Henry Cavendish

Sir Henry Hardwick Cavendish (1550–1616) was the eldest son of the Tudor courtier William Cavendish, and Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury (c. 1527–1608), known as "Bess of Hardwick". He served in the Netherlands as a captain in 1578, and was the MP for Derbyshire five times, but did not participate greatly in politics. Cavendish was also a notorious libertine, and was disinherited by his mother, who held his wardship after his father's death. After his mother's death in 1608 Cavendish inherited the Chatsworth estate, but not its contents, and he sold it to his brother William, who later became the 1st Earl of Devonshire, in the following year. He had a number of illegitimate children, but no legitimate heirs. Early life Henry Cavendish was born in Dec 1550, the eldest son of the politician and courtier Sir William Cavendish and Bess of Hardwick. His father died on 25 October 1557, when the young Henry was only 6 years old. He was raised with his younger brother William at Chatsworth House, which was completed by his mother in the 1560s, where she lived with her fourth husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. He was a godson of Queen Elizabeth I. On 9 February 1568, at the age of 17, Cavendish married Grace Talbot, the eight-year-old daughter of his stepfather. The marriage took place in Sheffield, but it was not a happy union and the couple had no children.