FIFTY-SEVEN WAS CONSIDERED ALMOST OLD AGE IN Elizabethan times but Bess was more fortunate than most; apart from some stiffness in her joints in damp and cold weather she remained fit and active. She was regarded at Court as a formidable personality, not only for her wisdom and dignity of bearing but because she was articulate and stood up for her rights, and not least because she was able to marshal powerful support. She had achieved much for a woman of her time, and would go on to achieve more, but this was not a happy period in her life.
Her eldest son, Henry, married to Shrewsbury’s daughter, Grace Talbot, was a great disappointment to her. Although Bess was friendly with Grace1 and, judging from their letters, they held each other in mutual affection, she regarded Henry as a wastrel, and a poor heir to everything for which she had worked. ‘My bad son Henry’ she once called him, and he reminded her of her dead brother James,* having nothing of the dynast about him, and no thoughts for furthering the future of his family: the goal to which she and his father had aspired. Instead of taking an interest in his heritage, Henry preferred to travel and to gamble,2 spending as little time with his wife as he could. He had sired bastard children all over the county of Derbyshire, but not one child was born in wedlock to carry on his line. Henry knew of his mother’s opinion of him, and this was probably why he lent support to his stepfather amidst the couple’s perennial bickering. But there was nothing Bess could do about Henry; it was he to whom Chatsworth – Bess’s beloved Chatsworth – was entailed.
In fact, Henry was probably a better man than he sounds. He was a music lover and kept his own group of musicians, and, having a good eye for a horse, he was a successful owner and trainer.3 He was MP for Derbyshire in 1572, and though he had not stuck to this, his stepfather and father-in-law, the Earl of Shrewsbury, thought he was twice the man of either of his brothers and had told the Queen so while Henry was serving in the army in the Low Countries in 1578. The Earl gave Tutbury Abbey, a cheerless place by all accounts, to Henry and Grace as their marital home. It was not far from the castle where Mary, Queen of Scots was now imprisoned under the guardianship of Sir Amias Paulet. Paulet was always suspicious of Henry and Grace. They had grown up regarding his prisoner almost as a member of the family, and Paulet frankly told Burghley that he would prefer them moved from such close proximity.
Bess’s two younger sons fitted her ideal more closely. Her second and favourite son, Sir William Cavendish, was married to Anne Keighley, and they now lived in Hardwick Hall. For years William, of whom Bess’s steward once said there was never any need to drive him to his books, had become the equivalent of Bess’s personal assistant, and she probably could not have achieved what she went on to achieve without his able support.
Sir Charles, who lived a few miles from Chatsworth at Stoke Manor, had been widowed after a year, and left with a motherless baby who died in infancy. Of Bess’s three sons, Charles seems to have had the pleasantest personality. Educated to believe he would inherit little, he was lucky to have married well and had no financial problems, though the loss of his wife hit him hard. He was brave, well mannered, insouciant and affectionate. His best friend was Gilbert Talbot, to whom he was steadfastly loyal, and upon whom he was a good influence, despite Shrewsbury’s dislike of the close relationship.4
Of Bess’s two surviving daughters, Frances, married to Sir Henry Pierrepoint, had five children. The eldest of these, Bess’s namesake Elizabeth ‘Bessie’ Pierrepoint, had been in the Scottish Queen’s service since the age of four. According to Mary, the child – whom she called ‘Mignonne’ – had been her ‘bedfellow’ (children routinely shared the beds of adults in the family), and had been as carefully and virtuously brought up as if she was her own daughter. When Mary’s guardianship passed from Shrewsbury, Bessie accompanied her royal mistress to Wingfield and Tutbury Castle, but now she was seventeen, and a marriage was being promoted between her and a son of Lord Percy, the Earl of Northumberland. Bessie had always been a great favourite of the captive Queen, who stated that ‘she would be no impediment to the marriage’ and would release the girl who, she said, looked younger than her age and ‘was inclined to fatness, yet her marriage might increase her stature and take away the inclination…’5 Furthermore, Mary privately told her jailer Amias Paulet, she did not wish to give the Countess of Shrewsbury any cause to tell people that the Scottish Queen had ruined her granddaughter’s life by depriving her of the chance of a brilliant marriage.6
Mary, Lady Talbot, married to Gilbert, her husband’s estranged heir, had provided Bess with three granddaughters but no surviving grandson so far, to replace poor little George.
Bess was an involved grandmother, holding her grandchildren in deep affection, taking an interest in their academic achievements and often sending them small gifts when she could not see them in person. But it was the orphan Arbella who embodied all Bess’s remaining ambitions. She had lived with Bess since her mother’s death, and in 1585 she was nine years old. According to Mary, Queen of Scots, Bess had consulted an astrologer who had foretold that Arbella would marry King James of Scotland and ultimately become Queen of England.7 Whether this is true, and if so whether Bess believed this or not, she certainly ensured that Arbella was educated as a princess by the best tutors available. From family letters, we know that Arbella was a good and virtuous child, intelligent, articulate, musically gifted and a linguist: by the time she was thirteen Arbella could ‘read French out of Italian, and English out of both’. As well as precocity in the schoolroom, she enjoyed the outdoor pursuits of riding, hunting and archery; her childhood and education were similar, in fact, to that of the young Princess Elizabeth.
But of all the problems in Bess’s life as she neared her sixtieth birthday, the main one – and the one that try as she might she could not resolve – was her disastrous marriage to George, Earl of Shrewsbury.
From the symptoms – a very gradual mental deterioration and personality change – the Earl seems to have been suffering the early stages of an age-related dementia, perhaps caused by what we now recognise as small ischaemic strokes. Although he was the same age as Bess he had been in almost constant ill health for about six or seven years, and his letters are full of his ills. These ailments are always blamed on ‘the gout’, and the extreme pain and swellings on his body that he complained of are typical of that illness and of arthritis. But there were other symptoms which cannot be ascribed to gout: his sudden outbursts of intimidating bad temper and emotional instability, his memory losses, the invention or exaggeration of events to fill the loss (such as his armed attack on Chatsworth which he appeared to regard as a mild-mannered request for a night’s lodging), and what can only be described as a paranoid obsession centred on his wife, her two younger sons, her daughter Mary and his own son Gilbert.
He believed that these members of his family were conspiring to rob him of his money, that they were spreading scandalous lies about him to ruin his reputation, and – now that he could no longer blame the cost of keeping Mary, Queen of Scots – that their wilful extravagance was driving him into bankruptcy. As well as prohibiting Bess from setting foot in any of his houses, he had driven her out of Chatsworth and withheld her allowance – money that was legally hers under their marriage contract, and a good proportion of which derived from properties that she had brought into their union. Other ‘enemies’ also presented themselves: in one curious incident a rumour spread in Scotland that the Earl of Shrewsbury had a fleet of a dozen ships at sea, ‘which rob practically every man they meet’. He was furious when he heard about it and branded all Scotsmen ‘lying villains’.8
Anyone with a husband, parent or beloved relative with similar symptoms will sympathise with Bess’s predicament. Even today, with a battery of helpful medications and greater understanding, it is a distressing condition, and it is difficult to accept major personality changes when the person looks and appears outwardly normal for some considerable time – even years. The behaviour of the Queen and her courtiers and government towards Shrewsbury when he was at Court, and in the letters written to him afterwards, indicate that they were well aware that Shrewsbury had a problem. They were gentle with him, fending off his constant complaints and petitions with kindness rather than irritation, but, noticeably, they consistently came down on the side of Bess in her defence against him.
This support might have been of some comfort to Bess, but it did not help her in any practical sense. The Earl’s servants took him at his word when he spoke of wanting to take revenge on her and her sons, with the result that her tenants were now terrorised in their homes. Bess said she was now literally too afraid to return to Chatsworth, and therefore remained at Hardwick Hall with her son William and his wife. Although at this time Hardwick was more substantial than the half-timbered house in which Bess had grown up, it was not what she had become used to. James Hardwick had begun to extend the house but, typically, had left the work half finished.
Bess had seen Chatsworth raised from the first footings upwards, had overseen every step of the building and décor – had spent thirty years – more than half her life, on its aggrandisement. There was not a stone of it she did not know about and she missed it. Hardwick was inconvenient for the sort of living and entertainment Bess was used to, with its central hall stretching from the front to the back, rather than from end to end which would have given it length and grandeur. It had not been designed so much as ‘grown’ – a chamber fitted in here, a wing added there, as occasion demanded. And having stood empty following her brother’s death, it was dank and unwelcoming. Bess was depressed enough to write uncharacteristically to Walsingham that all she hoped for now was ‘to find some friends for meat and drink, and so to end my life’. However, she was an optimist by nature and, true to form, it was not long before she embarked upon a project to extend and beautify the former manor into something that would reflect her usual lifestyle and serve as a fitting setting for her little ‘jewel’, Arbella. This began as a modest programme – the building of a new great hall – but later she would embark upon a complete remodelling and extensive additions.
Shrewsbury had not recovered from the fact that the Council had exonerated Bess and her sons of spreading rumours about him and the Scottish Queen. Refusing to accept the decision, he brought a private suit against Bess, among other things charging that she had ‘animated her sons, not only with force to keep me from a night’s lodging in one of my houses [Chatsworth], but also with slanderous speeches and sinister practices to dishonour me’. But the gist of his suit concerned property matters. He hoped to discredit the deed of gift made in 1572 under which he had transferred to the younger Cavendish sons ownership of certain lands brought into the marriage by Bess. When he made the gift, Shrewsbury had owed Bess money, so the land was transferred partly in lieu of this debt, and the balance was paid to Shrewsbury in cash in her sons’ names. As was her lifelong practice, however, Bess had retained a life interest in the lands, which provided her with an annual income in rents.
Initially, Shewsbury claimed the document was a forgery. It is entirely possible that he genuinely did not recall signing it, but it patently contained the Earl’s signature, although notably there were no witnesses, which was unusual. When it was judged to be a genuine document, Shrewsbury claimed he had been ill when he had signed it, and had not known what he was signing. But he had sent a letter to Lord Burghley dated the same day as the deed, in which he wrote of various matters concerning the Scottish Queen, in a perfectly normal hand and not mentioning any ill health.
Bess was also able to show that her sons had borrowed the money paid to Shrewsbury in respect of the settlement of this deed, and indeed that they were still paying off the debt. Other sums Shrewsbury claimed that Bess had had from him over the years – often, he claimed, extracted over his sick bed without his knowledge – were hugely exaggerated, and Bess was able to show that not only were the amounts he listed excessive, but they were perfectly legitimate drawings, mostly part of the monies due to her under their marriage settlement.
In fact the Earl’s ‘suit’, backed up by sworn documents presented by his counsel, offered not a scintilla of detail to support his wild accusations about his wife. They merely echoed, yet again, his general dissatisfaction about Bess’s ‘misbehaviour’ of which he had complained since the onset of his illness at the beginning of the decade (and possibly for eighteen months prior to that when he had first begun displaying uncharacteristic emotional outbursts).
The matter was heard by three of the Earl’s peers. In what was a man’s world, surely these men, Lord Chancellor Bromley, and two Chief Justices – given even a vestige of doubt – would have come down on the side of one of the most powerful Peers of the Realm, who, having been guardian of the Scottish Queen for sixteen years, was now plagued by a wife he accused of being a ‘shrew’? They did not. In fact they vindicated Bess on every count. Furthermore, they recommended that the Earl should take his wife back into his home, should pay her £2000 in rents he had collected that year on properties that were hers, and that in return she should pay him, in future, £500 per annum for lands she occupied that were the Earl’s.
Bewildered, hurt and angry, Shrewsbury wrote to the Queen from Chelsea, protesting that the only defence presented by the Countess had been ‘that of my wife’s servants and a secret instrument written in her own hand without witness, [whereas] I had many warrants duly registered and copied’. He had no option but to accept the verdict, but he refused to accede to the suggestion that he should take his wife back into his home, and advised that he was not able to wait upon Her Majesty, ‘being now so grieved with the colic and the stone’ that he wished only to return home. He then begged her (a hint that he had so far received no reward for his guardianship of the Scottish Queen), ‘to give me some remembrance of your good liking for my long service’.9
A few weeks later Lord Leicester replied to him at the Queen’s request, pleading with Shrewsbury to accept the Council’s decision. In the letter, Leicester wrote that the Queen had pointed out that as Sovereign Head of State she sought to give justice to all persons, especially ‘in this cause of my Lady your wife, whom you have long and for many years very lovingly and honourably entertained till within these few years that the breach between her and the Queen of Scots fell out’. The Queen was convinced that it was through Mary’s machinations ‘though not directly with yourself’, that the Shrewsburys had been driven apart.
…and yet your Lordship not meaning to do it for that Queen’s sake, but other matters laid before you, to withdraw your love from my lady.
Her Majesty…never yet heard or could find sufficient matter laid against her [Bess], to cause so hard and extreme a breach to be made between a man and his wife.
…My Lord, you must not think that Her Majesty doth this for special favour more to my Lady than to you, but…she doth think my Lady hath received some hard dealing, and doth not find sufficient material to charge her touching yourself, that she should be so turned away.10
The second matter [concerns] such deeds and grants as your Lordship has conveyed to my Lady,…which her Highness did commit to the grave consideration of the Lord Chancellor and other learned judges…They all think the meaning [intention] of your Lordship was that my lady should enjoy all these gifts.11
Shrewsbury took this hard, and replied bitterly: ‘Her Majesty has 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 will see that I will obey her commandment, though no curse or plague on earth could be more grievous to me…It is too much to make me my wife’s pensioner.’12
Bess spent the summer and autumn of 1585 at Court, which made Shrewsbury suspicious. He wrote to the Queen that the aim of his Countess was to bring him into disrepute with her, when all he was guilty of was having disloyal servants who gossiped about him. The Queen should punish Bess for her slanders, he wrote, and banish her from Court. Meanwhile, he positively encouraged his own servants to be impertinent to Bess, to such an extent that she eventually complained to Walsingham about the ‘ill-conduct of Copley’, Shrewsbury’s London steward, a man with whom she had had a long and satisfactory working relationship and whom she had always formerly addressed as ‘Good Copley’.
In September Gilbert Talbot applied to his father for financial assistance, on Bess’s advice. Gilbert was now in debt to the tune of over £5000, could no longer hold off his creditors and wrote in desperation: ‘most humbly beseeching your Lordship, on my knees, to pardon my fault of spending hitherto…but rather than remain still so far behind hand as I am…I would wish to end my life’.13 Shrewsbury retorted unsympathetically that it was a good comeuppance for a son who had sided with his stepmother against his own father. However, he suggested that if Bess would sell him a property called Sutton for £2300 he would give this to Gilbert to pay off his debts. Bess was doubtful about this offer, shrewdly surmising that it was a ruse of Shrewsbury’s to make her part with a prime property at a knock-down price. She offered instead to sell Shrewsbury some other lands in Derbyshire which she had previously earmarked for her son Charles. These lands, she said, might be sold off to pay Gilbert’s debts, but in any case she would match pound for pound any sum Shrewsbury would donate for this purpose.
When Gilbert relayed this offer to his father, he found that Bess had correctly summed up his father’s real intentions. Shrewsbury wrote admitting he had no intention of helping Gilbert financially, and that he had simply been testing to see what his wife would do about Sutton. As for Gilbert’s debts, he wrote: ‘in the last year you have had in money and lead, and by my toleration, nearly £2000, besides your maintenance and allowance £800 money. These are no small matters and how you should so spend all this money and bring yourself so far into debt I cannot but marvel.’14
On and on it went, this interminable dispute between husband and wife, fuelled by Shrewsbury’s obsession with letter-writing. Almost weekly the Queen, Lords Burghley and Leicester, Walsingham, and indeed anyone connected with Bess,* were on the receiving end of a long screed from Shrewsbury in his barely decipherable hand. He ordered Leicester to cease trying to effect a rapprochement between them; he stated to Walsingham that the grief caused by his wife was of ‘the like whereof hath [never] been offered to a man of my cut by a woman of so base a parentage and her children…’15 and he told Burghley how sorry he was to learn that his wife was still at Court, pestering the Queen with complaints about him. As before, his allegations were all of a general nature, rather than specific, such as in the following – typical – letter written to Bess:
Wife. The offences and faults you have committed against me…no good wife would do. Though you desire to be charged particularly, that you may know your faults, I need not to express them, they be so manifest to the world. And if I would hide them, your behaviour and conditions have laid them open.
There cannot be any wife more forgetful of her duty, and less careful to please her husband than you have been, nor any more bounden, nor have received greater benefits by her husband than you…In that I loved you and did many good things for you and was loath that the world should see your behaviour, it may be judged that I would still so have continued, if you had not sought all means both at home and abroad to offend me…[but] your insatiable greedy appetite did betray you.
Your own living at my hands would not content you, nor yet a greater part of mine, which for my quietness I could have been contented to give you, but this was short of the mark you shot at, and [still] do…As for our cohabitation, you went away voluntarily, not turned away by me as you say…16
In another letter he accused Bess of telling the Queen that he had been ‘ruled’ by Mary, Queen of Scots, which he angrily denied, and he also denied that Bess was more respected locally than he was himself. Bess sent a polite and patient reply to this letter, which brought the response, ‘your fair words are nought but form…they appear beautiful but they are mixed with poison’.17
With all the problems of State (this domestic squabble took place against the background of the problems in the Low Countries and Drake’s magnificent adventures against the Spaniards), it is amazing that Queen Elizabeth, Lords Burghley and Leicester, and Francis Walsingham found time to read, let alone reply to Shrewsbury’s storm of letters. And yet the Queen wrote to him frequently, calling him her ‘good old man’, and repeatedly asking him to allow his wife to have access to him ‘which she has now wanted for a long time’. Why did Bess lobby so hard to be reunited with a husband who had become so unpleasant to her? Obviously she wanted to be allowed to return to Chatsworth and live in peace there. And it is just possible that, despite everything (Shrewsbury had refused to comply with any of the recommendations of the court hearing: he had not paid Bess the £2000; would not allow her in his presence or in any of his houses; and continued to persecute Bess, her sons and their servants and tenants), Bess still retained the affection for Shrewsbury that she professed she did.
In November 1585, acting on Burghley’s advice, the Queen commissioned Sir Francis Willoughby* of Wollaton Manor, and Sir John Manners† of Haddon Hall, to preside over a full investigation of the Shrewsbury matrimonial problems, with instructions to examine ‘the allegations on both sides’.18 This commission would spend six months deliberating on the matter.
In April 1586 Shrewsbury joined the Court at Oatlands to take part in the annual St George’s Day service. He then returned to Sheffield and had not long arrived there when he received the results of the commission’s findings. He had been totally confident that an in-depth inquiry would uphold his complaints about his wife and her children, would convict her of malicious slander, and return to him all the lands and titles that he had conveyed to his wife on their marriage, as well as the items of plate he claimed she had ‘stolen’ from Chatsworth. Once again he was disappointed.
This time, to ensure that the Earl accepted the report and recommendations of the commission, the documents were countersigned by Lord Burghley and Walsingham, and they ratified the decisions reached a year earlier, as follows:
This schedule was conveyed to Shrewsbury accompanied by a personally written letter from the Queen, who wrote kindly, but firmly, of
…an earnest desire since the first dislike fallen out between you and the Countess your wife, to set all matters as well of unkindness between you yourselves, and her younger sons, by our mediation brought to some good end and accord…
The place we hold requires…that we do not suffer in our realm two persons of your degree and quality to live in such a kind of discord. As also for the special care we have of yourself, knowing that these variances have greatly disquieted you, whose years require repose, especially of the mind. We have of late thought…that no such effects have followed our mediation in that behalf, as we looked for (although we hope for better hereafter), especially touching that unkindness.
Calling unto us the Lord Chancellor…together with our cousin of Leicester to deal between you…and our Lord Treasurer, and our Secretary whom we appointed this last winter [we ordered them] to proceed in the same cause, with your son Henry Talbot and your servant Copley, for that [the] former order by us intended was not brought to a quiet end…Which our pleasure is to be observed, as is specified and contained in a schedule hereinclosed, subscribed by the said Lord Chancellor, Lord Treasurer and our Secretary.
Elizabeth R. Greenwich, 12th May 1586.20
The Queen’s reference here to Shrewsbury being ‘disquieted’ – ‘you, whose years require repose, especially in the mind’, seem to confirm her opinion of the cause of the problems. Bess was the same age but there was no question of her needing repose; in fact, she was still actively serving in the royal bedchamber on occasion. Walsingham wrote as well, advising the Earl to comply with the ‘findings’. Burghley also wrote that week, but on a different subject. He begged Shrewsbury to help Gilbert, who would have to go abroad if his debts were not soon discharged. Gilbert had told him he could not face his father because he feared the latter’s violent temper, and at Bess’s suggestion had asked Burghley to intercede for him, because of his father’s admiration and respect for him. Although Gilbert thought that the Earl might suspect Bess’s hand in this, which would put him ‘in greater peril’ of his father’s anger, he had no other options.21
As soon as he received the results of the commission Shrewsbury hurried back to London. There he continued barracking Burghley, Walsingham and Sir Thomas Bromley, this time charging that his wife, ‘now she has so apparently manifest her devilish disposition to the utter ruin and destruction of my house and name’ had bribed them to gain their favour.22 Had they not considered Shrewsbury’s illness a mental one, these men would surely have taken great offence at such a charge. But the only response was one from Walsingham, firmly denying that the Countess had used her money to buy favours at Court. In fact Bess constantly sent gifts to influential people, as indeed did Shrewsbury, but this was no more than working the system. Despite all their efforts Shrewsbury made it abundantly clear that he did not accept the commission’s decision.
Bess was still living at Court in July 1586 when the Queen issued a formal decree that the Earl of Shrewsbury must allow his wife to occupy and enjoy all her properties, paying her husband the amount of £500 a year for this privilege. The Earl was now hoist by his own petard, for he had formerly insisted that the lands he had taken over from his wife were worth only £500 a year. Now he grumbled that he would lose £2000 a year by the Queen’s ruling.
But the Council soon had other things to think about, for later that month plague struck the city.23 Elizabeth and a few attendants were at Oatlands and remained there, and the Court decamped to Richmond. In periods such as this, it was hopeless to try to get any response to letters, and Shrewsbury’s letters went unanswered. Bess remained with the Court on this occasion for at least six months, serving in the Privy Chamber and the Bedchamber, and, to Shrewsbury’s annoyance, this gave her an intimate access to the Queen completely denied to him.
He continued to write bitter and vindictive letters to Bess. She always replied politely and patiently:
My Lord, I hold myself most unfortunate that upon so light occasion it pleases you to write in that form to me, for what new offence is committed since her Majesty reconciled us?…My Lord, I know not how justly you can term me insatiable in my desire of gaining, for my losses hath 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.
…I am greedy of nobody’s lands, else neither look for the seven hundred pounds you have of those lands, but would keep the rest, which by all law, order and conscience they ought to possess…To speak truly I assure you, my Lord, my meaning is not to molest or grieve you…Can it be thought greediness to demand nothing? For I desire no more than Her Majesty’s order gives, and wish your happy days to be many and good – whereas it pleased you to [countermand] her Majesty’s written order…
So beseeching the Almighty to make you better conceive of me without offence…Richmond this Thursday, Yr obedient and faithful wife, E. Shrewsbury.24
To this letter the Earl had responded: ‘You ask what new offence is committed since her Majesty reconciled us?…I answer that there is no creature more happy or fortunate than you have been, for, where you were defamed, and to the world a byword, when you were St Loe’s widow, I covered those imperfections by my marriage with you, and brought you to all the honour you have, and to the most part of that wealth you now enjoy.’25 He then presented as his next salvo a list of pieces of plate and ‘valuable’ household items which he insisted were his property, and demanded their return.
Of the thirty-four items listed, Bess noted that more than 75 per cent had been her own property at Chatsworth, and she was able to demonstrate their appearance on inventories dated prior to her marriage to the Earl. Others, such as a gold cup that was given to her at the time of ‘the Scottish Queen’s lying at Coventry’, cost £70, which she claimed she had accepted in part payment of a debt of £200 owed her by the Earl, and a writing desk, ‘not worth 30 shillings and stolen by a footboy’, had been a gift to her from Lady Pembroke. There was also a ‘great basin and ewer fashioned like a ship valued at £100’, which Bess stated was: ‘bought by the Earl for the Countess to give away [as a gift] which she did. As his Lordship well knows.’ Further sundry items, she claimed, had been bought for her by the Earl in lieu of money he owed her for sheep and cattle.
In returning the annotated schedule, she commented in an accompanying letter that the items demanded by her husband were ‘of small value, and mere trifles for so great and rich a nobleman to bestow on his wife in 19 years.’ And during that same time, she counterclaimed, the Earl had received many items from her, such as ‘better than £1000 worth of linen consumed by him, being carried to sundry of his Lordship’s houses to serve his Lordship’s turn’.26
The Queen now decided that it was time to bang heads together over this wearisome business. On 7 August the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury were called before Burghley, Bromley and Walsingham to go through the findings of the former commission, and ordered to come to some form of mutual agreement. After much debate a schedule was drawn up and signed by each of them. The Queen was advised of this satisfactory conclusion and, relieved, ‘she called the Earl and his wife before her and in many good words thanked the Earl for she knew he had conformed to this for her sake and at her request…and they showed themselves very well content…and in good sort departed together, very comfortable to the sight of all their friends, both lords and ladies and many others’.27 The Earl was bound over to keep to his agreement under the penalty of otherwise paying a massive fine of £40,000.
Under the agreement, Bess was to go with Shrewsbury from the Court, that very day, to the Chelsea house. And on the following day she was to go to Wingfield Manor for a month, taking with her some servants of the Earl (though none of her own) for her comfort. The Earl was to join her at Wingfield for six days, and after that she might return to Chatsworth. The Earl agreed to meet all the expenses of the household at Wingfield. The Earl agreed that ‘if the Countess shall behave herself well towards him, as she promises to do, the Earl will send for her to his house…to remain with him a week or more at a time’. He agreed to forgive William and Charles Cavendish, but only after they had been sent for and humbled before him, on their knees promising never again to give the Earl ‘any cause for offence’ and agreeing to return certain items of plate and hangings which he claimed belonged to him.28
This is what happened, initially, but within days of Bess leaving for the country Shrewsbury was busy again, writing to Burghley that though he had agreed to allow his wife access to his houses at Chelsea and Wingfield, yet he had never agreed to ‘bed and board’ with her, nor should he be burdened with the costs of her living at Wingfield. In a letter written to Bess soon after this, he reminded her that: ‘You pressed Her Majesty…that you might come to my house at 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…my goods you shall restore to 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.’29
One of the causes he gives in this long and rambling letter is that when he had been seriously ill, years earlier, he had made her his sole executrix. He claimed that while he was ill she had sold or transferred the deeds of some of the St Loe lands to friends of hers ‘so that if I had then died, the same might have been embezzled…as the case of St Loo. But when I perceived how things stood I put you out of my will.’30
A few weeks later the Earl presented a schedule purporting to show what his wife and her sons owed him, including back wages to her servants at Chatsworth, and his legal costs which had amounted to over £1000 a year. The demand totalled £22,700. He also wrote to Gilbert saying that he would allow Bess to come to him, but Gilbert’s wife would never be admitted. Weeks later, when he demanded to know why his wife had not called on him as she had said she wished to do, Bess had already made clear her only reason for not coming to him was her fear of his ‘extreme temper…I will in all duty and humbleness subject myself to any other means of correction,’ she wrote. She was willing to be dispossessed of any ‘earthly benefits in present or future’, or accept any other method of chastisement which her husband pleased, so long as he did not subject her to ‘the extreme anguish of words, which would deprive me of all joy or comfort of life or worldly things’.31
By September the Earl’s letters were becoming less frequent and as a result the constant squabbling came to a merciful though unsatisfactory cessation. The reason soon became obvious. By October the Queen, her advisers, and the Earl of Shrewsbury in his position as Earl Marshal of England were all caught up in preparations for the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, on a charge of high treason.