Elizabeth Stuart, Countess of Lennox née Cavendish (31 March 1555 – 16 January 1582) was an English noblewoman and the wife of Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox. She was the mother of Arbella Stuart, a close relation to the English and Scottish thrones.
Family Elizabeth Cavendish was born in Chatsworth House, Derbyshire, on 31 March 1555, the daughter of Bess of Hardwick and her second husband Sir William Cavendish. Catherine Grey was one of her godmothers.Lovell 2005, p. 92 Bess was a Lady of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth I and became one of the wealthiest women in England.Fraser 1971, pp.474-475 Elizabeth Cavendish had seven siblings, two of whom died in early infancy.
Marriage to the Earl of Lennox
In 1574, Elizabeth Cavendish secretly married Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox, the younger brother of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley and a claimant to the English throne, at Rufford Abbey in Nottinghamshire.Tracy Borman, Elizabeth's Women (Vintage, 2010), p. 295. Queen Elizabeth I became enraged at the two mothers for arranging such a controversial marriage without her permission. The Queen sent Elizabeth's mother-in-law, Margaret Douglas, to imprisonment in the Tower of London. Bess of Hardwick and Elizabeth, Countess of Lennox, were ordered to remain at Rufford.Tracy Borman, Elizabeth's Women (Vintage, 2010), p. 296: Correspondence diplomatique de Bertrand de Salignac de la Mothe Fénélon, 6 (Paris, 1840), p. 319.Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots, pp. 534–535
Mary, Queen of Scots, sent her a gift in November 1575, and Elizabeth thanked her for the "token" in a postscript added to her mother's letter written at Hackney.William Fraser, The Lennox, 2 (Edinburgh, 1874), p. 449.Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of Scotland: Mary Stuart, 5 (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1854), pp. 373–374.
On 10 November 1575, Elizabeth gave birth to her only child, Arbella Stuart. Her husband died in 1576 of tuberculosis.Fraser 1971, p. 535
Elizabeth herself died six years later on 16 January 1582 at age 26. The Earl of Shrewsbury wrote to William Cecil that his wife, Bess of Hardwick, "takes my daughter Lennox's death so greivously that she neither does nor can think of anything but of lamenting and weeping."Henry Ellis, Original Letters Illustrative of English History, 2nd series vol. 3 (London, 1827), pp. 60-1.
References
Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots, Dell Publishing Co., Inc. New York, 1971 David N. Durant, Arbella Stuart: A Rival to the Queen, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1978 Mary S. Lovell, Bess of Hardwick, First Lady of Chatsworth, Little, Brown, 2005