Mistress of Hardwick

by Plowden, Alison

  Carver, the Sewer who organised the waiting at table and the seating arrangements, and the gentlemen and yeomen waiters. The Clerk of the Kitchen was responsible for the catering and supply side. He had to *keep a ledger or journal book for the noting therein weekly the particular expenses of every office, and that book to be summed up at the week's end'. He also had to 'receive all provisions of spice made by the Steward, or Comptroller, and those to keep; fruit, as currants, raisin, prunes, dates, etc. in some reasonable moist place, for else they will dry always, and the dry spices, as sugar, cinnamon, etc. to be kept dry, for that moisture will decay and greatly waste them and so become in time not serviceable'. We can be sure that the kitchen accounts at Hardwick would be carefully inspected week by week, and also that the mistress of the house would want to know why if such expensive provisions as dates, sugar and cinnamon were not kept in perfect condition. The Clerk of the Kitchen controlled the cooks and scullery men, the bakers and brewers, the Yeoman of the Cellar who looked after the wine, the Yeoman of the Buttery who looked after the beer, and the Yeoman of the Pantry who received the bread from the baker and was responsible for bringing the salt and the carving knife and fork to the dinner table.

  The Yeoman of the Ewery came under the Steward or the Comptroller. He had charge of the ewers and basins, the candlesticks and table linen, and was responsible for providing the carver with his towel, the master and mistress with their napkins. There were hosts of other functionaries-from the Almoner who dispensed charity to the poor, to the Yeoman of the Wardrobe who looked after the bedding and the comfort of guests; from the Porter who kept the gate (an office of especial importance at Hardwick), to the grooms of the chamber who did the cleaning - but all, from the dignified Steward in his long gown of office down to the half-naked small boys who turned the spits in the

  seething kitchens, contributed to the smooth running of the great house and represented a whole society in miniature.

  Bess of Hardwick herself, whose vision and energy and business acumen had brought this magnificence into being, spent much of her time in her own withdrawing chamber -the Long Gallery being kept for entertaining and for receiving important visitors. But the jewel of the house was undoubtedly the High Great Chamber, or Presence Chamber, which has been described as the most beautiful room in Europe. It was here that Bess could most fully savour her creative triumph. In this room she could feast her eyes on the marvellous frieze, designed and moulded by her own plasterer, Abraham Smith, showing Diana surrounded by her maidens, Venus and Cupid, and over the fireplace the Royal Arms carved in alabaster and black marble. Here, too, Bess could gaze on the superb Brussels tapestries which she herself had chosen, each piece measuring eleven feet deep and exactly filling the space between the wainscot and the frieze. The tapestry in the Presence Chamber tells the story of Ulysses, but Hardwick is full of similar hangings, depicting bibhcal or classical stories which would soon become familiar to the household - even to those members of it who would never have the skill or inclination to read the originals. The tapestries are works of art and give the great rooms their feeling of richness and luxury. They also served the eminently practical purpose of helping to screen the inmates from the howHng draughts of winter on that exposed Derbyshire ridge. Bess herself felt the cold severely - her bed was piled with quilts and no fewer than three pairs of fustian blankets and six woollen blankets. Hardwick must always have been a cold house with its huge expanse of window, but all the same life inside was snug indeed compared with that known by previous generations. The quality of domestic life was steadily improving and becoming

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  rather too comfortable in the opinion of some sturdy citizens who remembered *the good old days'. 'Our fathers, yea and we ourselves', wrote William Harrison, *have lain full oft upon straw pallets, on rough mats covered only with a sheet under coverlets made of dagswain, and a good round log under their heads instead of a bolster or pillow. If it were so that our fathers - or the good man of the house had within seven years after his marriage purchased a mattress of flock and a stack of chaflf to rest his head upon, he thought himself to be as well lodged as the lord of the town, that peradventure lay seldom in a bed of down or whole feathers. Pillows were then thought meet only for women in childbed. As for servants, if they had any sheet above them, it was well, for seldom had they any under their bodies to keep them from the pricking straws that ran oft through the canvas of the pallet and rased their hardened hides.'

  In accordance with custom, Bess's staff was predominantly male, but her 'waiting gentlewomen' were drawn from much the same class as the gentlemen servants. They accompanied their mistress to prayers, helped her to embroider the enormous quantities of coverlets, bed-curtains, hangings and cushions which furnished the rooms and covered every available surface. They read aloud to her and made music for her. Positions of this kind -especially in large, wealthy households - were much sought after by ambitious but dowerless young women. It was, after all, how Bess's own career had started.

  As the Countess of Shrewsbury sat now among her ladies, passing a pleasant hour before dinner, surrounded by all the elegance and luxury that money and discerning modern taste could provide, she had every reason to feel satisfied with the success of that career. It was true that her grand-daughter was proving something of a disappointment. There was still no indication whatever that Queen Elizabeth meant to settle the succession on her, and

  the girl was becoming moody and difficult. But Bess had no doubts about her ability to control Arbella and she had by no means given up hope of living to see her granddaughter called on to fill the highest place in the land. If Bess had been able to read her grand-daughter's mind during that autumn of 1602, she might have felt rather less complacent about the future.

  Arbella, in fact, was rapidly becoming desperate. She had now long passed the normal age for marriage. She would soon have passed the normal age for bearing children. Unless she took matters into her own hands, it looked as if she would languish at Hardwick for ever. Marriage offered the only possible avenue of escape, but first she had to make contact with a prospective bridegroom. John Starkey had proved a disappointment - his fear of the Cavendish family being stronger than Arbella's powers of persuasion - and she had to find another messenger. Her choice fell on one of the servants at Hardwick, an elderly man called John Dodderidge. According to the statement made later by Dodderidge: *About three weeks afore Christmas, as I guess, my Lady Arbella asked me if I would go a little way for her, and I answered I would do the best I could; so she rested for that time. Not long after she told me I must go a hundred miles for her. I made answer that I durst not, for fear of my lady (of Shrewsbury's) displeasure and endangering of my service. She said to me that if I did, I should not need to care, for I should find friends, whereupon I granted that I would go.'

  Arbella wanted Dodderidge to approach the Earl of Hertford and re-open the extremely tentative and indirect proposal which had once been made concerning a possible marriage between herself and Hertford's grandson, Edward Seymour, a boy fourteen years younger than Arbella and whom she had never seen. Dodderidge was to go to Hertford's house *and desire someone of trust about my lord to give you leave to speak with him'. He was on

  no account to reveal that Arbella had sent him. If pressed he could say that he came from her uncles, Henry and William Cavendish, but whatever happened Hertford must not be allowed to think that Arbella ^sought the matter for herself. When he reached the Earl's presence, Dodderidge was to say that the question of the marriage had been considered by the Lady Arbella's friends, who thought his lordship did not 'take an orderly course' in his proceedings. It would have been more suitable if Arbella had been 'first moved in the matter and that the parties might have had sight the one of the other to see how they could like'. If Hertford still wanted the match, then he should send his grandson to Hardwick 'guarded with whom his lordship thought good'. They must not declare their business openly, because Bes
s 'would not seem to deal in it without the Queen's knowledge' and would be the first 'shall advertise and complain to the Queen', Their best cover story, thought Arbella, would be to say they had come to sell land or to borrow money. There should be an older man in the party, so that Edward Seymour could pose as his son or nephew. This 'grave, ancient man' could distract Bess's attention by pretending to talk business, while the young gentleman had 'conference' with Arbella.

  Not surprisingly, Dodderidge was extremely reluctant to undertake this alarming and complicated mission. He asked Arbella whether her uncles were really 'acquainted in the matter or not'. She assured him that they were, and certainly Henry Cavendish must have known something about it. Then he wanted to know 'whether there were any danger in it'. None, said Arbella. If Hertford followed her instructions, Edward Seymour and his companions would be able to come and go quite safely, and 'tarry or depart' as they liked. If anything went wrong, or 'if her Majesty should not like of it', then the whole affair could be passed off as 'some money matter'. Anyway, that part of it could

  be left to the Earl of Hertford, who was Vise enough'. Dodderidge was not entirely satisfied, but his objections were ruthlessly overridden. He dared not leave Hardwick without permission, he said. Arbella had thought of that. She would ask one of her grandmother's gentlewomen to get leave for him *to go into the country to see his friends' and her uncle Henry would provide him with a horse. When Dodderidge protested feebly about his 'unworthi-ness and insufficiency for delivering of a message to such a one as my lord of Hertford', Arbella told him that all he had to do was to deliver the message and *it would be entertained at the first'. At the last moment she remembered that Edward Seymour should be told to bring some means of identifying himself, 'whereby it may be known he is the man and to avoid all doubts' - some picture or handwriting of Lady Jane Grey, 'or of the Lady Catherine, or Queen Jane Seymour', anything in fact *of that family, which we know they, and none but they, have'.

  Dodderidge finally set out, much against his better judgement, on Christmas Day, 1602 and Arbella settled down to wait with as much patience as she could muster for the arrival of her knight errant. She could hardly have chosen a more dangerous knight errant, or one more likely to arouse the Queen's worse suspicions. The Earl of Hertford was the same who, as a young man, had secretly married Lady Catherine Grey, and Edward Seymour was Catherine Grey's grandson too. An alliance between the two junior branches of the royal family would create just the kind of situation which those who were working for the peaceful accession of James of Scotland most dreaded.

  If Arbella wanted to draw attention to herself she certainly succeeded. She also succeeded in putting an end to her grandmother's peace of mind. The Mistress of Hardwick would soon have to face the fact that her well-ordered household was harbouring a determined rebel. Soon, in fact, she would find herself having to do battle

  with a resentful, tempestuous young woman - a battle which was to try the old lady's endurance to its limit.

  8 This Unadvised Young Woman

  The New Year came in and with it a sense of great changes impending. Nearly half a century had passed since that November morning when a little group of horsemen had taken the road from St James's Palace to Hatfield to tell young Elizabeth Tudor that her sister lay dead and she was Queen of England. Now, incredibly, the Elizabethan era was nearing its end and once again the nation stirred with foreboding for the future. At Hardwick Hall tension mounted as the household listened to the rumours sweeping the countryside, as Arbella Stuart and Bess of Hardwick waited and hoped - Arbella for the young man who would rescue her from a torment of frustration, Bess for news that at last the old Queen had broken the silence of a lifetime and named her successor, named her young cousin Arbella Stuart. For Bess of Hardwick, such news would crown a long and profitable career with triumph. It would set the seal of immortality on the achievements of the yeoman's daughter born eighty-three years ago in the manor farm house barely a stone's throw from the great mansion which flaunted her initials on its turrets, her coat of arms on its facade.

  On the 8th of January, 1603, there was a bustle of men and horses in the courtyard at Hardwick and the servants hurried out to welcome an important-looking visitor - a visitor from London who gave orders that his name should be taken up at once to my Lady of Shrewsbury. Bess was walking in the Long Gallery with Arbella and her son William Cavendish when she heard that Sir Henry Brounker had arrived and was asking to see her urgently. Henry Brounker was Robert Cecil's man. Robert Cecil, old Lord Burghley's son, had taken his father's place as the Queen's right-hand man, and was now the most

  powerful man in England. If Cecil's messenger had made the slow, painful journey to Derbyshire in the dead of winter, then this was - it must surely be - the reward of all her years of hoping and planning and patient scheming. Bess was more than twelve years older than Queen Elizabeth. Unlike the Queen, she was still in the best of health - barring an occasional twinge of rheumatism. She would yet live to see her grand-daughter ascend the English throne.

  But when Brounker was ushered into the Gallery, he showed no disposition to go on his knees to Arbella. Instead he greeted Bess with elaborate courtesy, telling her that the Queen wished to be commended to her with all gracious favour. Bess's nerves were so over-wrought that, much to his embarrassment, she attempted to kneel to Sir Henry herself. Hastily preventing such an unsuitable gesture and still keeping up a smooth flow of compliments, he drew the old lady out of earshot of William and Arbella and gave her a letter from the Queen. Whatever that letter contained, it was not what Bess had been expecting. Brounker, watching closely as she read, noticed *some change of countenance'. Far from offering to make Arbella her heir, it seemed that Elizabeth was seriously displeased with her young kinswoman and had sent Sir Henry Brounker to Hardwick to make a full investigation of the matter. Brounker was now asking for permission to speak to Arbella in private - permission which, he reported, was 'easily granted'.

  Bess was too dazed with disappointment and alarm to make any resistance. As she stood with the Queen's letter in her hand, it was as if the ground had suddenly opened under her feet. What could Arbella have been doing to bring not good news, but an ominously implied threat from London? It was true she had shown signs recently of resenting the nun-like seclusion of her life, but Bess had kept such a careful watch over her, day and night. She

  found it hard to believe that the girl could have been so foohsh as to endanger the brilliant future which lay now in such delicate balance.

  Meanwhile, Brounker was confronting Arbella at the other end of tlie Gallery. He began by assuring her that the Queen wished her well, sent thanks for her New Year's gift and would be glad to hear how she did. Then, circuitously, he approached the point of his mission. He had to 'break a matter' which the Queen had taken unkindly, especially considering how ready she would have been at any time to have yielded to any of Arbella's reasonable desires, if only she had been told of them. But although Arbella had been deceitful, there was still an *open way' by which she could give the Queen a 'great testimony of her integrity'. If she would truly and sincerely impart 'all the particular circumstances of the matter', how it had proceeded and who she had used in it - a matter which was already so well known and so openly confessed that there was no denying it - she would show 'her desire to repair any error committed by her'. Naturally Arbella would be eager to take this opportunity to make amends, unless, of course, she wanted Elizabeth to believe that in her action she had laid aside the duty and affection she owed to the Queen, 'both as her subject and of her blood'.

  During this classic opening to a Tudor interrogation Brounker noticed 'by the coming and going of her colour', that Arbella seemed 'somewhat troubled'. Unlike her grandmother, Arbella had been able to guess only too accurately what had brought Sir Henry to Hardwick. All the same, after a little pause, she was ready with an equally classic response. She was 'much grieved' that the Queen should have conceived an ill opinion of her, but
if Brounker would tell her what offence she was supposed to have committed, then she would answer truly and either justify herself or confess her fault.

  Brounker was far too old a hand to fall for that one. Did not her own conscience accuse her of *any late undutiful-ness' he enquired ? But no, Arbella would not acknowledge 'so much as a thought' to offend the Queen. Sir Henry began to press home the attack. Had she not had some 'intelligence with the Earl of Hertford' and employed a man to go to him? Again Arbella 'denied all'. Then, said Brounker coldly, she failed 'both in duty and judgement'. It was not strange for a young lady to err, he went on persuasively. What had passed could not be recalled, but it might yet be amended with repentance and plain dealing. Brounker would be glad if Arbella would 'so carry herself as it might appear her offence to proceed of vanity and love of herself, rather than want of duty and contempt of her Majesty'. He begged her 'to remember herself before she waded too far in this course of wilfulness'. She would have to confess in the end, far better if she did so willingly at the first.

  On the face of it, Arbella's 'crime' does not seem especially serious. It was natural enough that a healthy young woman of twenty-seven should have been desperate to escape from her grandmother's relentless surveillance and enjoy some life of her own. But for anyone of the blood royal - particularly one who stood as near to the throne as Arbella - to embark on marriage plans without the Queen's consent was playing with fire. Forty years before, Lady Catherine Grey's defiance had resulted in life imprisonment. Arbella knew this as she did her best to outface Henry Brounker.