Bess of Hardwick: Formidable Indeed!

Once I Was a Clever Boy featured this post of "Bess of Hardwick (1527-1608), the remarkable self-made, or self-improving, Derbyshire woman who became the matriarch of the Cavendish family."

I read her biography a few years ago by Mary S. Lovell--since Bess and her fourth husband the Earl of Shrewsury "hosted" the imprisoned Queen of Scots, Mary Stuart, great pressures came to bear on their finances and their already contentious marriage.

Bess of Hardwick's granddaughter Arbella is another fascinating figure of the the Stuart era--but not that much connected to the issues of the English Reformation.