FOUR HUSBANDS

Bess was born into a family of respectable but impoverished Derbyshire landowners. They owned land in and around Hardwick and a modest manor house on the site of Hardwick Old Hall. Bess left home at the age of 12 to serve at nearby Codnor Castle, and by the age of 15 she had married Robert Barlow, heir to a neighbouring gentry family. He was only 13, and died the following year.

The teenaged Bess moved on probably to become a lady-in-waiting to Frances Grey, mother of Lady Jane Grey, which brought her into the top echelons of Tudor society. While serving there she met and married the twice-widowed Sir William Cavendish. Twenty years older than Bess, he had amassed a fortune under the Tudors, and in 1549 the couple were able – on Bess’s advice – to buy the Chatsworth estate in Derbyshire.

The marriage was happy and resulted in eight children. But in 1557 Bess, still only 30, was widowed again. Faced with Cavendish’s debts she soon remarried: her third husband was the elderly and rich William St Loe, the captain of Elizabeth I’s guard. He died in 1565, leaving most of his estate to Bess. By now wealthy enough to live independently, Bess nonetheless chose to marry yet again. Husband number four was George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and one of the richest and most powerful men in the country.