Hardwick Hall | The History Jar

Colonel_Lord_Charles_Cavendish_(1620-1643)_by_Sir_Anthony_Van_Dyck,_1637_-_Oak_Room,_Chatsworth_House_-_Derbyshire,_England_-_DSC03062 Let us return today to the Royalist summer of victories in 1643. It was really only in the east of the country that events did not go all Charles I’s way. On 20 July 1643, Lord Willoughby captured Gainsborough in Lincolnshire for Parliament. This meant that the Earl of Newcastle could not now communicate so easily with the royalists at Newark and he could not simply march south expanding royalist territory. The Committee of Safety scratched their various heads and then sent Oliver Cromwell and Sir John Meldrum from the Eastern Association Army to back up Lord Willoughby as he was being threatened by the Royalist military commander – Colonel Charles Cavendish – who was the nephew of the Earl of Newcastle.

Charles, born in 1620, was the younger brother of William Cavendish the third Earl of Chatsworth and the epitome of a Hollywood cavalier unlike his brother who appears to have been much more retiring. Apparently Charles had travelled as far as Greece and Cairo in happier times as well as the more usual Italy and France. As you might expect of a nephew of the Earl of Newcastle he was ferociously Royalist. He had gone to York in 1642 to offer his services to the king; been part of Prince Rupert’s cavalry charge at the Battle of Edgehill on the 23 October 1642 and had then been offered command of the Duke of York’s troop (a sudden vacancy had arisen). From there he persuaded his family to raise sufficient funds for him to form his own body of men making him a colonel and the royalist military commander for Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. It was Charles Cavendish who took Grantham for the king on 23 March 1643 and sent the Parliamentarians packing at Ancaster the following month. In the space of a year he had changed from being a volunteer guards officer to a Colonel in charge of an entire region. Possibly, the gift of £1000 into the king’s war chest may have expedited matters.

Anyway, the Parliamentarians came across Cavendish’s dragoons south of Gainsborough on the morning of 28^th July 1643. The Royalists had the advantage of high ground which they lost during a Parliamentarian cavalry charge. The Royalists ultimately fled on account of the fact that the Parliamentarians were learning a thing or three about tactics but Charles had kept his own men in reserve and was very sensibly planning to nip around the back of the Parliamentarians to attack their rear. Unfortunately a certain Colonel Cromwell spotted the manoevre and attacked the Royalist rear instead. Cavendish fell from his horse during the fighting and was killed by Captain Berry with a sword in the small ribs. Ultimately the Parliamentarians, who definitely won the battle, were unable to hold out against Newcastle.

Years later when Charles’ mother, Christian Bruce, was buried in All Saints Church, Derby on 16 February 1675 the bones of her long dead son were interred with her as she had asked. The funeral sermon by William Nailor described Charles as a “princely person,” “the soldiers’ favourite and his majesty’s darling.” It also described Charles as being like Abner and related to the Stuarts through the Bruce connection. The full text can be found in the snappily entitled A commemoration sermon preached at Darby, Feb. 18, 1674, for the Honourable Colonel Charles Cavendish, slain in the service of King Charles the First, before Gainsborough in the year 1643.

Colonel, Lord Charles Cavendish (1620-1643)by British (English) School

The picture at the start of the post is by Van Dyck and is at Chatsworth whilst the picture above is at Hardwick Hall (I think).

Bickley, F. (1911) The Cavendish family https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Cavendish_Family.html?id=1G8Al5RutVAC&redir_esc=y

Dick, Oliver Lawson (ed) (1987) Aubrey’s Brief Lives. London:Penguin

Arbella Stuart

Up until the fourteenth century the great hall doubled as a place to sleep for all but the wealthiest. As the decades progressed vernacular building styles changed and more people could afford their own private chambers. For instance chimneys replaced open hearths. This meant that the hall could now be a ground floor space with a first floor above it rather than being open to the roof. Ultimately the wealthy dined in private rooms and the servants were relegated to the servant’s hall. Once food was removed from the hall it changed into a grand entrance way. As times became more peaceful the hall could be extended into part of a winged building. The great hall disappeared altogether where builders began from scratch.

Hardwick-Hall-plan-1024x621

So – Renaissance halls were much less functionally important than their medieval predecessors but still an important statement of wealth and ostentation. Four times married Bess of Hardwick poured her wealth into her building projects from her home at Chatsworth, via Buxton Old Hall and alms houses in Derby to Hardwick. Hardwick Hall is famously “more glass than wall” and it has a great hall style space which lays at its very heart as shown in the plan above– but no staircase in that particular location! England’s first official architect Robert Smythson who was also responsible for Longleat built it.

However, there’s plenty of information about Hardwick available on-line so my third advent for 2017 is this image of Arbella Stuart. Bess of Hardwick forged strong marriage alliances for her off-spring but over-stepped herself when she arranged a marriage between her daughter Elizabeth Cavendish and Lord Darnley’s younger brother Charles Stuart. Lord Darnley was, of course, Henry Stuart the murdered spouse of Bess’s” house guest” Mary Queen of Scots. It happened that Bess was friends with Margaret, Countess of Lennox – the mother of the Stuart boys. And, of course Margaret’s mother was Henry VII’s eldest daughter Margaret Tudor. Bess of Hardwick became grandmother to a contender for the throne. No wonder she described Arbella as “my jewel.”

The story goes that Margaret was travelling with her son Charles from London to their lands in Yorkshire. They stopped off at Rufford Abbey – one of Bess’s residences purchased by husband number two, William Cavendish, at the dissolution of the monasteries. Bess arrived with her daughter Elizabeth in tow. Margaret promptly became unwell and what was Bess to do but nurse her poor friend, leaving their children to get to know one another better. It all sounds very romantic but the two women had been plotting for the better part of a year to arrange the match. Bess’s husband the earl of Shrewsbury was not amused when he heard the news. The marriage into the Tudor family line and the arrival of little Arbella were nails in the coffin of Bess’s final marriage.

Arbella was born in 1575 – probably at Lennox House in Hackney. Charles died the following year and the title that should have been Arbella’s went back to Scotland. It is significant that the portrait identifies Arbella as the countess of Lennox. It would be a claimed that she pursued intermittently for the rest of her life.

bartholomews baby This portrait was painted by an unknown artist in about 1577 and one of the things I love about it is the doll. Dolls as toys have been around for a very long time. There’s a Roman ragdoll in the British Museum for instance. There are other sixteenth century portraits of children with dolls but this one is done up to the nines – so its more of a fashion doll for an adult rather than a child’s toy. It suggests that the infant Arbella was much cossetted.

Dolls were sometimes called Bartholomew babies according to information I once read at Knebworth House because they were often purchased at St Bartholomew’s Fair in London. These dolls were carved from wood. They had a head and a torso but no arms or legs. The wooden shape could then be painted and dressed. The British Museum has another kind of doll in its Complete-pewter-doll-blue collection dating from Tudor times and also thought to be sold at fairs like St Bartholomew’s. It was found in the Thames and is a rare survival made from lead alloy.