Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England
Summary (from the publisher): The critically acclaimed author of Serving Victoria brilliantly illuminates the life of the little-known Bess of Hardwick—next to Queen Elizabeth I, the richest and most powerful woman in sixteenth-century England.
Aided by a quartet of judicious marriages and a shrewd head for business, Bess of Hardwick rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and feared Countesses in Elizabethan England—an entrepreneur who built a family fortune, created glorious houses—the last and greatest built as a widow in her 70s—and was deeply involved in matters of the court, including the custody of Mary Queen of Scots.
While Bess cultivated many influential courtiers, she also collected numerous enemies. Her embittered fourth husband once called her a woman of “devices and desires,” while nineteenth-century male historians portrayed her as a monster—”a woman of masculine understanding and conduct, proud, furious, selfish and unfeeling.” In the twenty-first century she has been neutered by female historians who recast her as a soft-hearted sort, much maligned, and misunderstood. As Kate Hubbard reveals, the truth of this highly accomplished woman lies somewhere in between: ruthless and scheming, Bess was sentimental and affectionate as well.
Hubbard draws on more than 230 of Bess’s letters, including correspondence with the Queen and her councilors, fond (and furious) missives between her husbands and children, and notes sharing titillating court gossip. The result is a rich, compelling portrait of a true feminist icon centuries ahead of her time—a complex, formidable, and decidedly modern woman captured in full as never before.
Aided by a quartet of judicious marriages and a shrewd head for business, Bess of Hardwick rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and feared Countesses in Elizabethan England—an entrepreneur who built a family fortune, created glorious houses—the last and greatest built as a widow in her 70s—and was deeply involved in matters of the court, including the custody of Mary Queen of Scots.
While Bess cultivated many influential courtiers, she also collected numerous enemies. Her embittered fourth husband once called her a woman of “devices and desires,” while nineteenth-century male historians portrayed her as a monster—”a woman of masculine understanding and conduct, proud, furious, selfish and unfeeling.” In the twenty-first century she has been neutered by female historians who recast her as a soft-hearted sort, much maligned, and misunderstood. As Kate Hubbard reveals, the truth of this highly accomplished woman lies somewhere in between: ruthless and scheming, Bess was sentimental and affectionate as well.
Hubbard draws on more than 230 of Bess’s letters, including correspondence with the Queen and her councilors, fond (and furious) missives between her husbands and children, and notes sharing titillating court gossip. The result is a rich, compelling portrait of a true feminist icon centuries ahead of her time—a complex, formidable, and decidedly modern woman captured in full as never before.
Summary: I received an uncorrected proof copy of this book from HarperCollins.
Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608), was born into relatively humble origins but thanks to a series of advantageous marriages, died the Countess of Shrewsbury with extensive wealth, estates, and homes of her own. A contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I, Bess of Hardwick is fascinating because she was a self-made woman who used her widowhood and head for business to amass a fortune and arrange marriages for her children and grandchildren that has kept her bloodline intact in British aristocracy to this day.
While I have read another biography about Bess of Hardwick (one expertly penned by Mary S. Lovell), this biography distinguished itself by attempting "to examine Bess's life as a builder within the context of the Elizabethan building world, dominated as it was by men" (xxiv). This was an interesting and relevant perspective, as Bess spent copious amounts of her time and energy towards designing, building, and furnishing multiple great houses, including of course Hardwick. Indeed, it was her devotion to building, specifically her house at Chatsworth, that was a source of great contention between Bess and her fourth husband, who resented the time Bess spent at Chatsworth away from him, as well as the massive sums required to pay for laborers and furnishings of the new house. Conveniently, just like her first three husbands, Bess outlived his discontent and spent the remainder of her years a powerful dowager countess, with the lands and money to do as she wished.
Bess is fascinating because unlike many women of her day whose names are still known to us, she did not earn her position simply by birth or lineage or simply by marriage but largely through her own shrewd decision making and head for business, even when it came to the choices she made in remarriage after being widowed. She was canny and could be ruthless but she was also affectionate and devoted to those she loved. From one of several daughters from a modest family who lost her father at a young age, Bess moved up to be one of the most prominent and highest ranking women in her country by her death. Today, her legacy continues; "there is hardly an English duke who doesn't have Bess's blood running in his veins: descended from her, directly and indirectly, are the Dukes of Devonshire (Bess's great-great-grandson William Cavendish, 4th Earl of Devonshire, become 1st Duke in 1695), Newcastle, Portland, Kingston and Norfolk. This is her first achievement. But so too is her visible memorial, her greatest and only surviving house, Hardwick" (298).
Stars: 4
Related Title:
- Bess of Hardwick: Empire Builder by Mary S. Lovell
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