As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Affiliate disclosure.

Home / People / George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury

Historical person

George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury

1528–1590

George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, was one of the most powerful English nobles of Elizabeth I’s reign. Born in 1528, he inherited the earldom in 1560 together with extensive estates across the Midlands and north of England. His position made him an important regional magnate and royal servant, but he is remembered above all for the extraordinary responsibility imposed on him after Mary, Queen of Scots fled to England in 1568.

For roughly fifteen years Shrewsbury and his wife Bess of Hardwick were responsible for guarding Mary at a succession of houses including Tutbury, Sheffield and Chatsworth. The assignment was financially burdensome and politically dangerous, while tensions surrounding Mary contributed to the collapse of Shrewsbury’s marriage to Bess. Elizabeth eventually relieved him of the custodianship in 1584. He remained a significant nobleman and privy councillor until his death in 1590.

In Philippa Gregory’s The Other Queen, After fleeing Scotland in 1568, Mary Stuart is placed in the custody of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, and his wife Bess of Hardwick.

Periods

Periods linked to George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury

Captivity of Mary, Queen of Scots in England1568–1587 CE

Series

Historical novels and book series featuring George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury (1 series)

The Plantagenet and Tudor Novels in Order

by Philippa Gregory 16 books 4.4(140,052)

The Plantagenet and Tudor novels form a chronological sequence of connected but independently readable stories about women near the English throne. They move from the Lancastrian court and the Wars of the Roses through the rise of the Tudors, Henry VIII’s marriages, the mid-Tudor religious crisis and the…

All books in this series