The country had settled down into a peaceful state. A house was no longer a castle needing external defence. Hitherto the homes of England had been either fortresses, or had needed the protection of moats and walls. They had been poorly lighted; only the walls looking to an inner court, or to a small walled garden could have fair-sized openings. No spacious windows could look abroad upon open country, field or woodland. But by this time such restriction was a thing of the past, and we see in these great houses, and in Hardwick especially, immense window spaces in the outer walls. The architects of the time, John Thorpe, the Smithsons and others, ran riot with their great windows, as if revelling in their exemption from the older bonds. The new freedom was so tempting that they knew not how to restrain themselves, and it was only later, when it was found that the amount of lighting was overmuch for convenience, that the relation of degree of light to internal comfort came to be better understood and more reasonably adjusted. The famous Countess of Shrewsbury (Bess of Hardwick), to whose initiative this great house owes its origin, set an imperishable memorial of her imperious arrogance upon the balustrading that crowns the square tower-like projections at the angles and ends of the building, where the [Illustration: THE FORECOURT: HARDWICK FROM THE PICTURE IN THE POSSESSION OF MR. ASTON WEBB] stone is wrought into lace-like fretwork of arabesque, whereof the chief features are her coronet and the initials of her name. A spacious forecourt occupies the ground upon the western--the main entrance front. It stretches the whole length of the house, and projects as much forward; its outer sides being inclosed with a wall that bears in constant succession an ornament of a _fleur-de-lys_ with tall pyramidal top, a detail imported direct from Italy, from the Renaissance gardens of earlier date. Such an ornament occurs at the Villa d’Este at Tivoli, crowning a retaining wall. The entrance to the inclosed forecourt is by a handsome stone gateway. This gateway forms the background of the picture, which shows one of the well-planted flower borders that abound at Hardwick, and that strike that lightsome and cheerful note of human care and delight that is so welcome in this place whose scale is rather too large, and somewhat coldly forbidding, in relation to the more ordinary aspects of daily comfort.