Bess of Hardwick

Source: https://www.bessofhardwick.org/letter.jsp?letter=171

Here is a date (November 4, 1570) that appears to be contemporaneously written.  This is from a series of letters written by and to Bess of Hardwick (a notable figure of Elizabethan English society).  For my purposes, she is interesting because she wrote a number of letters (about 250) that have been scanned and are available on the internet. This particular letter has much better handwriting than the others and is the clearest example of an old date.  It was written by Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, in Padua, Italy.

So I put forward a theory and answered it.  Yes there are older dates.  The dating of course would be on the Julian calendar.  (Are there any written dates older than this?)

Now for the rest of the story which I dug up while trying to research who Gilbert Talbot was.

Bess of Hardwick's 4th husband was George Talbot, the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury.  Gilbert was his son and later became the 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. Bess of Hardwick (aka Elizabeth Cavendish) married George Talbot sometime in 1568. On February 9 1568, Gilbert (age 16) married Mary Cavendish (age 12), daughter of Bess in a double ceremony along with Sir Henry Cavendish (age 18), son of Bess  who married Lady Grace Talbot (age 8), daughter of Gilbert. What?  So stepsons marrying stepdaughters.  Henry Cavendish hated his wife and had no legitimate children, but had eight (!) illegitimate children, and had the reputation of being a libertine. He apparently tried to seduce Arbella Stuart, his niece.  Arbella may have been the inspiration for Ophelia, in Hamlet.

What was the question again?