Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England

Aided by a quartet of judicious marriages and a shrewd head for business, Bess of Hardwick rose from humble beginnings to become one of the most respected and feared countesses in Elizabethan England?an entrepreneur who built a family fortune; created glorious houses (the last and greatest built when she was a widow in her 70s); and was deeply involved in matters of the court, including the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots.