How did he do it? He valued land low in his own favor, sometimes for the benefit of others. Sometimes he received gifts, and sometimes secret bribes. Of course! Why not? He was doing the king’s work and furthering the reform of the church. He was doing God’s work in expelling corrupt priests. Why should he not be richly rewarded? We were replacing a rotten old church with one in the true image of His son. It was glorious work. Was my husband not on God’s own work, to destroy the old bad ways of the Papist church? Was he not absolutely right, directed by God Himself, to take wealth away from the corrupt Papal church and put it into our hands, we who would use it so much better? Is that not the very meaning of the sacred parable of the talents?
And all the while I was his apprentice, as well as his wife. I came to him a girl with a burning ambition to own my own property and to be secure in the world. Never again would I be a poor relation in the house of a richer cousin. He taught me how I could do it. God bless him.
Then I told him that the Chatsworth estate was for sale, near to my old home of Hardwick in Derbyshire, that I knew it well and it was good land, that the original owner was my cousin but he had sold it to spite his family, that the new owner, frightened by claims against the freehold, was desperate for a sale, that we could make a sharp profit if we were not too particular at taking advantage of a fool in trouble. William saw, as I did, the profit that could be made from it, and he bought it for me at a knockdown price and swore it would be the greatest house in the North of England, and it would be our new home.
When the new queen, Mary Tudor, came to the throne—and who would have thought she could defeat the good Protestant claimant, my friend Jane Grey?—they accused my poor Cavendish of defrauding his office, of taking bribes, and of stealing land from the Holy Roman Catholic church, which now rose again from the dead like Jesus Himself. Shameful accusations and frightening times: our friends held in the Tower for treason, dearest little Jane Grey facing death for claiming the throne, the reformation of religion utterly reversed, the world turned upside down again, the cardinals returned and the Inquisition coming. But the one thing that I was sure of, the one thing that comforted me through all the worry, was the knowledge that he would know to a penny how much he had stolen. They might say that his books at the palace did not account for the huge fortune he had made, but I knew that he would know; somewhere there would be accounts that would show it all, good and clear, theft and profit. When he died, my poor husband Cavendish, still under suspicion of theft, corruption, and dishonest accounting, I knew that he would make his accounts in heaven, and St. Peter (who I supposed would be restored also) would find them exact, to the last penny.
In his absence, it fell to me, his widow, all alone in the world, to defend my inheritance on earth. He had left me everything in my own name, God bless him, for he knew I would keep it safe. Despite every tradition, custom, and practice which makes widows paupers and men the only heirs, he put every penny in my name, not even in trust, not to a kinsman. He did not favor a man, any man, over me, his wife. He gave it wholly to me. Think of that! He gave everything to me.
And I swore that I would not betray my dearest Cavendish. I swore, with my hand on his coffin, that I would keep the sacks of gold under the marriage bed, the lands that I had inherited from him, the church candles on my tables and the pictures on my walls, and that I would show my duty to him, as his good widow, by fighting to prove their title as my own. He left his fortune to me; I owed it to him to see that his wishes were honored. I would make sure that I kept everything. I made it my sacred duty to keep everything.