BookShared
  • MEMBER AREA    
  • Devices and Desires: Bess of Hardwick and the Building of Elizabethan England

    (By Kate Hubbard)

    Book Cover Watermark PDF Icon Read Ebook
    ×
    Size 24 MB (24,083 KB)
    Format PDF
    Downloaded 626 times
    Last checked 11 Hour ago!
    Author Kate Hubbard
    “Book Descriptions: The critically acclaimed author of Serving Victoria brilliantly illuminates the life of the little-known Bess of Hardwick—next to Queen Elizabeth I, the richest and most powerful woman in sixteenth-century 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 as a widow in the 70s—and was deeply involved in matters of the court, including the custody of Mary Queen of Scots.

    While Bess cultivated many influential courtiers, she also collected numerous enemies. Her embittered fourth husband once called her a woman of “devices and desires,” while nineteenth-century male historians portrayed her as a monster—”a woman of masculine understanding and conduct, proud, furious, selfish and unfeeling.” In the twenty-first century she has been neutered by female historians who recast her as a soft-hearted sort, much maligned, and misunderstood. As Kate Hubbard reveals, the truth of this highly accomplished woman lies somewhere in between: ruthless and scheming, Bess was sentimental and affectionate as well.

    Hubbard draws on more than 230 of Bess’s letters, including correspondence with the Queen and her councilors, fond (and furious) missives between her husbands and children, and notes sharing titillating court gossip. The result is a rich, compelling portrait of a true feminist icon centuries ahead of her time—a complex, formidable, and decidedly modern woman captured in full as never before.”

    Google Drive Logo DRIVE
    Book 1

    Daughters of the Winter Queen: Four Remarkable Sisters, the Crown of Bohemia, and the Enduring Legacy of Mary, Queen of Scots

    ★★★★★

    Nancy Goldstone

    Book 1

    The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam

    ★★★★★

    Jerry Brotton

    Book 1

    Elizabeth: The Forgotten Years

    ★★★★★

    John Guy

    Book 1

    In the Shadow of the Empress: The Defiant Lives of Maria Theresa, Mother of Marie Antoinette, and Her Daughters

    ★★★★★

    Nancy Goldstone

    Book 1

    Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Children of Edward I

    ★★★★★

    Kelcey Wilson-Lee

    Book 1

    Four Princes: Henry VIII, Francis I, Charles V, Suleiman the Magnificent and the Obsessions that Forged Modern Europe

    ★★★★★

    John Julius Norwich

    Book 1

    Henrietta Maria: Conspirator, Warrior, Phoenix Queen

    ★★★★★

    Leanda de Lisle

    Book 1

    The Plantagenets: The Warrior Kings and Queens Who Made England

    ★★★★★

    Dan Jones

    Book 1

    Game of Queens: The Women Who Made Sixteenth-Century Europe

    ★★★★★

    Sarah Gristwood

    Book 1

    Victoria The Queen: An Intimate Biography of the Woman Who Ruled an Empire

    ★★★★★

    Julia Baird

    Book 1

    The Romanovs: 1613-1918

    ★★★★★

    Simon Sebag Montefiore

    Book 1

    Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free Spirit

    ★★★★★

    Antonia Fraser

    Book 1

    When Women Ran Fifth Avenue: Glamour and Power at the Dawn of American Fashion

    ★★★★★

    Julie Satow

    Book 1

    The White Ship: Conquest, Anarchy and the Wrecking of Henry I’s Dream

    ★★★★★

    Charles Spencer

    Book 1

    A Morbid Taste for Bones (Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, #1)

    ★★★★★

    Ellis Peters

    Book 1

    Young Queens: Three Renaissance Women and the Price of Power

    ★★★★★

    Leah Redmond Chang

    Book 1

    Heartstone (Matthew Shardlake, #5)

    ★★★★★

    C.J. Sansom