She goes by many names, Elizabeth Cavendish, Elizabeth Talbot, the Countess of Shrewsbury, but is perhaps best known as Bess of Hardwick. Although not born to great wealth or even a great name, she would become one of the most significant women of Elizabeth I’s reign, and would also count two prominent claimants to the throne as members of her family, but who actually was Bess of Hardwick? How did she become such a key figure in the reign of Elizabeth I, and what exactly where the business ventures she took on, that in many respects broke the mould for a woman of the time?