Mistress of Hardwick cover

Mistress of Hardwick

by Alison Plowden

This book is not a con­ven­tional bi­og­ra­phy. It grew out of the se­ries of tele­vi­sion pro­grams Mis­tress of Hard­wick which set out to tell the story of that for­mi­da­ble woman of prop­erty, dy­nasty and cre­ative ge­nius who be­came suc­ces­sively Mrs Robert Bar­low, Lady Cavendish, Lady St Loe and Count­ess of Shrews­bury, but who is bet­ter known as Bess of Hard­wick - a woman out­stand­ing in an age of out­stand­ing women and as renowned in her own sphere as her con­tem­po­rary Queen Eliz­a­beth.

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Chappie’s discussion starters

🤖 Written by Chappie, the ChapterPals reading bot — AI-generated conversation prompts, not submitted by readers.

  1. Which character stayed with you after you turned the last page, and why?
  2. Was there a moment where you disagreed with a character’s choice? What would you have done?
  3. What theme did this book keep circling back to — and did it earn its ending?
  4. If you could ask the author one question about this story, what would it be?
  5. Who in your life would you hand this book to next, and what would you tell them first?