Textiles at Hardwick Hall

Magazine Antiques, Dec, 1998 by Alfred Mayor

by Santina M. Levey (National Trust, distributed in the United States by Harry N. Abrams, 212-206-7715), $35.00 (hardcovers).

Hardwick Hall, more glass than wall" is as true as it is catchy. On a bright afternoon this huge, symmetrical Elizabethan pile incandesees as the sun fractures on thousands of diamond panes and the map of the clouds races across the immense, perpendicular windows. Given the price of glass in the sixteenth century they were a conspicuous extravagance of the first order. Moreover, as light is the mortal enemy of textiles it is the more remarkable that this Derbyshire palace contains an extraordinary collection of sixteenth and seventeenth-century embroideries, needlework, and other textiles, most in mint condition.

The six towers - two on each long facade and one on each end - are surmounted by lacy balustrades in which are centered the crowned initials ES for Elizabeth Shrewsbury, the creator of the house and the collector of the textiles. Better known as Bess of Hardwick, this formidable widow married her fourth husband, George Talbot, the sixth earl of Shrewsbury, in 1567. This union gave Bess access to Sheffield Castle, and a number of other well-furnished Shrewsbury houses in and out of London. She also had Chatsworth through her second husband, Sir William Cavendish. When moving from house to house it was the Elizabethan custom to take along textiles and other hangings as needed, so that the collection at Hardwick mingles holdings from many of the houses the Shrewsburys owned, as well as embroideries and needlework made on the spot by Bess herself or by professional needleworkers, resident and itinerant.

Hardwick Hall, which is more precisely the New Hall as opposed to the Old Hall, was built in the 1590s largely of raw materials from Bess's estates. However, the textiles in the house were worth considerably more than the building. Bess was not only a grand acquisitor but a shrewd one. There were acres of walls to be hung with tapestries, and in the case of the Gallery, there were few sets that extended the required 166 feet. The Story of Gideon, woven for Sir Christoper Hatton in 1578, was just right, and fortunately for Bess, Hatton had left nothing but debts to his heir Sir William Hatton. Bess negotiated a price of [pounds]326 15s 9d for the thirteen-piece set and then got Sir William to knock off [pounds]5 9s 9d because the Hatton arms would have to be replaced with her own. In the end she simply sewed on panels of felted wool painted with her arms for a total cost of 30s 4d and pocketed the difference.

Bess was also a great protector of her possessions. In her will of 1601 she decreed that at Hardwick, Chatsworth, and Oldcotes (near Hardwick) the plate, bedding, hangings, "and other furniture of household stuffe" should be preserved in those houses and not disposed of by "will, gifte or other devise to any' other person or persons." She even stipulated that her heirs were to 'have special care and regard to p'serve the same from all manner of wett, mothe and other hurte or spoyle therofe and to leave them so preserved to contynewe at the sayed several houses as a foresayed for the better furnishyng them therewithall."

In Elizabethan Treasures: The Hardwick Hall Textiles, Santina M. Levey, formerly the keeper of textiles at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, approaches her subject as social history. We learn much about Bess's long and varied life, her passion for acquisitions, her collection of textiles, and life at Hardwick, which, on its exposed hilltop, was paralyzingly cold in winter.

The soaring windows were largely uncurtained, but the denizens were tough. Bess's granddaughter Arbella described going up to the huge and curtainless High Great Chamber in March 1603 to find a group of people "takeing the advantage of the fire to warme by till the sunne shining on our world with hotter and farther distant beames make it needlesse." The author comments, with admirable understatement, "Few people who now experience the room in early March would consider a fire and curtains needless."

The color illustrations do justice to the vivid colors and fine condition of many of the textiles. There are an extensive bibliography, a useful glossary and a rather inadequate index.

The embroideries and needlework at Hardwick will be formally treated in a catalogue to be published as a companion to this book. It will contain technical descriptions, information about the sources of the designs, and comparisons with analagous sixteenth-century material.