'Bess of Hardwick': Recommended Reading
- thedudleywomen
- Aug 20
- 8 min read
Elizabeth Hardwick, better known as 'Bess of Hardwick', was one of the most intriguing figures in Tudor history. Born to a gentleman of Hardwick in Derbyshire, through a series of marriages, Bess rose through the ranks of Elizabethan society, her fourth and final marriage elevating her to Countess of Shrewsbury, and becoming the second wealthiest woman in England, only behind Queen Elizabeth I. Whilst not a 'Dudley Woman', she was closely aligned with Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, with whom she shared a passion of building and architecture. Bess was also close to the Frances Brandon, Duchess of Suffolk, and her daughters, in particular her middle daughter Katherine Grey, their relationship commencing from when Bess had been placed in Frances's household after her first husband's death in 1545. In adulthood, Bess's career was varied, being able to demonstrate her shrewd business skills, her resilience and tenacity: personal attributes that were celebrated by her second husband Sir William Cavendish, but brought conflict with her fourth husband George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, in particular during their tenure as custodians of the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots. Despite this, Bess left a legacy, being regarded as one of the most important 'builders' of her age: Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall.
Below are some of recommended books which cover various periods of Bess and her family's lives.
Bess of Hardwick: Portrait of an Elizabethan Dynast
Author: David N. Durant
Year: 2001 (Original 1977)
Publisher: Peter Owen (Original Weidenfeld & Nicolson Ltd)
Place of Publication: London
Formats Available:
Hardcover (Used)
Paperback [Amazon]
The fascinating biography of an extraordinary woman that will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the sixteenth century and in Tudor history.
Born the daughter of an impoverished Derbyshire squire, through a succession of advantageous marriages, Bess of Hardwick moved closer and closer to a position of power and influence in the heart of the royal court. As the Countess of Shrewsbury she was the second most powerful woman in the land after Queen Elizabeth I. However, Bess of Hardwick was not just someone who married well but a formidable and talented business woman who ran her estates with great acumen and who became one of the richest women in England. Queen Elizabeth I held Bess in such esteem that she entrusted her with the important and arduous task of acting as jailer to Mary, Queen of Scots. During her lifetime Bess built two great country houses which are still admired today - Chatsworth and Hardwick - and fulfiled her lifetime’s ambition of founding a great dynasty. By the end of the nineteenth century her blood was flowing through most of the aristocratic families of England and she more than guaranteed her status as one of the most remarkable women in Tudor history.
Arbella: England's Lost Queen
Author: Sarah Gristwood
Year: 2003
Publisher: Bantam Press
Place of Publication: London
Formats Available:
Hardcover (Used)
Paperback [Bookshop.org]
Kindle [Link]
Lady Arbella Stuart’s royal bloodline suggested a glorious future.
A descendant of Henry VII, niece to Mary Queen of Scots, and granddaughter to the great Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick, Arbella was brought up in the belief that she would inherit Elizabeth I's throne.
When this did not become reality, she briefly gained the independence she craved at the heart of Jacobean society.
But then she made the mistake of angering her cousin, the newly crowned King James I, by secretly marrying another distant heir, William Seymour, thus strengthening her claim to the throne.
The consequences would be deadly.
A tale of forbidden love, disguised escape and wild flight, to an agonizing imprisonment and death in the Tower in 1615, this is the beguiling biography of an extraordinary woman who became a pawn in the power struggles of her time.
Meticulously researched and drawing on a wide variety of sources, Arbella brings to life a woman who, despite the turmoil in her life, strove to love freely, speak her wrongs loudly, and - rare for a woman of her time - take charge of her own destiny.
The Devonshires: The Story of a Family and a Nation Author: Roy Hattersley Year: 2013 Publisher: Vintage Place of Publication: London Formats Available: Hardcover (used) Paperback [Bookshop.org] Kindle [link] Audiobook - Narrator: Michael Jayston [Audible] William Cavendish, the father of the first Earl, dissolved monasteries for Henry VIII. Bess, his second wife, was gaoler-companion to Mary Queen of Scots during her long imprisonment in England. Arbella Stuart, their granddaughter, was a heartbeat away from the throne of England and their grandson, Lord General of the North, fought to save the crown for Charles I. Fifty years later, the First Duke of Devonshire conspired to depose James II, and make William of Orange king. For the next two centuries the Devonshires were at the heart of fashionable society and the centre of political power. The Fourth Duke became prime minister and Georgiana, wife of the Fifth, scandalised even the Regency. Spencer Compton, the last of the great Devonshires, was three times offered the preimership, and three times refused it. Even the Devonshire servants made history. Joseph Paxton was their gardner and Thomas Hobbes was the family tutor.
With the help of previously unpublished material from the Chatsworth archives, The Devonshires reveals how the dynasty made and lost fortunes, fought and fornicated, built great houses, patronised the arts and pioneered the railways, made great scientific discoveries, and, in the end, came to terms with changing times. It is popular history at its very best.
Devices & Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England.
Author: Kate Hubbard Year: 2019 Publisher: Vintage Place of Publication: London Formats Available: Hardback (Used) Paperback [Bookshop.org] Kindle [Link] The remarkable story of Bess of Hardwick, her ascent through Elizabethan society and the houses she built that shaped British architectural history.
Born in 1521, Bess of Hardwick, businesswoman, money-lender and property tycoon, lived an astonishing eighty-seven years. Through canny choices, four husbands and a will of steel she rose from country squire’s daughter to Dowager Countess, establishing herself as one of the richest and most powerful women in England, second only to Queen Elizabeth.
Bess forged her way not merely by judicious marriage, but by shrewd exploitation of whatever assets each marriage brought. Wealth took concrete form in her passion for building and she oversaw every stage of the construction of her four houses including Hardwick New Hall, her sole surviving building, which stands as a celebration of one woman’s triumphant progress through Elizabethan England.
Embroidering her Truth: Mary, Queen of Scots and the Language of Power Author: Clare Hunter Year: 2022 Publisher: Sceptre Place of Publication: London Formats Available :Hardcover [Bookshop.org] Paperback [Bookshop.org] Kindle [Link] Audiobook - Narrator: Siobhan Redmond [Audible] "I felt that Mary was there, pulling at my sleeve, willing me to appreciate the artistry, wanting me to understand the dazzle of the material world that shaped her."
At her execution Mary, Queen of Scots wore red. Widely known as the colour of strength and passion, it was in fact worn by Mary as the Catholic symbol of martyrdom.
In sixteenth-century Europe women's voices were suppressed and silenced. Even for a queen like Mary, her prime duty was to bear sons. In an age when textiles expressed power, Mary exploited them to emphasise her female agency. From her lavishly embroidered gowns as the prospective wife of the French Dauphin to the fashion dolls she used to encourage a Marian style at the Scottish court and the subversive messages she embroidered in captivity for her supporters, Mary used textiles to advance her political agenda, affirm her royal lineage and tell her own story.
In this eloquent cultural biography, Clare Hunter exquisitely blends history, politics and memoir to tell the story of a queen in her own voice.
Bess of Hardwick: First Lady of Chatsworth
Author: Mary Lovell Year: 2005 Publisher: Little Brown Place of Publication: London Website Link: http://www.lovellbiographies.com/bessofhardwick.html
Formats Available:
Hardcover (used)
Paperback [Bookshop.org]
Kindle [link]
Bess Hardwick, born into the most brutal and turbulent period of England's history, the fifth of six daughters of an impoverished Derbyshire nobleman who died before her first birthday, did not have a particularly auspicious start in life. Widowed for the first time at sixteen, yet she outlived four monarchs, married three more times, founded dynasties that still wield influence today, and died one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in England's history.
In 1527 England was in the throes of violent political upheaval as Henry VIII severed all links with Rome, and yet after his son Edward VI died, Henry was eventually succeeded by a monarch even more capricious and bloody than himself; his daughter Mary, and after Mary's death by the indomitable and ruthless Gloriana, Elizabeth I. It could not have been more hazardous a time for an ambitious woman. By the time Bess's first child, Frances, was six years old, three of her illustrious godparents had been beheaded. Plague regularly wiped out entire families, conspiracies and feuds were rife, allegiances made and dissolved at a whim, royal intimates dispatched summarily to the Tower. But through all this Bess Hardwick bore eight children and built an empire of her own including the great houses of Chatsworth and Hardwick.
She survived sorcery, a poisoning attempt by her brother-in-law and charges of embezzlement. She negotiated the tortuous Elizabethan laws of succession and inheritance, endured the probable murder of her third beloved husband, married a fourth time to a senior peer (the Earl Marshall of England) and became co-guardian of Mary, Queen of Scots. She even managed to marry each of her children into noble families, in one case to royalty, no mean feat in a climate where it was a treasonable offence to marry without the queen's explicit consent.
Through journals, letters, court reports, inventories and books of accounts Mary S. Lovell charts the rise of an astonishingly tenacious and accomplished woman, one who loved extravagant furnishings and fine clothes and who inspired passionate uxoriousness in her husbands; a woman who was generous, hard-headed and brave. What is revealed is not simply an intimate portrait of one woman but also of all Tudor society: full of life and colour, bold, exuberant and fascinating.
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