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“Your Mistress,

“Elizabeth Cavendish.

“Tell James Crompe that I have received the five pounds and nine shillings that he sent me by Hugh Alsope.

“to my servant Francis Whitfield,

give this at Chatsworth.”

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Upon this scene of household importance and intimate family life, making, if not for happiness in the fullest sense of the word, at any rate for prosperity and success, fell for a second time upon the married life of Bess Hardwick the great shadow. Sir William Cavendish, so accomplished in business, so doughty a husband, so excellent a host, died in 1557.

His wife made a note of the event in her own hand:—

“Memorandum, that Sir William Cavendish, Knight, my most dear and well beloved husband, departed this present life on Monday, being the 25th day of October, betwixt the hours of 8 and 9 of the same day at Night, in the year of our Lord God 1557, the dominical Letter then C. On whose soul I most humbly beseech the Lord to have mercy, and to rid me and his poor children out of our great misery.