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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.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>On the approach to the Hall<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n
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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.<\/p>\n
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However, it is Arbella\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n ‘Bess was born at Hardwick in about 1527\u2026The 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)<\/p>\n The site of Hardwick Old Hall<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n After the breakdown of her fourth and final marriage, Bess bought the house and land from her brother James. \u2018Between about 1585 and 1590 (Bess) enlarged and remodelled the old house to become what is now known as Hardwick Old Hall.\u2019 (2)<\/p>\n In 1590, Bess\u2019s husband, Lord Shrewsbury, died. It was then that \u2018she laid out the foundations of a new, larger and grander house a few yards away from the still uncompleted Hardwick Old Hall\u2026.The next thirteen years were spent in building and furnishing Hardwick\u2026\u2019 (3)<\/p>\n ‘ Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall.’ <\/I><\/p><\/div>\n \u2018Various 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.\u2019 (4)<\/p>\n The start of the exhibition.<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n The Tudor and Stuart succession<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n Arbella has a toddler<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n ‘The portrait of Arbella Stuart as a toddler\u2026is surely too idiosyncratic not to have been painted from life.\u2019 (5)<\/p>\n The main staircase<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n \u2018To Madame de Chateauneaf, wife of the French Ambassador, Elizabeth made a calculatedly tantalizing remark\u2026the queen said \u2018Look to her well: she will one day be as I am and a lady mistress. But I will have gone before.\u2019 (6) <\/p>\n The High Great Chamber<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018This is the most undilutedly Elizabethan room in Hardwick, and the most magnificent.\u2019 (7) <\/p>\n Portraits of Bess of Hardwick, Elizabeth I and Arbella Stuart<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n \u2018What 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 \u2013 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.\u2019 (8)<\/p>\n Arbella Stuart<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n The Long Gallery<\/b><\/p>\n \u2018Measuring 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.\u2019 (9)<\/p>\n According to the 1601 inventory of Hardwick, \u2018It 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.\u2019 (10) <\/p>\n Portraits in the Long Gallery<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n Bess of Hardwick<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n Portraits of Mary, Queen of Scots and James V and Mary of Guise<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n It was in the gallery that Bess and Arbella were walking when a messenger arrived from court in January 1603. <\/p>\n Sarah Gristwood writes, \u2018The 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.\u2019 <\/p>\n The fate of Arbella Stuart<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n The Green Velvet Room<\/b><\/p>\n Arbella<\/i><\/p><\/div>\n The Lobby between the blue room and the north staircase<\/b><\/p>\n Portrait of Mary Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley<\/I><\/p><\/div>\n The Blue Room<\/b><\/p>\n The Cut-Velvet Bedroom<\/b><\/p>\n The Dining Room<\/b><\/p>\n The Drawing Room<\/b><\/p>\n Sources<\/u><\/p>\n 1.\tNational Trust. (2006) Hardwick Hall, Park Lane Press, p.44 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 \u2018Arbella: England\u2019s Lost Queen\u2019 by Sarah Gristwood, I have … Continue reading <\/a><\/p>\n
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\n2.\tIbid p.47
\n3.\tIbid p.48
\n4.\tIbid p.53
\n5.\tGristwood, Sarah. (2004) Arbella: England\u2019s Lost Queen, Bantam, p.46
\n6.\tIbid p.99-100
\n7.\tNational Trust. (2006) Hardwick Hall, Park Lane Press, p.12
\n8.\tIbid p.13
\n9.\tIbid p.16
\n10.\tIbid.
\n11.\tGristwood, Sarah. (2004) Arbella: England\u2019s Lost Queen, Bantam, p.182<\/p>\n
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