Countess of Shrewsbury, member of Queen Elizabeth I’s court, and one of the wealthest women in England in the 1590s
Bess of Hardwick, a daughter of a modest landowner, John Hardwick, and Elizabeth Leake, had to start building her fortune almost from scratch. Endowed with down-to-earth practicality, shrewdness, and, most important, the ability to succeed at the game whose rules favored men, Bess became one of the wealthiest women in England. She built mansions at Chatsworth, Oldcotes, Workshop, and Bolsover; the pinnacle of her dynastic ambition was Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire (completed in 1597). Bess even became a grandmother of a potential heir to the English throne when, in 1574, she contrived a marriage between her daughter Elizabeth Cavendish and Charles Stuart, earl of Lennox, a union that produced Arbella Stuart. Although this marriage got Bess in trouble with Elizabeth I, she was soon forgiven by her queen, who enjoyed Bess’s vibrant personality.
Bess’s rise to wealth was firmly linked to her marital career. At about age fourteen, Bess married Robert Barley only to become a widow at the age of sixteen. She was to survive three more husbands: Sir William Cavendish, whom she married in 1547 and who fathered all of Bess’s eight children; Sir William St. Loe, whom she wedded in 1559; and finally George Talbot, sixth earl of Shrewsbury, who became her husband in 1567 and with whom Bess was to share the honor and hardship of caring for Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, when she was Elizabeth I’s prisoner in England. Bess’s last marriage disintegrated under pressure of this challenging task—sixteen years (1569—1584) of mounting expenses, discomfort, and stress. Bess spent several years in reluctant separation from her embittered husband, waiting in vain for reconciliation. By the time of Talbot’s death, Bess was an expert in dealing with the legal system designed to keep property in the hands of men. As a widow, she retained a portion of her husbands’ estates, and she bought land in the name of her sons. Bess left a fortune to her family, and she is still widely remembered for erecting the magnificent Hardwick Hall, a monument to one remarkable woman’s success on her journey from poverty to splendor.
Anya Riehl
See also Cavendish, Elizabeth Brackley and Jane Cavendish; Elizabeth I; Power, Politics, and Women; Stuart, Arbella.
Bibliography
Primary Work
Stowe, J. The Chronicles of England. 1587.
Secondary Works
Durant, David N. Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast. London: Peter Owen, 1999. (Originally printed in 1977.)
Hubbard, Kate. A Material Girl: Bess of Hardwick, 1527—1608. London: Short Books, 2001.