Bess of Hardwick
Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd
Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick, was one of the most remarkable personalities of Elizabethan England. Born the daughter of an obscure and impoverished Derbyshire squire, her advantageous marriages to four prosperous but short-lived husbands took her to the Royal Court and made her the Countess of Shrewsbury, one of the richest women in England, jailer to Mary Queen of Scots and both grandmother and custodian of Arbella Stuart, one of the claimants to the throne of Queen E