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The fourth husband of “Building Bess” was no less a person than George Talbot, sixth Earl of Shrewsbury. Though the name does not appear in the great roll of the prominent soldiers at the battle of Hastings, the first Talbot—then Talebot—of whom anything noteworthy is recorded, won the first title, a barony, for his family at the close of the career of William the First. Thenceforward the Talbots march magnificently through the history of England—great gentlemen, castellans, commanders, governors, judges, lords-lieutenant. They wielded authority in Wales, fought in France, Scotland, Ireland, Castile, occasionally fell under suspicion of conspiracy, and emerged without hurt. Once and once only was their pride humbled in the dust, when the hitherto invincible tactics of John Talbot, the greatest general of his day, the chief glory of all the Talbots before and since, were overcome by the generalship of the Maid of Orleans. It must have hit the great general very hard to find himself in prison on French soil for three long years at the hands of a woman. Neither force nor strategy freed him, but mere money. He had married a rich wife—heiress to all “Hallamshire,”^[8] including the castle of Sheffield. In 1432 he agreed to pay a large ransom, and hurried back to England, bursting with purpose and revenge. Instantly he raised a fresh force, rejoined the English army in France, and fought with such terrible and triumphant results that his name, like that of Bonaparte, figured for generations as a bogy with which to scare fractious children. It was this tremendous campaign which won for his race the great earldom of Shrewsbury.

George, the sixth earl, the great gentleman now dealt with, inherited all the administrative qualities of his ancestors, though he was less intimately associated with war than his father Francis. It was well also that his duties should have been to a greater extent civil and defensive than military and aggressive. For he had stepped into a great inheritance, and his burdens, as householder and county magnate, were stupendous. The manors and castles of Worksop, Welbeck, Bolsover, Sheffield, Tutbury, Wingfield, and Rufford were all his. He came into his own in 1560. The greatest gift he received in that year was the Garter which the Queen bestowed on him. Five years later he was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of the counties of York, Nottingham, and Derby. Subsequently the post of High Steward in the place of the unhappy fifth Duke of Norfolk was added to his honours. In the third year of his lieutenancy the affair with Bess Hardwick was in full swing.

From both sides it was a reasonable and profitable alliance. He was a widower with sons and daughters who needed mothering. Her children needed a father. There was wealth enough to provide for all. Yet possibly family dissensions might arise amongst the young folk. But against this risk my lady had devised a splendid scheme of protection—the intermarriage of some of the children. They were but children, the two couples—Gilbert Talbot, the fifteen-year-old second son of the Lord-Lieutenant and Mary Cavendish, and the bride’s son Henry Cavendish, to whom Grace Talbot, the Earl’s daughter, was given as wife.

The aforesaid childish marriages were settled and carried through forthwith. Shortly afterwards the wedding of their elders took place with due magnificence, while the bride, besides her Cavendish and Barlow properties, brought to her fourth husband the Gloucestershire estate of St. Loe.

If the Cavendish epoch had been one of security and happiness, the Shrewsbury epoch promised to be one of sheer brilliance and delight. It is true there were one or two dissentient voices. Said a certain John Hall, under subsequent examination upon his arrest for Scottish conspiracy, that, though he served as a gentleman of the Earl’s household for some years, he so misliked my Lord’s marriage with this wife, as divers others of his friends did, that he resigned his post. Yet the Queen and her circle approved. That was the main thing. The following letter from a kinsman at Court emphasises the fact:—^[9]

“May it please you to understand that Mr. Wingfield hath delivered your venison to the Queen’s Majesty with my lord’s most humble commission, and your Ladyship with humble thanks from both your honours for her great goodness.

“[I] assure your Ladyship of my faith, her Majesty did talk one long hour with Mr. Wingfield of my Lord and you so carefully, that, as God is my judge, I think your honours have no friend living that could have more consideration, nor more show love and great affection. In the end she asked when my Lady meant to come to the Court: he answered he knew not: then said she, ‘I am assured if she might have her own will she would not be long before she would see me.’ Then said, ‘I have been glad to see my Lady Saint-Loe, but now more desirous to see my Lady Shrewsbury.’ ‘I hope,’ said she, ‘my Lady hath known my good opinion of her; and thus much I assure you, there is no Lady in this land that I better love and like.’ Mr. Batleman can more at large declare unto your honour. And so with most humble commendations to my very good Lord, I wish to you both as the Queen’s Majesty doth desire; and so take my leave in humble wise. From St. John’s the 21st of October.

“Your honours to command,

“E. Wingfield.”

There was certainly nothing whatever in this marriage to upset Elizabeth’s plans. Indeed, it really paved the way for her schemes and made it easier for her to utilise not only the Earl’s wealth, his authority and position, but all his country seats in turn for the greater security of her life and throne.

My Lady Shrewsbury was forty-eight, my Lord had been but eight years an Earl. Time had not yet marked on his face the lines of anxiety and care which the next twenty-three years were to bring him. He was at the zenith of his career, and the Queen hinted mysteriously that ere long she would show him still more emphatic proofs of her trust and affection in so splendid a servitor. It is in a very happy and devoted vein that he writes love letters from Court just after marriage to his second bride, in which he addresses her as “sweet none.”^[10]

It is regrettable that these letters to his “none” are not more numerous. Otherwise the Earl’s correspondence all his life was enormous, and the masses of letters which mirror contemporary history and his duties in connection with them are nearly all comprised in that rich heritage of manuscript known as the Talbot Papers. Cecil is his constant correspondent. As Lord-Lieutenant of three such great counties he would naturally be kept au courant of great happenings. Is there fear of French invasion? Immediately the Lords of the Privy Council send him instructions. He is to organise companies of demi-lances, to find horses for them—“a good strong and well-set gelding and a man on his back meet to wear a corselet and shoot a dagge” runs the specification. Did her Majesty receive “letters out of Spain”? Copies of the same were sent to the Earl “to the intent that you may thereby see what the humour and disposition of those parties [i.e. the King of Spain and his emissary] tend unto.” Did France goad Mary of Scotland into that unforgettable offence—the adoption of the English royal arms? Then also must his lordship be acquainted with the fact and its immense possibilities. Presently active Scottish hostility seemed imminent, and the letter which travelled to my Lord from Berwick to bid him have all his men in readiness to move to the Border is cumbrously and theatrically endorsed “Haste, haste, haste, haste, post haste with all possible haste.”