My visit to Hardwick Hall


I first became became aware of Arbella Stuart through her connection to the Grey family. However, Arbella turned out to be fascinating in her own right and ever since I read ‘Arbella: England’s Lost Queen’ by Sarah Gristwood, I have wanted to visit Hardwick Hall.


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This summer was the perfect time to visit as the Hall is running an exhibition about Arbella to mark the 400th anniversary of her death on 25th September 1615.


 On the approach to the Hall

On the approach to the Hall


Arbella had a claim to the throne of England through her father, Charles Stuart. Arbella was the great-granddaughter of Margaret Tudor, cousin to James VI of Scotland and niece of Mary Queen of Scots.



However, it is Arbella’s maternal grandmother who links her to Hardwick. Arbella was the grand-daughter of Bess of Hardwick and lived with her, after the early deaths of her parents.



‘Bess was born at Hardwick in about 1527…The Hardwicks were minor gentry who had been established at Hardwick for at least six generations. They owned a few hundred acres and lived in a small manor house on the site of Hardwick Old Hall.’ (1)


 The site of Hardwick Old Hall

The site of Hardwick Old Hall


After the breakdown of her fourth and final marriage, Bess bought the house and land from her brother James. ‘Between about 1585 and 1590 (Bess) enlarged and remodelled the old house to become what is now known as Hardwick Old Hall.’ (2)

In 1590, Bess’s husband, Lord Shrewsbury, died. It was then that ‘she laid out the foundations of a new, larger and grander house a few yards away from the still uncompleted Hardwick Old Hall….The next thirteen years were spent in building and furnishing Hardwick…’ (3)


 ' Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.'

‘ Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.’


‘Various means were used to obtain complete all-round symmetry at Hardwick, and yet provide the rooms of all shapes and sizes that were needed. A few windows are completely false and have chimneypieces behind them.’ (4)


 The start of the exhibition.

The start of the exhibition.



 The Tudor and Stuart succession

The Tudor and Stuart succession


Arbella as a toddler

Arbella has a toddler


‘The portrait of Arbella Stuart as a toddler…is surely too idiosyncratic not to have been painted from life.’ (5)


 The main staircase

The main staircase


‘To Madame de Chateauneaf, wife of the French Ambassador, Elizabeth made a calculatedly tantalizing remark…the queen said ‘Look to her well: she will one day be as I am and a lady mistress. But I will have gone before.’ (6)


The High Great Chamber


‘This is the most undilutedly Elizabethan room in Hardwick, and the most magnificent.’ (7)


 Portraits of Bess of Hardwick, Elizabeth I and Arbella Stuart

Portraits of Bess of Hardwick, Elizabeth I and Arbella Stuart


‘What was Bess aiming at?…Elizabeth splendidly received and feted at Hardwick. Arbella declared her heir, further royal visits and the subsequent glorification of the Cavendish family – something like this may lie behind the great echoing rooms at Hardwick, waiting, as it turned out, for a Queen who never came, and a royal succession which never materialised.’ (8)


 Arbella Stuart

Arbella Stuart



The Long Gallery


‘Measuring 51 metres long, 8 metres high and varying from 6.7 to 12 metres in width, the Hardwick Gallery is the largest (although not the longest) of surviving Elizabethan long galleries, and the only one to retain both its original tapestries and many of its original pictures.’ (9)



According to the 1601 inventory of Hardwick, ‘It was sparsely furnished with two square inlaid tables, covered with carpets, three chairs, three low stools, a footstool, two forms, two mirrors, a little ivory table and a fire-screen. In each window was a window seat furnished with a richly embroidered cushion.’ (10)


 Portraits in the Long Gallery

Portraits in the Long Gallery


Bess of Hardwick

Bess of Hardwick


 Portraits of Mary Queen of Scots and James V and Mary of Guise

Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots and James V and Mary of Guise


It was in the gallery that Bess and Arbella were walking when a messenger arrived from court in January 1603.

Sarah Gristwood writes, ‘The scene bore a brief, transitory resemblance to that which had been enacted at Hatfield some forty years before, when the messenger came to tell the then princess Elizabeth that she was queen.’



 The fate of Arbella Stuart

The fate of Arbella Stuart


The Green Velvet Room



Arbella

Arbella


The Lobby between the blue room and the north staircase


Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley

Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley


The Blue Room



The Cut-Velvet Bedroom



The Dining Room



The Drawing Room





Sources

1. National Trust. (2006) Hardwick Hall, Park Lane Press, p.44
2. Ibid p.47
3. Ibid p.48
4. Ibid p.53
5. Gristwood, Sarah. (2004) Arbella: England’s Lost Queen, Bantam, p.46
6. Ibid p.99-100
7. National Trust. (2006) Hardwick Hall, Park Lane Press, p.12
8. Ibid p.13
9. Ibid p.16
10. Ibid.
11. Gristwood, Sarah. (2004) Arbella: England’s Lost Queen, Bantam, p.182


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