Like Knole and Ham House, the interior is untouched, and every room is in the same condition since the time of its erection. Some of the wonderful old furniture came from the older Chatsworth House, including, as before stated, the bedroom furniture of Mary Queen of Scots. Nowhere in England may be seen finer tapestries than at Hardwick; they give a wealth of colour to the interior, and in the Presence-chamber the parget-work in high relief is also richly coloured. Here is Queen Elizabeth's State chair overhung by a canopy, and the Royal arms and supporters are depicted on the pargeting. The tapestries lining the walls of the grand stone staircase are superb, and the silk needlework tapestry in some of the smaller rooms a feast of colour. Everywhere are the grandest old cushioned chairs and settees, and inlaid cabinets and tables. The picture-gallery extends the entire length of the house, and abounds in historical portraits, including Bess of Hardwick dressed in black, perhaps for one of her many husbands, with a black head-dress, large ruff, and chain of pearls. Here also is a full-length portrait of her rival, the luckless queen, very sad and very pale, painted, during her nineteen years of captivity, at Sheffield in 1678, and a portrait of her little son James at the age of eight,--a picture sent to comfort the poor mother in her seclusion. The future king's cold indifference to his mother's fate was not the least unpleasant trait of his selfish character. In a discourse between Sir John Harrington and the monarch, the latter did his best to avoid any reference to the poor queen's fate; but he might have saved himself the trouble, for he was more affected by the superstitious omens preceding her execution. His Highness, he says, "told me her death was visible in Scotland before it did really happen, being, as he said, spoken of in secret by those whose power of sight presented to them a bloody head dancing in the air." From James we may turn to little Lady Arabella Stuart in a white gown, nursing a doll in still more antiquated costume, in blissful ignorance of her unhappy future. She was the granddaughter of Bess of Hardwick, and was born at Chatsworth close upon the time when the Queen of Scots was there. Looking at these two portraits of this baby and the boy, it is difficult to imagine that the latter should have sent his younger cousin to linger away her life and lose her reason in the Tower from the fact that she had the misfortune to be born a Stuart.