Bess of Hardwick First Lady of Chatsworth, 1527-1608
Bess Hardwick, born into the most brutal and turbulent period of England's history, the fifth of six daughters of an impoverished Derbshire nobleman, did not have the most auspicious start in life. Widowed for the first time at sixteen, she nonetheless outlived four monarchs, married three more times, and died one of the wealthiest and most powerful women in English history.