and reasonable settlement was suggested
by the Earl’s proposal to settle £1500 a year on his wife, with
Chatsworth House and other lands, under certain conditions, a document
which raised a good deal of discussion on both sides. Out of this
cauldron of anger, misery, and sordidness emerged at last once more the
royal order, final and distinct: The Earl was to receive his wife, and
take probation of her obedience for one year, and if she proved
forgetful of her duty was to place her in her house at Chatsworth. Rents
and assurance of lands were also clearly set forth, and it was ordained
that all actions for plate, jewels, and hangings were to be stayed.
The Countess had the last word on this, for her practical instinct
prompted her instantly to request that her Majesty should appoint
someone to be an eye-witness “in house” with the Earl and herself.
Further, she begged that she might not, failing their final agreement,
be confined to Chatsworth House only, and besought her Majesty “to
conclude her honourable and godly work” as speedily as possible.
Early in August, 1586, the Queen passed this final order of
reconciliation. Assured of the willingness of the couple to cease their
strife, she summoned them to her presence, and “in many good words
showed herself very glad thereof, and the Earl and Countess in good sort
departed together very comfortably.” Wingfield was their destination,
and was named in the original order drawn up already in March.
THE QUEEN’S ORDER.
“An order pronounced by her Majesty between the Earl of Shrewsbury and
the Countess his wife in the presence of the Secretary (Walsingham).
“That the said Earl shall give present order for the conveying of the
said Countess to some one of his principal manor houses in Derbyshire,
furnished for her to remain in, with liberty to go either to Chatsworth
or Hardwick, and to return to the Earl’s house at her pleasure.
“That the said Earl shall allow to the said Countess towards the
defraying of the charges of household £300 and fuel until he shall yield
to cohabitation, and doth also promise in respect of her Majesty’s
mediation further gratuity of yearly provision for the maintenance of
her said house.
“That the said Earl shall appoint four or five of his own men to attend
upon the said Countess and shall pay them their wages.
“The said Earl promiseth her Majesty to resort sometimes to the house
where the said Countess shall lie, as also to send for the said Countess
upon notice given of her desire to some other house where he himself
shall remain, and in case she shall so behave herself toward him as one
that by good and dutiful ways [?] will do her best endeavour to recover
his former good opinion and love, then it is to be hoped that continual
cohabitation will follow, which her Majesty greatly desires.”
All this looks highly promising. It arouses glowing hopes in the minds
of the onlookers that after many toils and dangers, social and
political, such a man and such a woman, born to eminence and possessed
of great qualities, will enjoy many happy years together, quit of their
old intolerable burden, the care of “the Daughter of Debate.” Such a
letter as this from the faithful Gilbert Dickenson, which welcomes my
Lord home to his manor and his acres, telling of the folk who gather to
greet him, and of the fatted calf in preparation, completes the
picture:—
“May it please your Lo. to understand that divers honest men have heard
of your Lo. coming home and would have come to meet your Lo. but that I
have stayed them till I hear further of your Lo. pleasure; and there is
such running from house to house to tell that your Lo. did lie at
Wingfield all night and everyone preparing to meet your L.
“Your Lo. should come into the country with such love as never did man
in England, which is a greater comfort to us than any worldly riches,
and for sheep, oxen, and lambs shall not be wanting nor anything which
can be got, God willing.”
Alack for love and hope! Only two months after this stately cavalcade of
Earl and Lady travelled home, the Countess addressed the Treasurer
again. She had sore complaints to make of her husband.
“My singular good Lord,” she wrote, “I most humbly and heartily thank
your Lo. for your letter sent by my son William Cavendish. It is my
greatest comfort that it pleaseth your Lo. to have care of me, else
grief and displeasure would have ended my days. Since my coming into the
country my Lo. my husband hath come to his home Wingfield, where I most
remain, not past three times; more I have not seen him; he stayed not
over a day at a time at his being here.... Since my coming down, he hath
allowed me gross provisions as beef, mutton, and corn to serve my house,
but now not long since he hath sent me word that he will not allow me
any further and doth withdraw all his provision, not suffering me to
have sufficient fire.”[81] She goes on to say that if all were as her
Majesty desired and assured her, namely, that she might be always with
her husband, she would not need such allowances of provision, etc. etc.
This attitude of the Earl strikes one as a little petty at this
juncture. He had, after all, large estates and many houses, and there
was no need to starve his lady out of Wingfield, even if their
characters and moods were finally and utterly incompatible.
All through these years 1586–7 he was still worried by Gilbert’s
affairs. The letters which follow explain themselves.
The first is a denunciation of Gilbert’s extravagant wife:—
“Son Gilbert,
“I thank you for your pains taken in certifying me of those your sundry
news, being the very same in effect that I heard of the day before I
received your letter. For answer thereto, you shall understand my
meaning towards you is as good as it was at that our departure you put
me in mind of; but for any help about the payment of your debts I do
advise you altogether to rely on yourself, and the best discharge you
shall be able to make thereof, than any ways upon me; who, least my
silence in that behalf, and at this time, might breathe some hope
agreeable to your conceived opinion, do in sadness, as you did in jest,
return you a short answer for your long warning; willing you either to
provide for yourself, as you may, or else be disappointed; for during my
life, I would not have you to expect any more at my hands than I have
already allowed you, whereof I know you might live well, and clear from
danger of any, as I did, if you had that governance over your wife, as
her pomp and court-like manner of life were some deal assuaged. And, for
mine own part, and your good, I do wish you had but half so much to
relieve your necessities as she and her mother have spent in seeking,
through malice, mine overthrow and dishonour, and I in defending my just
cause against them: by means of whose evil dealings, together with other
bargains wherein I have entangled myself of late, I am not able either
to help you, or store myself for any other purpose I shall take in hand
these twelve months. Thus praying God to bless you, I bid you farewell.
“Sheffield Lodge, the 17th of June, 1587.
“Your loving father,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The next is from the newest mediator between Talbot and Cavendish, Sir
Henry Lee, a long-winded but delightful personage of romantic and
fantastic temperament. Lodge assures us that he was “bred from infancy
in Courts and camps,” and that this induced him not only to take a
leading part in tilts and tournaments, but led to his assumption of the
“self-created title of Champion of the Queen,” and that he made a vow to
present himself in the tiltyard in that character on the 27th of
November in every year, till disabled by age. This vow he kept, and upon
his retirement at the age of sixty installed as his successor the Earl
of Cumberland in the presence of Queen and Court, “offering his armour
at her Majesty’s feet, and clothing himself in a black velvet coat and
cap.”
_Sir Henry Lee to Lord Talbot._
“Sir,
“On Monday last I received your letter; on Thursday I went to Sheffield,
my Lord, your father’s, where I found him much amended, after his
physic, of the gout, which took him at Brierly, and troubled him until
then. My being there made him much better disposed, of whom I received
many sundry kindnesses and more favours than I have or ever may deserve.
Acknowledgment is small requital, but that I do and will, to him,
yourself, and yours, in as sundry ways as by my wit, will, and fortune I
may. Dinner done, and all rising saving his Lordship and my poor self, I
told him I had written to you, according to his liberty given me upon
such talk as his Lordship had last with me at Worksop; that I received
an answer which then I presented unto him. I left him alone; Mr. Henry
Talbot, Roger Portington, your very good friend, with myself, standing
at the window, where I, that knew the sundry contents of the letter,
might see any alteration in himself, as they that stood by imagined by
his sighs, guessed according to their humours. Your letter perused (and
well marked, as it did well appear unto me by his speeches immediately
after), rising from the board, with more colour in his cheeks than
ordinary, he led me by the hand into his withdrawing chamber, where he
told me he did well perceive the contents of your letter; that you had
been long a disobedient child to him; that you joined and practiced
against him, and with such as sought his overthrow, and consequently
your own undoing, and the espials and parties you had in his house did
show your care to be more for that he had himself; but, withal, he knew
you had many good parts, but those overruled by others that should be
better governed by yourself. More regard, he says, to your old father,
would do well; who has been ever loving unto you and must be requited
with more love and obedience, or else (by his divination) your credit
will slowly increase. He is glad, as he says, that you live in those
parts (but he speaks ironia) where some good may be learned, but more to
be shunned; yet all well where grace is, so you are able to go through
withal; but for the feeding of such vain time and superfluous excess as
should do best for yourself to diminish, he is not able, he says, and I
fear will never be willing, to maintain. He reckoned how many had been
in hand with him for the payment of your debts; my Lord Treasurer and
others. His answer was that, through the wilfulness of him, who shunned
his advice, and the imperfections of others, his undoing should not
grow, that they themselves might have cause to pity him in his age,
through his folly and their persuasions. There, my Lord, he told that
three thousand pounds nearly went out of his living to his children, and
many other sums to small purpose to remember. He confessed he sent you
such a letter as you write of, and written by a man of his, but
altogether by his direction. But he was old, lame of the gout, and now
no more able to write himself. He spake much of your inconstancy in your
friendships, and especially to my Lord of Leicester; sometimes, as you
favoured, there was not such; and laboured himself to rely more upon
him, altogether misliking such humours as favoured and disfavoured in
such sort, and in so short a time; but, for himself, he would fly such
variety, and perform his friendship and faith. Truly, my Lord, he used
many of these speeches before I interrupted him, and good reason I had
to forbear, for he spoke not without grief, as I guess, and passion, I
am sure; therefore [I] thought best to stay until the storm was somewhat
overblown. At the last I besought him to tell me whether these old
grievances were not remitted upon conference between yourselves; and
whether your abode there was not with his good allowance, that you
should procure yourself to be joined with him in his offices; further,
that you should, by good means, procure some honourable office for your
better understanding. All this he did not deny, but, touching his
discourse, I think not fit to set it down, my messenger is so uncertain,
and my meaning to do good, if I may, but no hurt. He is old and unwieldy
and deceived by such he trusteth, and you shun to assist him, and
therefore will let out all; but that I believe not. I found one thing in
your letter: I said that I feared, and made me sorry; that your
favouring so much your own credit, and finding so small means to answer
your creditors, you might fall into some hard course; and, before these
words were all out of my mouth, he said, ‘Yea, marry, some desperation.’
Therefore I took hold: ‘Good my Lord, license me to speak with your
favour, that speak nothing by practice again, but through a dutiful mind
to you, now in years, and for yours, by course of nature likely to
succeed you. If he should, as you have termed it, take any desperate
way, pass into those parts which this doubtful time brings, to many
dangers, and especially to our nation, were not this peril great, and,
by presumption, not to be recovered? You cannot be ignorant, for all
your mislike, what a son you have; esteemed of the highest, favoured of
the best, and the best judgments, and how much he differs from other
men’s sons of your own conditions; so much your love, care, and regard
should be the more by how much your loss were more (to be balanced by
reason) than all the rest put together. Your country may and will
challenge a part and party in him, as a wise man, fit and able to serve
it. You yet find not what a Lord Talbot you have; but if he should by
any extraordinary accident be taken from you, and not to be recovered,
yourself, with your grief, would accompany your white hair to your end
with a grave full of cares; and who doth sooner enter into desperation
than great wits accompanied with mighty and honourable hearts, which
hardly can away with want, but never with discredit?’ This, my Lord,
sunk somewhat into him. He confessed much of this. He mused long, and
spake little: he stayed, standing long, without complaining of his legs
(by reason he was earnest) one hour and a half at the least before we
parted. So, in many doubts, I left him, minding to send such letters as
you required, to Welbeck and thence to be sent to you: wherewith I took
my leave.
“I will never take upon me to advise you. You see now what passed, and
upon what grounds; therefore resolve, upon temperate blood and good
judgment, and free advice, for the time present: remembering both love
and duty, and that you deal with a kind man. I wish a sudden journey, at
the least to see him; he must needs take it well, and I know your age
may endure it; your friends desire it, and I among the rest (to see you
ere I go from these parts) that loveth you, whose being here with my
Lady, would have made this country to me far otherwise than it is, and
my abode much longer than it is like to be. I have troubled you long.
The news is that my Lady Talbot, the widow, and your sister my Lady
Mary, with my Lady Manners, as I take it came to Sheffield this night
past. I think my Lord will to Hatfield the next week that cometh, or the
week following, with such company as he hath, but the certainty I know
not: but whether he go there, or no, I wish you would haste to meet him.
My brother, Mr. Portington, Mr. Lascelles, with myself, and Mr. Fawley,
recommendeth our love and service to your good Lordship. I beseech you
let me be remembered humbly unto my Lady, and to good Sir Charles
Candishe and his family, wishing them both the best happiness.
“From Lettwell, the 13th of August, 1587.
“Your Lordship’s poor and faithful friend ever,
“HENRY LEE.”
_The Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir Henry Lee._
“Good Sir Henry Lee,
“I have perused that enclosed letter you sent me within yours, and do
account you most faithful and forward to do good where you profess
friendship. Neither can the eloquence of the one, nor the earnest desire
of the other, persuade me to do otherwise in that matter than I have
already, upon good consideration, determined. My son compares my words
with his own conceits, and means to save his credit as shall content me,
but when he sealeth I will assure. I proposed to leave him in better
case than my father left me, and if I give him so much as I cannot
withhold, I am not in his debt. I forgave him all his faults, but I
promised him not that I would trust him. He can bring the honour of his
house now to make for his purpose, but he remembereth not how he went
about to dishonour it. He laboured not to make sure my Lord of Leicester
of their side that went about to accuse his father of treason. He did
not countenance his wife and her mother against me in all their bad
actions. His deceits never moved me to be displeased. Well, if they did,
I pronounce forgiveness thereof to his friend, as I have done before
unto him. He knoweth whereof his grief grew; let him henceforth avoid
the occasions. He says he is not overruled by his wife, but attributes
that to my speeches: but I say, if he be not he will quickly recover,
and live better of his annuity than I could do when I bare his name,
with less allowance. Yet (notwithstanding his doubtful words of your
welcome hither, in respect you have moved me for his good) I beseech you
come ten times for every one past; assuring you that the most eloquent
orator in England can do no more with me than you have, till I perceive
a new course. Thus, with my hearty commendations, I bid you farewell.
“Sheffield, September 6th, 1587.
“Your loving friend,
“G. SHREWSBURY.”
The long letter from Sir Henry Lee gives a pathetic and vivid portrait
of the old Government official who feels himself at last like a worn-out
tool, unloved, unnecessary to the world—save when his position as a
premier peer required him to raise levies for the defence and contest of
Ireland, or county matters called him from retirement in his military
and judicial capacity. To the very end he was a prompt official, and his
family motto, “Prest d’Accomplir,” his watchword. In 1586 he was still
among those who receive urgent orders to arm and prepare bodies of
Derbyshire fighting men, and must give his attention to the most absurd
details of uniform, such as the “convenient hose and doublet, and a
cassock of motley ... either sea-green colour or russet,” noted among
the regulations issued by his fellows of the Privy Council.
These things are, however, only flashes in the pan. He is getting old.
All the world was growing old, and all his contemporaries, in the phrase
of the day, were “a little thing sickish.” The intrepid and laborious
Walsingham is described as being “troubled with his old diseases: the
tympany and carnosity,” and so is absent from Court. Letters still
flowed in to the Earl, news of the Netherlands campaign, from the now
depressed Lord Leicester, the Governor, news of the Queen’s movements,
of Spain, of the legal strife of his contemporaries and friends. They
are only sticks and straws flung into the deep and turgid current of his
lonely, embittered life.
It was in the midst of such disputes as these that the summons had come
to him from Fotheringay.