George Talbot
Whilst the small town of Sheffield was of little national significance in the sixteenth century the same could not be said of its lord, for George Talbot, the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, and the third to take an active personal interest in local affairs, was one of the wealthiest and most influential nobles at the court of Queen Elizabeth.
It was in the second year of her reign, in 1560, that he had succeeded his father, Earl Francis, to the title and with it had inherited vast estates in Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Shropshire, properties in London and at least six counties, castles in Sheffield Tutbury and Pontefract and a house beside the wells in Buxton. The 5th Earl had given valuable service to the state in being instrumental in putting down the northern revolt known as the Pilgrimage of Grace and so George Talbot was well trusted by the Queen from the start. She admitted him to the Privy Council and conferred on him the position of Lieutenant General for Yorkshire, Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. In 1572, following the execution of the Duke of Norfolk, she created him Earl Marshal of England. The trusting, somewhat affectionate relationship which George valued with the Queen can be inferred from the way that she referred to him as ‘My Goode Old Manne’, despite the fact that he was only a few years her senior. The nickname also suggests a joking relationship, implying that he was somewhat set in his ways.
There is evidence to suggest that despite his wealth and influence he was not terribly astute and was of a fretful disposition. Portraits of George as an aging man still hang on the wall of the long gallery at Hardwick Hall, the house built by his wife after his death. The drawn features are care-worn and serious to the point of being dour and gloomy. A fierce sense of pride in maintaining his personal and family honour underlay his course of action but in his personal dealings and in his national responsibilities there is little evidence of a sense of humour. Maybe these qualities were the very ones that made him such a trustworthy servant of the crown in these dangerous times. In George Talbot the Queen recognised one of the few man in the country on whom she could rely utterly but in a world which included such contemporaries as Shakespeare, Raleigh and Leicester he was never likely to gain a reputation as a wit or intellectual.
In 1556 his wife, Gertrude Manners of Haddon, died, leaving George with the care of their seven children, four boys and three girls. The eldest, Francis, then 16, was to die young leaving his second son, Gilbert, to inherit the title after his father’s death in 1590, to be succeeded by the younger son, Edward, who would for a brief period be the 8th and last Talbot to hold the title until 1618.
There was no way in Elizabethan England that a man of wealth and property could stay unmarried for long and his choice of partner very much reflects the Tudor attitude towards marriage as a contractual arrangement rather than a romantic match. In the event there are surviving some letters in which Shrewsbury addresses his new bride, Elizabeth Hardwick in very affectionate terms, calling her ‘My only Joy’. In fact ‘Bess’ was a dynamic, ambitious and ruthless character for whom George was no intellectual match. They married in 1567, and as part of the marriage settlement a double wedding between Bess’s boorish eldest son Henry and George’s daughter Grace, and between Gilbert and Mary, Bess’s youngest daughter, was arranged in Sheffield Parish Church. The boys, as was customary, immediately set off on a tour of Europe.
The stresses imposed on this somewhat unequal partnership by the burden of maintaining a vigilant watch on Mary Queen of Scots for fourteen years took their toll and 1585 the Earl was living apart from his estranged wife at Handsworth Hall, a house just outside the Park, with Eleanor Britton, a servant from the Manor. His life had a sad end for the day before he died in November 1580 she robbed him of jewels and valuables. One of his last duties had been carried out in 1588 when he rode out to Padley Hall at Grindleford to arrest the two Jesuit priests, Garlick and Ludlam, at the home of John Fitzherbert. The priests were later executed.
He died in February 1590 and was buried in the crypt below the Shrewsbury Chapel in the Cathedral (then the parish church). A magnificent monument to George, complete with a life-like effigy, stands in this chapel.
Despite his duties throughout the realm and his frequent appearances at court George chose to live and to direct his affairs from his properties in Sheffield, the castle and the Manor Lodge, which he spent time and money in refurbishing and developing. But it is for his commercial and industrial enterprises which succeeding generations of Sheffielders need to feel particularly grateful to Earl George, for He was a shrewd and hard headed business man who was always interested in investing his vast wealth where it could yield a good return. He could be ruthless if his business dealings. In many ways it was this investment in local industrial enterprises that was to stimulate the town to become the manufacturing centre that it became. He mined the ironstone and coal beneath his lands, he built blast furnaces to smelt the ores at Wadsley, Attercliffe and Kimberworth as well as smelters to refine the ore from his Derbyshire lead mines. Most significantly he invested in water powered forges and grinding wheels along Sheffield’s valleys and shipped quality steel to the cutlers from Spain and Sweden. To carry his products to European ports he even had his own ship called ‘The Talbot’, and there is a long standing tradition that, following the persecution of the Huguenots in the low countries by the Duke of Alva, he gave refuge to groups of Dutch refugees who helped to establish the scythe ad tool making trades. It was the Lord who had paramount authority in the sphere of trade and it was to the Manorial Court that disputes were brought and from which ordinances were issued. The value of this is indicated by the extract from Harrison’s Survey of 1637 below. It is reasonable to say the George initiated Sheffield’s first industrial revolution, nurturing an embryonic local trade into a nationally significant industry.
‘Sheffield Towne is scittuated close unto the Parke and an ancient faire Castle thereto adjoining mounted upon a little hill and at the foot thereof there are two great rivers meetinge together, but the River of Donn drownes the name of the other River called the Sheath. Besides these two rivers there are other Rivers called Porter Water, Loxley Water, & Rivelin Water, with other small rivers and brookes. These Rivers are very proffitable unto the Lord in regard of the Mills and Cuttlerwheeles that are turned by their streams which wheels are employed for the grinding of knives by four or five hundred Master workmen.’
