On the Claim of Hardwick [Map] in Derbyshire to have been one of the Residences of Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in England. By the Rev. Joseph Hunter (age 63), F.S.A.

Read 18th June, 1846.

The President (age 41), at a recent meeting of the Society, called our attention to an inquiry of Prince Labanoff, a Russian nobleman who has devoted himself for many years to the study of the life of the Queen of Scots. Whether the information which he received from many persons in England, and which he has also found in many printed books, that we have still remaining nearly in the state in which it was in her time one of the houses in which was passed some considerable portion of the term of her long captivity in England, was still the received opinion of the antiquaries of this country.

The house of which he spoke was Hardwick Hall [Map], in the county of Derby, one of the seats of his Grace the Duke of Devonshire, about eighteen miles distant from Chatsworth [Map], and about the same distance from Sheffield, both places at which much of the time of her captivity was spent. This house is nearly in the state in which it was originally built and furnished in the reign of Elizabeth. The prince himself distrusted the information.

The inquiry is far from being without interest to ourselves, for the house at Hardwick [Map] may be considered almost as a national monument, exhibiting perhaps a more perfect specimen than is anywhere else to be found of the residences of the nobility of the reign of Elizabeth, when the necessity of building with a view to security as well as comfort had passed away.

But Prince Labanoff has deserved so exceedingly well of English historical literature, by his publication of the letters of this illustrious lady, collected by him with wonderful industry, and copied, arranged, and printed with great skill, that it is but an act of simple reconnaissance to respond to any inquiry he may make on this subject. His work, I may take the liberty to observe, contains very many letters never before printed, and the number is not small of letters that had not, before he made them known, been resorted to in manuscript; so that his work is quite indispensable to every person who shall undertake to treat on the History of the Queen of Scots, whether the subject be regarded as it presents itself to the antiquarian mind, intent upon ascertaining the most minute facts and the most exact arrangement of them, or in its nobler aspect as it has relation to the policy of cabinets and the interests of nations.

Without therefore assuming to take to myself a position among "the best English antiquaries," in the absence of any other communication on the subject, I beg leave to lay before the Society a much more complete view of the facts and arguments which long ago led me to the conclusion submitted to Prince Labanoff in 1839.

The Queen of Scots (age 25) landed on the shore of Cumberland on the 16th of May, 1568. On the next day she wrote from Workington to Queen Elizabeth (age 34), announcing her arrival. On the 18th she was conducted to Cockermouth, and the next day to Carlisle [Map]. There she remained till the 13th of July, when she was taken to Bolton [Map], castle of the Lord Scrope (age 34), in the North Riding. She was at Bolton for more than half a year. Her last letter written from that place is dated January 25, 1569, the day before she reluctantly set out on her journey southward.

During this period there was an inquiry going on at York into various matters of accusation against her, and the Ministers of Queen Elizabeth had time to determine on the line of policy which it was best to take respecting her. She herself wished to be allowed to leave England, and proceed to France or Spain; but this was opposed, and she was soon awakened to the melancholy truth that she who came as a guest, and expected the ordinary rites of hospitality at least, was to regard herself as a prisoner.

It then remained to be considered how she could best be kept securely, and to whom the charge of such a prisoner could best be committed. The Court was not long in determining that the Earl of Shrewsbury was the nobleman in whom met the greatest number of points of fitness for this difhcult and dangerous service. He had his ancient and strong castle of Sheffield [Map] in the heart of the kingdom, which afforded the best facilities for safe keeping and honourable attendance; and he had other houses in those parts of the kingdom which afforded opportunities of change of air, while they were still places also where a guard could easily be kept upon the prisoner. He was also known to be a peer of devoted loyalty, carrying the leading characteristic of the family to the most chivalrous extent-

"The Talbot ever true and faithful to the Crown."

It was determined, therefore, to place the Queen under his care. The determination appears to have been taken as early as the month of October, for in the private correspondence of the family we find a report of a conversation with Queen Elizabeth in that month, in which she spoke in terms of high regard of the lady whom the earl had recently taken to wife, originally Elizabeth Hardwick, a daughter of the family of that name, to whom Hardwick [Map] belonged, and widow successively of Robert Barley, Sir William Cavendish, and Sir William Saint Loe, and expressed much solicitude to know when the earl might be expected at court; and again, a letter from the earl himself to his countess, written in November, wherein he informs her that he had been at court, and that the Queen had intimated to him that "ere it were long he should well perceive she did so trust him as she did few." He understood this to mean that he was to have the care of the Scottish Queen; and finally, in a third letter, which is dated on the 13th of December, he writes—"Now it is certain the Scots Queen comes to Tutbury [Map], to my charge^a."

Note a. Hallamshire, fol. 1819, p. 64. These and other letters, the private and, as to some of them, the very confidential correspondence of Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury, passed, by some means and at some unknown time, out of the archives of the Cavendish family. They lay for half a century buried in a mase of antiquarian collections made by a Yorkshire antiquary of the last century, John Wilson, of Bromhead, where they were discovered by me in 1806. The whole collection was sold by auction a few years ago.

We left the Queen at Tutbury [Map] in Staffordshire, a castle which was a member of the Duchy of Lancaster. Between the 9th and the 18th of April, 1569, she was removed to a house of the Earl of Shrewsbury, called Winfield Manor [Map]. This house was in Derbyshire, and not more than ten miles distant from Hardwick [Map]. She remained at Winfield [Map] till the 21st of September, and all the letters of hers which exist, written during that period, are dated at Winfield [Map]. The utmost that can be supposed in reference to the question before us is that she might possibly be allowed to make excursions on horseback to some distance from her prison, when Hardwick [Map] might be comprehended in the range. But there is every reason to believe that the restraint at this period was too rigid to allow of such distant excursions, the Queen having by this time become a centre of political and religious disaffection, and the deliverance of her from an unjust restraint an object of ambition to enterprising youth of the time. Several attempts were, we know, made to effect her release during this sojourn at Winfield [Map]. This of course would be met by increased vigilance in her keeper. But when there were indications of a movement in the North, Winfield [Map] was not deemed sufficiently secure, and she was carried back to Tutbury [Map], from whence, during the rebellion of the two northern earls, she was taken, for still greater security, to Coventry [Map]. She was soon reconducted to Tutbury [Map], where she remained till the end of May, 1570.

The severities which followed the suppression of the rebellion in the North had the effect of damping the spirits of the friends of the old religion, and extinguishing the hopes of any persons who looked to the Queen of Scots as one by whose agency, if at liberty, the ancient system might be restored. The country was become tranquil. There was therefore little opposition made to the request of Shrewsbury that he might not be confined to Tutbury [Map], a place remote from the district in which his chief possessions and interest lay, but be permitted to remove with his charge to Chatsworth [Map], where was a house, lately built by the countess, fit to receive them. The whole of this summer and autumn appears to have been passed at Chatsworth [Map]. It was here that she was engaged in a personal negotiation with two of Elizabeth's chief ministers. All the existing letters of the Queen written at this period have the date of Chatsworth [Map], and there is no trace of her ever having left the place for a single night, much less of her having gone to Hardwick [Map], which was above sixteen miles distant. The last of the letters in Prince Labanoffs collection, written during this residence at Chatsworth [Map], is dated on the 27th of November. On the next day she was removed to the Earl of Shrewsbury's castle at Sheffield [Map].

This remove constitutes what is quite an era in the history of her captivity. Hitherto we have seen her remaining long in no one place, and in the correspondence between the ministers of Elizabeth and her keeper we may see that these frequent removes were the occasion of no small uneasiness, as being supposed to afford her the opportunity of making new acquaintance, and also as increasing the chances of escape. When Cecil was at Chatsworth [Map], it had therefore been determined to change the system, and to fix upon some one house of the earl which should be the place of her perpetual abode. The house which afforded the best opportunities for secure keeping, and at which it was the most convenient for the earl to reside, was his castle of Sheffield, the centre of his great possessions in the counties of York, Nottingham, and Derby. This castle had been the head of the barony of Furnival, from whom the Talbots inherited the best of their ancient possessions. It had been re-edified in the reign of King Henry the Third, above three centuries before, under a licence "kernellandi." It was a place secure against any sudden surprise, and from which escape was hopeless. The Queen entered its walls on the 28th day of November, 1570, and this castle continued to be her residence during the whole remainder of the time in which she was in the charge of the Earl of Shrewsbury, with such slight intermissions as I shall afterwards speak of, that is for about fourteen years.

Her train, which had originally consisted of fifty persons, was by this time reduced to thirty, with a few supernumeraries allowed by the earl. A guard of several persons was kept night and day. One of them was a remarkable person of those times, Richard Robinson, the author of a poem entitled The Reward of Wickedness, which was composed by him, as he informs us, during these night watches. The orders for the government of the Queen's household were extremely strict. There is a copy of them in the Cotton Manuscript Caligula C. 111. The earl was instructed that his sovereign required of him that whenever the Queen of Scots took the air on horseback he should attend upon her in person, and that she should not be allowed to go more than one or two miles from the castle, except upon the moors, the wild and still unreclaimed country so well known to grouse shooters as the Yorkshire and Derbyshire Moors.

But her health gave way, and by the mediation of the French Ambassador she was permitted to visit the baths at Buxton [Map], during several summers. But, when there, all other persons were ordered to depart. Her first visit was in August, 1573, and before she returned to the castle she was allowed to visit Chatsworth [Map]. Her next visit to Buxton [Map] was in May and June, 1577. In the summer of 1578, she was again at Chatsworth [Map], and the visit was repeated in the summer of 1579, when she was also at Buxton [Map]. In 1580, the earl (age 45) applied for leave to visit Chatsworth [Map] with his charge, and was refused; but in the July of that year the Queen (age 30) was at Buxton [Map]. Again, in July, 1581, we find her at Chatsworth [Map]; in June, 1582, at Buxton [Map], where also she appears to have been in July, 1584.

And these, I believe, as far as can be collected from the dates of her own letters, from any authentic contemporary memorials of her, from any allusions, prospective or retrospective, in any of her letters, from the correspondence of her keeper and his family, or from any notice of her in letters of the statesmen of her time, were her only removes during the fourteen years in which she resided at Shrewsbury's castle at Sheffield, enjoying occasionally the purer air of the hill above, on which the house called the Manour stood. There is to this only one exception. In the summer of 1583 she was allowed to visit the house of the Earl of Shrewsbury at Worksop, seventeen miles from Sheffield. We have notice of Queen Elizabeth having expressed displeasure on hearing a report, which was untrue, that while at Worksop she had been allowed to hunt in Sherwood Forest; and Prince Labanoff has printed a letter written by her at Worksop in the September of that year. This was the only excursion of which any memorial is known, except those to Buxton [Map] and Chatsworth [Map].

In the year 1584 the earl was relieved from his most irksome duty. The Queen was transferred to the care of Sir Ralph Sadler. In his company she departed from the castle of Sheffield [Map] on the 3rd of September, to return no more. Her first remove in the new custody was to Winfield [Map]. There the Earl of Shrewsbury took his leave of her on the 6th, and proceeded to London. They met not again, it is believed, till on a very solemn occasion in the hall of Fotheringhay [Map].

And with her removal from the custody of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury must end all expectation of finding her at Hardwick [Map]. And all that is necessary to add is to complete the story of her removes, by stating, as briefly as possible, that she remained under strict surveillance at Winfield [Map] till the 13th of January, 1585, when passing through Derby she returned to her old abode at Tutbury [Map]. On the 24th of December she was taken to Chartley [Map], and from thence, on the 25th of September, 1586, to Fotheringhay [Map]. There, on the 8th of February, 1587, she submitted to the last act of this long series of dreadful oppressions with the most admirable composure and devotion.

Reverting, then, now to the question more immediately before us, it is asked, What reason is there to suppose that she was ever at Hardwick [Map] as a resident, or even as a visitor? It must, I believe, be admitted that in all that is known respecting her from the written remains of her time there is nothing which can be construed into a recognition of her having been even a transient visitor at Hardwick [Map]; and yet the letters of the Queen herself are numerous, and perhaps there is no family of the time of whom so much of the correspondence remains as of the family of Talbot^a. Again, the strictness with which she was confined strengthens the improbability that she could have been ever at Hardwick [Map].

Note a. It is very widely dispersed. The largest and finest portion is in the library of the College of Arms; some of it is at Lambeth; small portions in the British Museum; some among Johnston's papers at Campsall in Yorkshire; extensive copies by an early hand among Hopkinson's Collections, in the possession of Miss Currer. The Duke of Devonshire bought some early copies at the sale of Mr. Heber's MSS.; and Sir Thomas Phillipps has a few precious originals, which had fallen into the hands of Mr. Wilson.

In favour of the opinion there is, as far as I can at present perceive, absolutely nothing to be alleged except what may be called the Tradition of the House. The story has been told to every succession of visitors since first the custom began of visiting great houses as little museums and objects of curiosity; but even this, in respect of Hardwick [Map], cannot be traced for much more than a century. Further, it must be a delusion, when visitors at Hardwick [Map] are told to regard themselves as pacing the rooms in which this singularly interesting person once lived, for it now remains to be added that there is every probability that the present house was not in existence during the life of the Queen of Scots, but was erected by the Countess of Shrewsbury after she became a widow by the death of the earl in 1590. The house seems itself to refute the tradition, for over the chimney-piece of the drawing-room is the date 1597, and the date 1599 is inseribed on the door of one of the apartments which is now peculiarly consecrated to the memory of this Queen.

Yet this has not prevented the tradition (if such it may be called) from finding its way into Tours and Guide-Books innumerable, and even into books of higher character. One example shall suffice. Mr. Horace Walpole informs us that,—"The palaces erected in the reign of Elizabeth by the memorable Countess of Shrewsbury, Elizabeth of Hardwick, are exactly in this style; that at Hardwick [Map], still preserved as it was furnished for the reception and imprisonment of the Queen of Scots, is a curious picture of that age and style." So much remains to be done in passing the critical ploughshare over the fields of English Archeology.

The Queen of Scots was in England exactly eighteen years, eight months, and twenty-two days. Much more than half this time was passed at Sheffield. Tutbury [Map] claims the largest portion of the remainder; then Chatsworth; and next follow, with nearly equal claims, Winfield, Chartley [Map], Bolton, and Buxton. Smaller portions belong to Carlisle, Fotheringhay, Worksop, and Coventry.

In conclusion, we may just slightly notice the fortunes which have attended the houses of the Earl and Countess of Shrewsbury that are connected with the history of this princess. The castle of Sheffield was sleighted after the civil wars, and has been removed piece by piece, till nothing remains of it. Sheffield Manour still exists, a ruin of great extent. Worksop Manour was burnt down in 1761. Winfield Manour, a house of the reign of Henry the Sixth, was abandoned by the family to a steward: and in his hands, or those of his descendants, it has been reduced to the condition of a picturesque ruin. Tutbury [Map] is also in ruins. The house at Chatsworth which received the Queen has been removed, and replaced by the present magnificent fabric.

Hardwick [Map], although it seems to have no claim to be regarded as one of the places in which the Queen was resident, may still serve as an example of what some of the houses were in which the Queen did reside. The castles were gloomier places, and of quite different construction. But those who are extremely solicitous about the maintenance of a strict historical verity in every thing connected with the remains of ancient art will be disposed to regret that too much countenance has been recently given to the supposed traditionary connection of the house with the history of the Scottish Queen. One of the first objects which now meets the eye on entering the door is a statue of Queen Mary; and a room not unlike the room at Holyrood House shewn as the scene of the death of Rizzio is fitted up so as to appear as if it were in the state in which it was occupied by the Queen as her bed chamber. This is wrong. The needle-work is, perhaps, hers; but there is, I believe, little doubt that it came from Chatsworth.

And Chatsworth, not Hardwick [Map], ought to be the place in which honour is paid to the memory of this singularly interesting historical personage; Chatsworth, which was also the birth-place of another royal personage scarcely less interesting on account of her melancholy history, Lady Arbella Stuart, a near relation of the Queen of Scotland, and the granddaughter of the Countess of Shrewsbury^a. About the claims of Chatsworth there is no uncertainty.

Note a. This fact, which is new to the history of Chatsworth and to the life of Lady Arbella Stuart, I have seen recorded nowhere except in a small collection of pedigrees of English and Scottish nobility, written by some inknown hand at Venice about 1590, They are now bound up with other papers in Volume 588 of the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts. The Countess of Lenox, her mother, died very young, and was buried it Sheffield on the 21st of January, 1581, as appears by the parish register.