There is a portrait of Bess of Hardwick in the collection of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth.  When Mary was in the custody of her husband Bess first fawned upon her royal prisoner; but a new matrimonial scheme filled her mind which led her to change her conduct into one of hatred.  Bess had a grandchild, Lady Arabella Stuart, for whom she planned an alliance hostile to the Queen’s interests, hence her smiles were turned to frowns.

En passant it may be said that the Manor went by marriage to the Dukes of Norfolk, who held it for generations and then sold it.  Of Bess of Hardwick’s building enterprises it may be added that she built Hardwick Hall, “more glass than wall” (according to an old rhyme), in 1587.  The Earl died in 1590, and the Countess had another long widowhood of 17 years.  Her second son, William Cavendish, was created Baron Cavendish and his great-grandson Duke of Devonshire.

Charles Cavendish was another son of this extraordinary woman, and he bought the Welbeck estate, towards the end of the sixteenth century, from two or three men of obscurity to whom it had passed, after Henry the Eighth had ordered the monastic establishment at the Abbey to be dissolved.  His son became Baron Ogle and Viscount Mansfield, and subsequently Earl, Marquis and Duke of Newcastle in 1644.

This nobleman was devoted to the fortunes of Charles I. and was a skilful General during the time of the Civil War.  He also wrote a book on “Horsemanship,” which was regarded as a remarkable production of its time, and he built a riding-school at Welbeck, where his theories in the training of horses could be carried into effect; but the structure has in recent years been devoted to other purposes, and a new and more spacious riding-school erected to take its place.

The dukedom became extinct for want of male heirs, but his daughter, Lady Margaret Cavendish, married John Holies, Earl of Clare, who, in 1691, obtained a further step in the peerage by the resuscitation of the dukedom, and once more there was a Duke of Newcastle.

A valuable appointment by the Crown came in his way, for he was chosen Warden of Sherwood, with which office went the privilege of enclosing land at Clumber under the royal prerogative.  Again there was no prospect of male heirs, so the Duke left the Clumber property to his sister’s son, Thomas Lord Pelham, who traced his descent from Bess of Hardwick through the Pierrepoints (Earls Manvers).  Thomas Pelham assumed the name of Holles, and was created Duke of Newcastle-on-Tyne in 1715.

But to return to the Duke who was Warden of Sherwood Forest; he had one daughter, Lady Henrietta Cavendish-Holles, who married Edward Harley, second Earl of Oxford.  Their only daughter, Margaret, married William Bentinck, second Duke of Portland.

Hers was a fortunate alliance for the Bentincks.  She was a rich heiress, and the vast property at Welbeck and Bolsover belonging to her grandfather, John Holles, was her dowry.  This was the first introduction of the Dutch family into Nottinghamshire in 1734.