Bess Of Hardwick

A biography of one of the most remarkable women of the Tudor era - next to Queen Elizabeth the most powerful woman in England

Bess of Hardwick, born into the most brutal and turbulent period of Englands history, did not have an auspicious start in life. Widowed for the first time at sixteen, she nonetheless outlived four monarchs, married three more times, and died one of the wealthiest and most powerful women the country has ever seen.

The Tudor age was a hazardous time for an ambitious woman: by the time Frances, Besss first child, was six, three of her illustrious godparents had been beheaded. Plague regularly wiped out entire families, conspiracies and feuds were rife. But through all this Bess Hardwick bore eight children and built an empire of her own: the great houses of Chatsworth and Hardwick..

The best account yet of this shrewd, enigmatic and remarkable womanSunday Times

Lovell has excelled at bringing the Tudor age to exuberant life. A phenomenal storyMail on Sunday

Utterly absorbing... one of those biographies in which the reader really doesnt want the subject to dieIndependent on Sunday