In 1601 Bess of Hardwick, the wealthiest woman in Elizabethan England (second only to the Queen herself), began her final will and testament. The precision with which Bess bequeathed her monetary and material wealth is striking: her executors and beneficiaries were left little room for interpretation and no excuse for error. This article explores the language and rhetoric of inheritance, alongside specific bequests of money, jewels, property, and clothing present in the will of Bess of Hardwick in order to understand the document as an autobiographical expression of personal and dynastic achievement, status, and ambition.

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