staying at Chatsworth for some length of time. In 1584 she was again removed to Wingfield, in 1585 to Tutbury, and in the following year to Chartley, to Fotheringhay, and that fatal block, which will ever remain a dark blot on the escutcheon of “good Queen Bess.” It is a somewhat remarkable circumstance, touching the captivity of Mary under the constableship of the Earl of Shrewsbury, that the places belonging to him where she was confined, Sheffield Castle and Manor, Tutbury Castle, Wingfield Manor, and Chartley (as well as Fotheringhay, where she was executed), have all fallen to ruin, while Chatsworth and other places which belonged to the countess still flourish. It is not certain, although there is every probability that such was the case, that Mary was ever at Hardwick. There can be but little doubt she spent, at all events, a few days there; but this would, of course, be at the old Hall, as will be shown later on. The Earl of Shrewsbury, about whom strange rumours regarding his conduct and intentions towards his captive at the time of his discharge from his trust were afloat, and over whom a female domestic, Eleanor Britton, had gained an injurious ascendency, afterwards, in consequence, living a not very happy life with his second countess, died in 1590; and thus “Bess of Hardwick” became, for the fourth time, a widow. “A change of conditions,” says Bishop Kennett, “that, perhaps, never fell to the lot of one woman, to be four times a creditable and happy wife, to rise by every husband into greater wealth and higher honours, to have a numerous issue by one husband only; to have all those children live, and all, by her advice, be creditably disposed of in her lifetime; and, after all, to live seventeen years a widow in absolute power and plenty.” The countess, besides being one of the most beautiful, accomplished, and captivating women of her day, was, without exception, the most energetic, business-like, and able of her sex. In architecture her conceptions were grand; while in all matters pertaining to the Arts, and to comforts and elegancies of life, she was unsurpassed. To the old Hall of her fathers, where she was born and resided, she made vast additions—indeed, so much so as almost to amount to a recreation of the place; and she entirely planned and built three of the most gorgeous edifices of the time—Hardwick Hall, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes—the first two of which were transmitted entire to the first Duke of Devonshire. “At Hardwick she left the ancient seat of her family standing, and at a small distance, still adjoining to her new fabric, _as if she had a mind to preserve her Cradle, and set it by her Bed of State_,” as Kennett so poetically expresses it. Her “Bed of State”—the present Hall, erected by her—we have already described. Her “Cradle”—the old Hall, wherein she was born and nursed, but which is now in ruins—we shall describe presently.