Manchester University Press
1 Bess of Hardwick, a life
Abstract
This chapter draws fully on the range of surviving sources and responds critically to the growing scholarship on the Tudor nobility and gentry to contextualise Bess within her time. Traces her four marriages (including the financial difficulties that beset the first two and the breakdown of the fourth), her role in guarding Mary, Queen of Scots, and her building activity. What marks Bess out is her extraordinary social mobility, rising from minor gentlewoman of limited prospects to immensely wealthy and powerful countess, that and the fact we know more about her than almost any other woman of her time. Her marriages, her buildings, her possessions and her letter-writing are all fascinating, but must be read within the context of other Tudor nobles and gentry (men as well as women), otherwise Bess will continue to be regarded as something of an exception – something of an aberration, even – and that would diminish her remarkable achievements.
Abstract
This chapter draws fully on the range of surviving sources and responds critically to the growing scholarship on the Tudor nobility and gentry to contextualise Bess within her time. Traces her four marriages (including the financial difficulties that beset the first two and the breakdown of the fourth), her role in guarding Mary, Queen of Scots, and her building activity. What marks Bess out is her extraordinary social mobility, rising from minor gentlewoman of limited prospects to immensely wealthy and powerful countess, that and the fact we know more about her than almost any other woman of her time. Her marriages, her buildings, her possessions and her letter-writing are all fascinating, but must be read within the context of other Tudor nobles and gentry (men as well as women), otherwise Bess will continue to be regarded as something of an exception – something of an aberration, even – and that would diminish her remarkable achievements.
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Bess of Hardwick, a life 18
- 2 Money, marriage and remembrance 36
- 3 Bess’s use of language 78
- 4 Upper servants’ letters and loyalties in the Shrewsbury–Stuart domestic politics of the 1580s 100
- 5 Hardwick Hall 121
- 6 Elizabeth Hardwick’s material negotiations 142
- 7 Bess of Hardwick’s gynocracy in textiles 159
- 8 A difficult and volatile alliance 181
- Conclusion 199
- Selected bibliography 201
- Index 205
Kapitel in diesem Buch
- Front matter i
- Contents v
- List of illustrations vii
- Notes on contributors viii
- Introduction 1
- 1 Bess of Hardwick, a life 18
- 2 Money, marriage and remembrance 36
- 3 Bess’s use of language 78
- 4 Upper servants’ letters and loyalties in the Shrewsbury–Stuart domestic politics of the 1580s 100
- 5 Hardwick Hall 121
- 6 Elizabeth Hardwick’s material negotiations 142
- 7 Bess of Hardwick’s gynocracy in textiles 159
- 8 A difficult and volatile alliance 181
- Conclusion 199
- Selected bibliography 201
- Index 205
