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- [00:01]
Narrator/Advertiser
What can we learn from history's most powerful people?
- [00:04]
Tracey Borman
Join me Mike Suiter, author of NextGen CEO, in History Extra's new podcast series, History's Greatest Leaders. To find out, listen wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:18]
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- [01:41]
Spencer Mizzen
Listen
- [01:42]
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- [02:15]
Narrator/Podcast Host
Bess of Hardwick fell out spectacularly with Mary Queen of Scots and was dumped in the Tower of London by Elizabeth I. Yet nothing could get in the way of this extraordinary social climber. In this Life of the Week episode of the History Extra podcast, Tracey Borman tells Spencer Mizzen about a woman who accrued vast wealth, repeatedly rattled the Tudor courts, and ultimately earned the grudging respect of the Virgin Queen.
- [02:45]
Spencer Mizzen
Hello Tracey. It's great to have you on the History Extra podcast today. So we're here to talk about one of the Elizabethan period's most fascinating Characters, I think a woman who fell out spectacularly with Elizabeth I, and also Mary Queen of Scots, who was highly skilled at marrying the right man at the right time and in the process accrued an extraordinary amount of wealth. So much so that at one she was, I believe, the richest woman in England after Queen Elizabeth, that is Bess of Hardwicke Tracy. I wonder if you could start by giving us a kind of a brief introduction to Bess. Who was she in a nutshell?
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Tracey Borman
Well, that was a great intro to her there, Spencer, because she was a quite extraordinary woman of the Tudor and mostly Elizabethan age. So she didn't start. Start out for greatness. I think this is the important thing to say about Bess. We don't exactly know when she was born. Estimates vary between 1521 to 1527. Probably that latter date is more likely given her marriages and sort of aging her around then. So 1527, she was born into a family of sort of minor gentry. A Derbyshire gentleman named John Hardwick was her father and she was one of five daughters. I always think there's echoes of Pride and Prejudice here, you know, the Bennet sisters and the need to marry. Well, she did, though, have a brother. But Bess was only just a year old when her father died and this plunged the family into crisis because he hadn't made sufficient provision for his family. Bess's mother married again, but to a fairly disreputable character who also wasn't great on the financial side. And suffice to say, they suddenly went from being pretty comfortable minor gentry to being in real financial hardship. Now this is when Bess shows this steely character that we'll see so much during the course of her long life because she's about 16 years old when she decides, come on, enough is enough. Women aren't supposed to manage their own fates, but I'm going to manage mine. So she makes her first marriage and there will be a few to follow. So there's a pattern here. She always marries above her and she marries above her last husband. So of course this is her first husband. He's a man called Robert Barlow. He is, like Bess, from Derbyshire, a county very, very close to Bess throughout her life. She obviously loves Derbyshire. He's probably about the same age, but it's a short lived marriage because life is short in the Tudor period and in fact barlow D in 1544. So just a year into the marriage and apparently before they were bedded together. So it was sort of over before it had begun. That particular Marriage, but it sort of set a bit of a pattern. Bess sees a way out of trouble by marrying.
- [06:06]
Spencer Mizzen
I mean, how important was it that a woman like Bess married, well, sort of to advance herself in Tudor England? And was there in some way more pressure on women to choose their partner wisely at this point than it was for men?
- [06:22]
Tracey Borman
Well, it was very important for women to marry well because this was one of precious few options open to them if they wanted to secure their place in society and secure their wealth. This was not an age where women usually inherited property or estates or money. It tended to be entailed to a male heir, and so it would go to a distant relative. If there were no male heirs, it would sort of bypass the daughter, if you like. So Bess knew that all too well, given what happened with her father. So she knew that one of the only options open to her if she wanted to advance herself was through marriage. But what was unusual was that she was taking control over her own fate, and that didn't usually happen at all. Of course, she didn't have a father around to do that for her. But the next resort would be another male relative or perhaps a male friend or her stepfather. But no, Bess wanted to be in control of her own fate. And I think that's what sets her apart. She's clearly one to watch from the very beginning.
- [07:26]
Spencer Mizzen
Sure. Okay. So her first marriage doesn't last very long. Marriage number two, that's with somebody, I believe, called Sir William Cavendish.
- [07:35]
Narrator/Podcast Host
Yes.
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Spencer Mizzen
Who by all accounts, a few rungs up the social ladder from the first husband, Robert Barlow. Do we know how Bess met William? And how profitable to her was this second union?
- [07:50]
Tracey Borman
Well, he was another Derbyshire man, very strong links with the county. Very uncertain exactly how Bess manoeuvred a meeting. But you're absolutely right in that she was aiming high. You might say she was punching above her weight with husband number two. Because Sir William Cavendish was very prominent, not just in Derbyshire, but at court, at the court of Henry viii. He'd recently been appointed Treasurer of the King's Chamber, and he was one of Thomas Cromwell's servants. Slash henchmen. So he was a mover and a shaker. And clearly there was something about Bess that caught his eye. Perhaps there was a genuine attraction. What we do know is this would be the most successful and, I think, the most happy of Bess's many marriages. So a real meeting of minds between her and Cavendish. They both wanted the same thing, which was advancement in society. So they established what we can call a dynasty, really. This marriage produces no fewer than eight children and it also starts off Bess's passion for building. This is another great sort of defining characteristic of her life. She does love a legacy in bricks and mortar. And in 1549, so quite early in the marriage, Bess is second husband bought the estate of Chatsworth, obviously one of the most celebrated country houses in England today. And they soon embarked on this very, very ambitious project of rebuilding it, extending it, making it, you know, replete with all the mod cons of the time.
- [09:32]
Spencer Mizzen
Yeah. So what does the scale and sort of grandeur of Chatsworth tell us about Bess as a personality? It must give us a kind of inkling, I guess, into what she was like as a person.
- [09:41]
Tracey Borman
It really does. I think Bess expressed her dynastic ambition in her building projects, and you often see that her personality is very obvious. Of course, the standout example is a later building project, Hardwick Hall.
- [09:58]
Spencer Mizzen
Yes, we'll talk about that in a bit.
- [09:59]
Tracey Borman
Yeah, we'll talk about that. But even with Chatsworth, you see it and, you know, you would have seen their emblems there. They made sure that it was basically a sort of mirror to the royal palaces themselves. So they are really staking a claim to be kind of Derbyshire royalty, I think we can say, and this is how it continues. But this is definitely, I think, that the happiest period of Bess's life, certainly the happiest marriage, because they're so compatible, her and Sir William Cavendish. They both want the same thing out of life and they're on the up, sadly, of course, I've already mentioned life is short. This is also a bit of a theme for poor Bess in that, you know, she does lose a husband or two, and Sir William, he dies in 1557. Now, what Bess had done that I think, is really significant because she'd been scarred by that early experience with her father dying when she was young, and actually his property had passed to the Crown because he hadn't made sufficient provision for the fact his son was still a minor. He had these five daughters who couldn't inherit. So Bess had made herself joint owner of Chatsworth and her second husband's other properties. So it meant that when he died, she was still sitting pretty, she hadn't lost everything. So that was a really, really canny move.
- [11:23]
Spencer Mizzen
It's kind of another example of what you mentioned earlier, then, her sort of taking control.
- [11:27]
Tracey Borman
Yeah, absolutely. One of her greatest skills is in anticipation. You know, she's not just Enjoying her life for the time being. She's always thinking one step ahead and how is she going to protect herself? And I think that it must have had a real impact on her, that sudden loss of her father and the sudden loss of status, wealth, you know, near ruination when she was just in her early teens. And she never forgot it. And she spent the rest of her life trying to protect against it. I think just to paint a bit
- [11:58]
Spencer Mizzen
of a fuller picture of Bess. I mean, do we get much of an idea through the sources what she was like as a person, like what she looked like and what people who shared a room with her sort of wrote about her?
- [12:10]
Tracey Borman
Yeah, that's a great way of putting it. Well, ph. She rather resembled another Bess of the Tudor era. Good Queen Bess herself, Elizabeth, she had that same sort of red hair. She appears to have the sort of pale skin in her portraits. She has a steely expression in many of her portraits. And you know what I think, character wise, personality wise, she was pretty terrifying. She was so forthright, so determined and uncompromising. And this would lead to some trouble later on, but she was a woman to be reckoned with, I think one of the most admirable women of the Tudor age, or indeed of any age.
- [12:53]
Spencer Mizzen
Excellent stuff. Right, okay, so husband number two dies. But whatever, I guess the impact that Sir William's death had on Bess and you said they were obviously very close, it wasn't long before she married again. And husband number three, Sir William Low, comes along and it seems that he was even better connected than Cavendish. How was he able to secure Bess an entree into the Elizabethan royal court?
- [13:26]
Tracey Borman
Well, you are absolutely right, Spencer, because Bess doesn't hang around. It's the very next year, after her second husband's death, that she marries Sir William St. Lo. Now, he is a man on the up, just like her previous husbands. He is captain of the guard to the new queen. Elizabeth I comes to the throne around the same time as Bess marries Sir William, her third husband. Now, we don't know how he persuaded Elizabeth or even if much persuasion was required because Elizabeth at this point didn't know Bess and she agreed, because Sir William was a favoured member of her new court, that his new wife could be a member of her privy chamber. In fact, a gentlewoman of the privy chamber. That's one of the top jobs, actually, in Elizabeth's private world. And actually Bess is one of the older members of Elizabeth's entourage. Elizabeth herself is 25 when she becomes queen. And Bess is now about 31, so she's older than the Queen, she's got a wealth of experience. I wonder even if at this point, Elizabeth has a sort of grudging respect. Elizabeth struggles with other women. I will say that much as I love her, she can be quite jealous of other sort of powerful women. She knows when she's met her match and she gives Bess this disappointment. But I'm afraid to say that it soon becomes obvious that, you know, we might say, if we were in a kind of a Western, we'd say, you know, the court isn't big enough for the both of us. And that's what it was like with the new Queen, Elizabeth and with Bess. Bess of Hardwicke, as she's become known. There were these two strident personalities, fiery redheads, if you like, and a clash was always going to be inevitable.
- [15:16]
Spencer Mizzen
So tell us about that clash, then, because, yeah, they kind of fell out spectacularly what happened in this particular instance.
- [15:23]
Tracey Borman
So what made Elizabeth more suspicious than anything else was, was if somebody, as she saw it, made a bid for her throne. Because we must remember, even though now we know, that Elizabeth I would be the longest reigning, arguably the most successful of the Tudor monarchs. When she came to the throne in 1558, nobody thought she would last five minutes. Half the country thinks she's illegitimate. You know, she's the daughter of the scandalous Anne Boleyn. She's the wrong religion for half of her subjects, so the odds are stacked against her. Therefore, she's deeply paranoid about anybody who she thinks is manoeuvring themselves to take her crown. One of those people is Lady Catherine Grey, one of the sisters of the ill fated Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days Queen. And in 1561, unfortunately, Bess becomes embroiled in a scandal involving Lady Catherine Grey, who. Elizabeth hates her. She hates Catherine because, you know, she has a blood claim to the throne. She's younger than her, apparently, she's prettier than her. It all gets deeply personal. And then Catherine Grey makes matters worse by marrying in secret somebody else with a claim to the throne. Edward Seymour, nephew of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour. So this is a scandal. Unfortunately, Catherine, you know, she just goes ahead. She doesn't see the consequences that are about to unfold and she falls pregnant pretty quickly and she chooses to confide in her panic when she realises that perhaps this was a big mistake. She confides in Bess as this older, wiser member of Elizabeth's household and Bess is furious with her. And I think she's furious both because she realises how stupid Catherine's been, how foolhardy to take such a risk, but also because now she's part of it, now she knows the secret and it's gonna be really hard for her to convince the Queen that she wasn't part of some conspiracy. And so this is exactly what happens. Elizabeth finds out about the whole thing. It's impossible to keep a secret at court. She finds out that Catherine has married somebody else with a blood claim and that Bess knows about it. And Bess and Catherine are, as one contemporary put it, clapped in the Tower. They're both sent to the Tower of London. So things are looking pretty bleak for poor Bess at this time.
- [17:50]
Spencer Mizzen
So what happens next? And do we know how this episode impacted on Bess psychologically? I mean, does she tell us in any of the acclaim? No.
- [17:58]
Tracey Borman
What's the frustrating thing about Bess is there are. There's an embarrassment of riches when it comes to sources about Bess, but very few personal reflections. I think we have to judge her by her actions more than her words. But she does live to fight another day. After several months, Elizabeth decides probably Bess has learned her lesson and she's released from the Tower, but she's lost her job in the privy chamber. Elizabeth isn't going to trust her that close and she's sent back to Derbyshire in. In disgrace. And actually, when there's a distance of more than 100 miles between Elizabeth and Bess, they get on famously. They always get on better when they're not in the same room. And actually, this is when that sort of grudging respect that you saw early on starts to bear fruit. And Elizabeth, actually, I think she sees Bess and how she's carved out this very powerful position for herself in a such society, and she's actually pretty pleased about it. Best. Then, of course, what's she going to do because her third husband dies? See the pattern emerging here very quickly. She marries her fourth and he will be her final husband. And he is probably the best of the lot, at least in terms of his social status. He is George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, or Shrewsbury, however you like to pronounce it, one of the richest and most powerful men in the kingdom. So on paper, this marriage has it all. This is the pinnacle for Bess, but it doesn't quite turn out that way.
- [19:39]
Spencer Mizzen
So tell us about that, then. And also, I think this is the moment in the story where Mary, Queen of Scots becomes a bit of A factor in Bess's tell. So can you tell us what happened next and how she ended up crossing paths and actually in some ways crossing swords of Mary, Queen of Scots?
- [19:55]
Tracey Borman
She did. So what you see with Bessie's life now, now she's into marriage number four. She gets more and more embroiled with claimants to the throne. So she had that early brush with danger when she, you know, unwittingly became involved in the whole Catherine Grey scandal. But now Mary Queen of Scots, so she is Elizabeth's biggest rival. She has by far the strongest blood claim to her throne. All of England's Catholics want Mary on the throne instead of heretic Elizabeth. Well, in 1568, Mary having lost control in Scotland, she flees south to England and she throws herself on Elizabeth's mercy. And immediately, of course, what's Elizabeth going to do with her greatest rival? Not send her back to Scotland with an army as Mary expect expected rather naively, but make her prisoner. And Elizabeth now needs somebody she can trust to be Mary's custodian. And she entrusts Bess's fourth husband, George Talbot, as Mary Queen of Scots guardian. So now Bess of course becomes joint custodian. Really, she's there with her husband and this is an enormously responsible position. You know, you're looking after the highest status prisoner in England. So I think it does show that by now Elizabeth has decided to trust Bess. Yes, she'd imprisoned her in the Tower, but she sees something in Bess that she does trust. Otherwise she would never have given this position to her husband.
- [21:37]
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- [23:02]
Spencer Mizzen
so tell us about the relationship between Bess and Mary, because it was quite a rocky one, wasn't it, at some points?
- [23:08]
Tracey Borman
You could say that on the one hand, they seemed to get on quite famously for a while, and I think Bess was quite fascinated by having this captive queen in her household. And clearly they spent a lot of time on their embroidery together. You can still see some examples of that at Hardwick hall and read in some sort of hidden messages through Mary, Queen of Scots embroidery, about her ambitions for the throne. They talked a lot, but they also clashed. And they clashed in particular because I think Mary soon realised that Bess was actually a bit of a rival, because Bess had ambitions that would never be satisfied by any amount of building works or money. She had ambitions for the throne, not for herself. She wanted to see a member of her family on the throne. And so in 1574, she struck a deal with another formidable matriarch of the Elizabethan age. Margaret Douglas, Countess of Lenox, was Henry VIII's niece. She, like Bess, had always conspired to have one of her family on the throne of England. And these two matriarchs, Bess and Margaret, conspired to marry their children. So Margaret's son Charles, and Bess's daughter, Elizabeth. Now, of course, they didn't ask Queen Elizabeth's permission to do this. They did it in secret. And Elizabeth was furious when she found out. Lady Margaret Douglas was ordered to the Tower. Bess was placed under house arrest. But it was too late, because actually, the marriage quickly produced a child. That child was a girl, which was the only plus for the Queen Arbella. And Arbella became one of the greatest rivals for the throne of England, because she had this royal blood, thanks to Lady Margaret Douglas, being the niece of Henry viii. Now, this is when things soured between Bess and Mary, Queen of Scots, because Bess had effectively facilitated this marriage, which had produced a rival to Mary, Queen of Scots. And what Arbella had over Mary, Queen of Scots, admittedly, it was a weaker claim, but she'd been born in England and that really mattered to Elizabeth's subjects, because they saw the Scots as foreigners. They didn't want a Scot on their throne, but Arbella was one of their own. So Mary never forgave Bess for this. And things became pretty stormy between them from that day forward.
- [25:41]
Spencer Mizzen
Okay, so Bess has fallen out with Elizabeth I at least once. She's fallen out with Mary, Queen of Scots. She's gonna fall out with Arbella as well, isn't she?
- [25:51]
Tracey Borman
Yes, I'm afraid so.
- [25:53]
Spencer Mizzen
This is a story that kind of dominates her later years, is she's obviously got is a plan overstating it, I don't know. But she obviously can envisage this scenario in which Arbella maybe inherits a throne, gets quite deeply involved in Arbella's early years, and Arbella begins to resent this. Am I right in saying.
- [26:11]
Tracey Borman
You're absolutely right. And Bess is a complete control freak with her granddaughter, Arbella. So Arbella goes to live with her grandmother because both her parents die quite young. And on the one hand, Bess makes the whole of her household aware that here is a potential queen in waiting. This little girl, Arbella. So she's served on bended knees, she's treated like royalty. But on the other, Bess denies Arbella any freedom of action. She controls her every move. She even makes her granddaughter sleep in the same room as her until Arbella's well into her 20s. So it's quite a suffocating environment for Arbella. And what it means is that Arbella grows up to be very haughty because she's been treated like a royal, but also fatally naive because Bess has been controlling her every move. She hasn't been allowed to make mistakes or experience the world. And as Arbella grows towards her teenage years, yes, there are clashes with her grandmother. Bess is very, very good at falling out with people. I think that's one of her other memorable characteristics, I would say.
- [27:16]
Spencer Mizzen
So what happens between Bess and Arbella in the end, then?
- [27:20]
Tracey Borman
So Arbella becomes uncontrollable, even for Bess. She starts to plot an escape from her grandmother's clutches. She doesn't want to live with her anymore. She doesn't want to be controlled by her. So she plots a marriage to a Seymour, no less to a descendant of Lady Catherine Grey, and her marriage to Edward Seymour. So marrying another blood claimant. And it's discovered, and luckily for Bess, Queen Elizabeth believes her, that she literally knew nothing about this and that it was all, ah, Bella. And in fact, Bess willingly goes along with helping to keep her granddaughter really under lock and key. She's a far more harsh guardian than the One that Elizabeth sends to keep an eye on Arbella. And Bess later disinherits Arbella just to prove her loyalty to the Queen. She genuinely hadn't known about this foolhardy scheme of Arbella's. Yes, Bess would love to see Arbella on the throne, but she wants her to go about it the right way, not through, you know, making a secret marriage. That is treason in the eyes of Queen Elizabeth. So there's no going back then for Bess and Arbella. They are permanently estranged.
- [28:36]
Spencer Mizzen
Okay, here's a note for our listeners. If you'd like to hear more about Elizabeth I on the History Extra podcast, then why not check out our four part series on the monarch with historian Nicola Tal. I'll leave the link to that in the notes for this show. Also, please keep your eyes peeled for a series we're running with Tracy Borman on Henry VIII's Six Wives, which is due to land in the forthcoming winter. Okay, Tracey, we've talked about Chatsworth, but as we kind of mentioned before, we can't do an entire podcast on Best of Hardwick without mentioning Hardwick hall, or should I say Hardwicke Hall, More glass than wall. This is extraordinarily imposing and opulent country house that Bess had built, I believe, in the 1590s. I guess his house is kind of like the ultimate architectural flex, wasn't it? Can you tell us a bit about the house and what did Bess contemporaries make of it?
- [29:39]
Tracey Borman
Well, yes, Hardwicke hall, this is Bessie's crowning glory. So she starts to build it, really, you're right. In the 1590s as an expression of her independence. So we should just touch on the fact that Bess's fourth marriage unravels quite spectacularly. She and George Talbot do not get on. In fact, the Queen herself intervenes in this. She tries to help them patch things up. But they live separate lives and Bess enjoys her independence after his death. And this is expressed in this greatest of all Bess's building projects. And she goes home. So she'd been raised at sort of Hardwick Old hall, and very close to that, she builds Hardwick New Hall. Now, we said earlier about how Bess's personality can be seen in bricks and mortar. And that is no more apparent than at Hardwick, where you see emblazoned around the turrets, the ES for Elizabeth Shrewsbury. You know, this is not subtle building work here. And it is one of the most glorious Elizabethan houses that still survive in England. And you're right, Hardwick hall more glass than wall. And that's significant because glass was eye wateringly expensive to have so many windows, huge windows. That's a real status symbol on Bess's part. But she's clearly enjoying herself now. And she moves into Hardwick in the late 1590s and you get the sense, yes, she's been through the trials and tribulations with her granddaughter and being imprisoned in the Tower and the disintegration of her fourth marriage, losing those other husbands. This is her time and you've got to be happy for Bess, I think at this point, after everything she's been through. And it really is just a staggering expression of the power, the independence and the resilience, I think, of this remarkable woman.
- [31:43]
Spencer Mizzen
So Bess died in 1608. Her granddaughter Arabella never, as we all know, she never ascended to the English throne. But the current, I think I'm right in saying the Dukes of Devonshire and Newcastle are descended from Bess second marriage. She obviously have, as we've discussed, she accrued vast wealth and left behind these extraordinary architectural statements that we've just been talking about. How would you sum up Bess legacy? Why is she such a fascinating person for us to be talking about today?
- [32:16]
Tracey Borman
Well, Bess defied every single convention. And she had been dealt this terrible hand with the early loss of her father, the near ruination of her family. But she rose from the ashes, kind of phoenix like to be one of the longest lived, the second richest woman in England. She lived through six reigns. She outlived the Tudors, she was still around when the Stuarts were on the throne. She had four husbands, numerous children, she had ambitions for the throne. Nothing could stop Bess. And, and for that I think she deserves huge admiration. There is no other woman like her in Tudor England, except perhaps Queen Elizabeth herself.
- [33:08]
Spencer Mizzen
One final question, Tracy. What does Bess story, the fact that she was able as a woman to write to these dizzying heights tell us about Elizabethan England?
- [33:17]
Tracey Borman
I think it's really interesting because, you know, Bess broke the mold. It was not at all easy to even preserve your status quo as a woman in Elizabethan England. Yes, as a queen on the throne. That didn't make it easier for women in general. But Bess would never conform to what society dictated. And so I suppose that her story does prove what was possible. You know, many women failed to assert themselves. They were sort of beaten back by this misogynistic society. But Bess must have been an inspiring role model for women everywhere. And I think even for the queen herself.
- [34:04]
Spencer Mizzen
Excellent stuff, Tracey. Thank you so much. That was absolutely fascinating. Thanks for sparing the time to talk to me today.
- [34:09]
Tracey Borman
Oh, it's a pleasure. Thanks for having me.
- [34:12]
Narrator/Podcast Host
That was Tracey Borman speaking to Spencer Mizzen. Tracey is a broadcaster, author and historian of Tudor England. You can read more from Tracy Tracy on this topic in her book, Elizabeth's Women, the Hidden Story of the Tudor Queen.