[This is the third in a series of articles describing some
English Stately Homes and their connections]
Derbyshire boasts of some of England’s finest Stately Homes
with Chatsworth, Melbourne, Sudbury and Haddon Hall and here I describe
Hardwick Hall and Kedleston Hall, both of which are gorgeous buildings with a
history of interesting inhabitants.
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| Hardwick Hall |
Hardwick Hall,
between Matlock and Chesterfield in Derbyshire, is a uniquely well-preserved
Elizabethan house built 1591-97 by Elizabeth, the formidable Countess of
Shrewsbury, known to history as “Bess of Hardwick”. The house was designed by
Robert Smythson, but Bess was much involved in the detailed plans.
The Hall cannot easily be disentangled from the personality
of Bess herself. Her dynamism and building mania suffuses the place.
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| Bess of Hardwick |
Bess of Hardwick (1520-1608) was a now familiar type, an
ambitious, hard-bitten and manipulative woman, who married 4 times, each time
becoming richer and more powerful. She would be highly esteemed in modern New
York although she was an exception in Tudor Derbyshire.
She was the 3rd
daughter of Thomas Hardwick whose family had been modest lords of the manor of
Hardwick for 6 generations. At the age of 12 she married 14 year old Robert Barley,
the son of a neighbouring squire, who died a few months later leaving
substantial property to Bess. Her second husband in 1547 was Sir William
Cavendish, a Suffolk-based courtier, whom she persuaded to sell his Southern
properties and buy the estate of Chatsworth from her brother-in-law. She set
about building a new mansion there. Bess had 6 children and all either became
or married peers. Sir William died in 1557 leaving all his wealth to Bess
(despite having children from former wives).
In 1559, Husband No 3 was Sir William St Loe, Captain of the
Queens Guard and Grand Butler of England. He died in 1564 and Bess scooped the
pool again. Finally in 1568 she married George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, a
senior Elizabethan statesman, on condition that two of her own children
simultaneously married two of his by a previous Countess! Bess was quite an operator
and lived with Shrewsbury mainly at old Tudor Chatsworth.
For 15 years
Shrewsbury was custodian of confined, pretty but dangerous Mary, Queen of Scots
(Mary was executed on Elizabeth’s orders in 1587). Bess was bitterly jealous of
his relationship with Mary and left him in 1584, returning to her ancestral
Hardwick, where she began to build a new house. This project was abandoned when
Shrewsbury died in 1590 and Bess, of course inheriting Shrewsbury’s riches,
embarked upon the building of the Hardwick Hall we now see, moving in in 1597.
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| Hardwick Hall, The Long Gallery |
The building is striking for its lavish use of glass, a
luxury in those days. Three floors each progressively higher than the one
below, ascend in importance; the Entrance Hall and kitchens on the ground floor
give way to the Dining Room, Withdrawing Room and Chapel on the first,
culminating in the Long Gallery, High Great Chamber and other State Rooms on
the second. As the family only used Hardwick in the 17th century,
moving permanently to Chatsworth thereafter, Hardwick is little changed since
it was built; it was used as a hunting lodge or dower house and did not have to
keep up with the changing fashions.
Hardwick’s great glory, amid the stone flagged staircases,
plaster ceilings and panelled rooms is its unrivalled collection of Tudor and
Jacobean tapestries and needlework. Walls are covered with wonderful mainly Flemish tapestries, depicting mythological or
biblical scenes (Gideon and the Midianites has recently been repaired and
re-hung) – these precious and delicate relics have been preserved over
centuries.
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| Hardwick, Tapestries in The High Great Chamber |
Hardwick’s external towers are appropriately crowned by
stone carved letters E and S (Elizabeth Shrewsbury). Bess was one of those
assertive ladies, “The Monstrous Regiment” like Good Queen Bess, imperious
Queen Victoria and irresistible Margaret Thatcher who trample over and abuse us
males to our inexplicable but ecstatic satisfaction.
-----------------------------------------------
Kedleston Hall, 4
miles north-west of Derby, was the
residence of the Curzon family for 850 years, but the three-part building we
now see was the creation of Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Scarsdale
from 1757 onwards principally to the designs of the Scots architect Robert
Adam, although the Palladian architect James Paine also contributed.
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| Kedleston Hall, the south front, central section |
.
The
1st Baron was a great enthusiast for the architecture of Ancient
Rome, as was Robert Adam who had just returned from Italy. The South Front of
the central block has a Triumphal Arch, based on that of Constantine,
dominating the façade, This Roman enthusiasm becomes obvious on entering the
famous Marble Hall, with classical statues adorning a ravishing Atrium with
Corinthian columns.
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| Kedleston, The Marble Hall |
Adam advocated what he called “movement” in architecture,
creating contrasts with rooms of different sizes and decorative colours; the
South Front (above), for example, has three shapes, the round Dome, the
square Arch and the curved Staircase,
all pleasing to the eye.
From the Marble Hall we move to the Music Room, all in red,
with Italian paintings and an idyllic view over the park and Lake; then a
Tapestry Corridor with splendid 17th century Flemish hangings,
followed by a State Drawing Room, originally in blue and gold, with
classical-themed paintings by Veronese, Cuyp and Reni and spectacular Adam
sofas. The Library is in sober Doric order simplicity, with a fine ceiling in
pink, blue and green and a wealth of mainly Dutch paintings.
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| Kedleston, The Saloon |
The Saloon, a rotunda, evokes Ancient Rome with a coffered Dome
rising 62ft and painted scenes from British history. State Boudoir, State
Bedchamber (with a remarkable bed), Great Staircase and State Dining Room are
of dizzying lavishness, abounding with silk hangings, silver, porcelain and
even more paintings. This is truly a treasure house.
Not surprisingly, living amid such splendour, the Curzons
had a high opinion of themselves, not least George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st
Marquess Curzon of Kedleston (1859-1925).
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| George Curzon, 1st Marquess |
A youthful riding accident forced George to wear a steel
corset all his life, which made him seem stiff if not arrogant. Educated at
Eton and Balliol, Oxford, President of the Union, George was recognised as a
brilliant mind but opinions were divided as to his character; a Balliol
lampooning rhyme went:
My name
is George Nathaniel Curzon
I am a most superior person
My cheeks are pink, my hair is sleek
I dine at Blenheim twice a week
George travelled extensively in Central Asia and
India writing official reports about what became known as “The Great Game”, the blocking,
through alliances in Mesopotamia, Persia and modern Kazakhstan, of Russian
expansion south threatening India, the jewel of the British Empire. George was
the recognised expert in this area.
George married Mary Leiter in 1895, an American
heiress who bore him 3 daughters and was the love of his life. His career
reached an apex with his appointment as Viceroy of India in 1899. He was an
energetic Viceroy until 1905 and revelled in the ceremonial Durbars,
photographed with his Vicereine atop a huge, richly brocaded elephant. He lived
the grandiose life of Kedleston in the East.
Out of office for 10 years from 1905, George’s life
took a sad turn when his wife died in 1906, aged 36. George compensated with a
long-term affair until 1916 with the scandalous writer Elinor Glyn:
Would you
like to sin
With
Elinor Glyn
On a
tiger skin?
Or would
you prefer
To err
with her
On some
other fur?
George
joined Asquith’s government in 1915 and was Leader of the House of Lords in
Lloyd George’s war cabinet in 1916. He achieved an important ambition by
becoming Foreign Secretary replacing Balfour in 1919. He had married in 1917
another rich American lady, the widow Grace Hinds from Alabama. George hoped
for a son and heir but it never happened and eventually they separated. A wag
remarked that for all George’s political disappointments he still enjoyed “the
means of Grace”.
Famously
self-assertive, George was once said to have been attending a conference in
Switzerland when he was disturbed by the noise of early morning tramcars. He
summoned the cowering mayor and insisted that the trams should not start until
a later hour. The mayor acceded to this demand – ah, those were the days when a
British foreign secretary counted for something!
When
Bonar Law fell ill in 1923, he was peppered by memos from Curzon setting out
his claims to the succession. Bonar Law made no recommendation. Curzon,
oblivious to his weaknesses, assumed the prize would be his, discussed his
cabinet with his wife and returned to his residence in Carlton House Terrace
from Kedleston, complacently awaiting the summons of the King. The summons
never came and the King’s private secretary sheepishly informed George that it
was no longer possible to have a peer as Prime Minister. When the secretary
left, Curzon burst into tears, mortified that the bourgeois Baldwin was
preferred over his own manifold talents. The argument about the peerage was
rather contrived as much of the truth was that Curzon was an insufferably conceited
colleague and nobody wanted to serve under him.
His
own family life was curious. His second daughter Cynthia married the dashingly
egotistical Sir Oswald (Tom) Mosley. Mosley was a handsome fellow but he played
old Harry with the Curzon women. He had a brief romance with the elder daughter
Irene, seduced and cavorted with the younger daughter Baba (who married
“Fruity” Metcalfe, aide and best man to Edward VIII) and had a long affair with
George’s second wife, their step-mother Grace! Mosley changed parties easily
from Tory to Labour to Fascist so his bed-hopping was in character.
 |
| Oswald Mosley, a lover of Curzons |
George
died a disappointed man. The family were quarrelsome and Kedleston Hall was
acquired by the National Trust in 1987. The family connection is broken but the
building remains a gloriously evocative one
SMD
5.08.13.
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2013
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