Offspring
There are, frankly, too many of Bess’s children, step-children, and grandchildren to discuss in this brief space, and so we will focus on two of the most interesting. Her favorite son and heir, William Cavendish, was made the 1st Earl of Devonshire in 1618, at a cost of £10, 000. He was an ambitious man who was dedicated to the running of his family estates. He either inherited or learned his business acumen from Bess, for he secured the future of his estates and made a very wise investment in the East India Company before dying in 1625.
By far the most troublesome of Bess’s relatives was Lady Arbella Stuart (1575-1615), one of her grandchildren. She was adopted by Bess aged 7 after the death of her parents, and her grandmother devoted huge amounts of money and energy to her upbringing. Unfortunately, despite all this and her candidacy for being Elizabeth’s successor, Arbella was a disappointment. She was sent home from court after making a faux pas in a procession, plotted a marriage without Elizabeth’s permission, and ran up huge debts. In 1607, Bess wrote her granddaughter out of her will due to her spendthrift nature.
The unsuitable marriage she had meditated during Elizabeth’s reign had been to a member of the Seymour family, who also had a claim to the throne. In 1610, she resurrected the plan, intending to marry another of the Seymour brothers, William. King James I denied permission on the grounds that an alliance of two claimants to the throne was too dangerous, made all the worse by Arbella’s suspicious conversion to Catholicism. Arbella ignored him, and married in secret in 1610. James imprisoned Arbella, who escaped several times, and she finally died after a hunger strike in the Tower of London.