"Bess Hardwick, born into the most brutal and turbulent period of England's history, the fifth of six daughters of an impoverished Derbyshire nobleman, did not have the most 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 in English history." "In 1527 England was in the throes of violent political upheaval as Henry VIII severed all links with Rome. His successor, and daughter, Mary, was even more capricious and bloody, only to be followed by the indomitable and ruthless Gloriana, Elizabeth I. It could not have been more hazardous a period for an ambitious woman; by the time Frances, Bess's first child, was six, three of her illustrious godparents had been beheaded. Plague regularly wiped out entire families, and 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." "Using journals, letters, inventories, court reports and books of accounts - many of which have never before been published - Mary S. Lovell charts the rise of an astonishingly tenacious and accomplished woman, who inspired passionate uxoriousness in her husbands; a woman who was generous, hard-headed and brave. What is revealed is not simply an intimate portrait of Bess Hardwick but also of all Tudor society."--BOOK JACKET.