Where London's towre its turrets show
So stately by the Thames's side,
Faire Arabella, child of woe!
For many a day had sat and sighed.
And as shee heard the waves arise,
And as shee heard the bleake windes roare,
As fast did heave her heartfelte sighes,
And still so fast her teares did poure!
_Arabella Stuart, in Evans's Old Ballads_.
(Probably written by Mickle.)
The name of Arabella Stuart, Mr. Lodge observes, "is scarcely mentioned
in history." The whole life of this lady seems to consist of secret
history, which, probably, we cannot now recover. The writers who have
ventured to weave together her loose and scattered story are ambiguous
and contradictory. How such slight domestic incidents as her life
consisted of could produce results so greatly disproportioned to their
apparent cause may always excite our curiosity. Her name scarcely ever
occurs without raising that sort of interest which accompanies
mysterious events, and more particularly when we discover that this lady
is so frequently alluded to by her foreign contemporaries.
The historians of the Lady Arabella have fallen into the grossest
errors. Her chief historian has committed a violent injury on her very
person, which, in the history of a female, is not the least important.
In hastily consulting two passages relative to her, he applied to the
Lady Arabella the defective understanding and headstrong dispositions of
her aunt, the Countess of Shrewsbury; and by another misconception of a
term, as I think, asserts that the Lady Arabella was distinguished
neither for beauty nor intellectual qualities.[323] This authoritative
decision perplexed the modern editor, Kippis, whose researches were
always limited; Kippis had gleaned from Oldys's precious manuscripts a
single note which shook to its foundations the whole structure before
him; and he had also found, in Ballard, to his utter confusion, some
hints that the Lady Arabella was a learned woman, and of a poetical
genius, though even the writer himself, who had recorded this discovery,
was at a loss to ascertain the fact! It is amusing to observe honest
George Ballard in the same dilemma as honest Andrew Kippis. "This lady,"
he says, "was not more distinguished for the dignity of her birth than
celebrated for her fine parts and learning; and yet," he adds, in all
the simplicity of his ingenuousness, "I know so little in relation to
the two last accomplishments, that I should not have given her a place
in these memoirs had not Mr. Evelyn put her in his list of learned
women, and Mr. Philips (Milton's nephew) introduced her among his modern
poetesses."
"The Lady Arabella," for by that name she is usually noticed by her
contemporaries, rather than by her maiden name of Stuart, or by her
married one of Seymour, as she latterly subscribed herself, was, by her
affinity with James the First and our Elizabeth, placed near the throne;
too near, it seems, for her happiness and quiet![324] In their common
descent from Margaret, the elder daughter of Henry the Seventh, she was
cousin to the Scottish monarch, but born an Englishwoman, which gave
her some advantage in a claim to the throne of England. "Her double
relation to royalty," says Mr. Lodge, "was equally obnoxious to the
jealousy of Elizabeth and the timidity of James, and they secretly
dreaded the supposed danger of her having a legitimate offspring." Yet
James himself, then unmarried, proposed for the husband of the Lady
Arabella one of her cousins, Lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created Duke
of Lennox, and designed for his heir. The first thing we hear of "the
Lady Arabella" concerns a marriage: marriages are the incidents of her
life, and the fatal event which terminated it was a marriage. Such was
the secret spring on which her character and her misfortunes revolved.
This proposed match was desirable to all parties; but there was one
greater than them all who forbad the banns. Elizabeth interposed; she
imprisoned the Lady Arabella, and would not deliver her up to the king,
of whom she spoke with asperity, and even with contempt.[325] The
greatest infirmity of Elizabeth was her mysterious conduct respecting
the succession to the English throne; her jealousy of power, her strange
unhappiness in the dread of personal neglect, made her averse to see a
successor in her court, or even to hear of a distant one; in a successor
she could only view a competitor. Camden tells us that she frequently
observed, that "most men neglected the setting sun," and this melancholy
presentiment of personal neglect this political coquette not only lived
to experience, but even this circumstance of keeping the succession
unsettled miserably disturbed the queen on her death-bed. Her ministers,
it appears, harassed her when she was lying speechless; a remarkable
circumstance, which has hitherto escaped the knowledge of her numerous
historians, and which I shall take an opportunity of disclosing in this
work.
Elizabeth leaving a point so important always problematical, raised up
the very evil she so greatly dreaded; it multiplied the aspirants, while
every party humoured itself by selecting its own claimant, and none
more busily than the continental powers. One of the most curious is the
project of the Pope, who, intending to put aside James the First on
account of his religion, formed a chimerical scheme of uniting Arabella
with a prince of the house of Savoy; the pretext, for without a pretext
no politician moves, was their descent from a bastard of our Edward the
Fourth; the Duke of Parma was, however, married; but the Pope, in his
infallibility, turned his brother the Cardinal into the Duke's
substitute by secularising the churchman. In that case the Cardinal
would then become King of England in right of this lady!--provided he
obtained the crown![326]
We might conjecture from this circumstance that Arabella was a catholic,
and so Mr. Butler has recently told us; but I know of no other authority
than Dodd, the catholic historian, who has inscribed her name among his
party. Parsons, the wily Jesuit, was so doubtful how the lady, when
young, stood disposed towards Catholicism, that he describes "her
religion to be as tender, green, and flexible as is her age and sex, and
to be wrought hereafter and settled according to future events and
times." Yet, in 1611, when she was finally sent into confinement, one
well informed of court affairs writes, "that the Lady Arabella hath _not
been found inclinable to popery_."[327]
Even Henry the Fourth of France was not unfriendly to this papistical
project of placing an Italian cardinal on the English throne. It had
always been the state interest of the French cabinet to favour any
scheme which might preserve the realms of England and Scotland as
separate kingdoms. The manuscript correspondence of Charles the Ninth
with his ambassador at the court of London, which I have seen, tends
solely to this great purpose, and perhaps it was her French and Spanish
allies which finally hastened the political martyrdom of the Scottish
Mary.
Thus we have discovered _two_ chimerical husbands of the Lady Arabella.
The _pretensions_ of this lady to the throne had evidently become an
object with speculating politicians; and perhaps it was to withdraw
herself from the embarrassments into which she was thrown, that,
according to De Thou, she intended to marry a son of the Earl of
Northumberland; but, to the jealous terror of Elizabeth, an English Earl
was not an object of less magnitude than a Scotch Duke. This is the
_third_ shadowy husband.
When James the First ascended the English throne, there existed an
Anti-Scottish party. Hardly had the northern monarch entered into the
"Land of Promise," when his southern throne was shaken by a foolish
plot, which one writer calls "a state riddle;" it involved Rawleigh, and
unexpectedly the Lady Arabella. The Scottish monarch was to be got rid
of, and Arabella was to be crowned. Some of these silly conspirators
having written to her, requesting letters to be addressed to the King of
Spain, she laughed at the letter she received, and sent it to the king.
Thus for a _second_ time was Arabella to have been Queen of England.
This occurred in 1603, but was followed by no harsh measures from James
the First.
In the following year, 1604, I have discovered that for the _third_ time
the lady was offered a crown! "A great ambassador is coming from the
King of Poland, whose chief errand is to demand my Lady Arabella in
marriage for his master. So may your princess of the blood grow a great
queen, and then we shall be safe from _the danger of missuperscribing
letters_."[328] This last passage seems to allude to something. What is
meant by "the danger of missuperscribing letters?"
If this royal offer were ever made, it was certainly forbidden. Can we
imagine the refusal to have come from the lady, who, we shall see, seven
years afterwards, complained that the king had neglected her, in not
providing her with a suitable match? It was at this very time that one
of those butterflies, who quiver on the fair flowers of a court, writes
that "My Ladye Arbella spends her time in lecture, reiding, &c., and she
will not hear of marriage. Indirectly there were speaches used in the
recommendation of Count Maurice, who pretendeth to be Duke of Guildres.
I dare not attempt her."[329] Here we find another princely match
proposed. Thus far, to the Lady Arabella, crowns and husbands were like
a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening on her sight, impalpable and
vanishing at the moment of approach.
Arabella from certain circumstances was a dependent on the king's
bounty, which flowed very unequally; often reduced to great personal
distress, we find by her letters that "she prayed for present money,
though it should not be annually." I have discovered that James at
length granted her a pension. The royal favours, however, were probably
limited to her good behaviour.[330]
From 1604 to 1608 is a period which forms a blank leaf in the story of
Arabella. In this last year this unfortunate lady had again fallen out
of favour, and, as usual, the cause was mysterious, and not known even
to the writer. Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, mentions
"the Lady Arabella's business, _whatsoever it was_, is ended, and she
restored to her former place and graces. The king gave her a cupboard of
plate, better than 200_l._, for a new year's gift, and 1000 marks to pay
her debts, besides some yearly addition to her maintenance, want being
thought the chiefest cause of her discontentment, though _shee be not
altogether free from suspicion of being collapsed_."[331] Another
mysterious expression, which would seem to allude either to politics or
religion but the fact appears by another writer to have been a discovery
of a new project of marriage without the king's consent. This person of
her choice is not named; and it was to divert her mind from the too
constant object of her thoughts, that James, after a severe reprimand,
had invited her to partake of the festivities of the court in that
season of revelry and reconciliation.
We now approach that event of the Lady Arabella's life which reads like
a romantic fiction: the catastrophe, too, is formed by the Aristotelian
canon; for its misery, its pathos, and its terror even romantic fiction
has not exceeded!
It is probable that the king, from some political motive, had decided
that the Lady Arabella should lead a single life; but such wise purposes
frequently meet with cross ones; and it happened that no woman was ever
more solicited to the conjugal state, or seems to have been so little
averse to it. Every noble youth who sighed for distinction ambitioned
the notice of the Lady Arabella; and she was so frequently contriving a
marriage for herself, that a courtier of that day writing to another,
observes, "these affectations of marriage in her do give some advantage
to the world of impairing the reputation of her constant and virtuous
disposition."[332]
The revels of Christmas had hardly closed when the Lady Arabella forgot
that she had been forgiven, and again relapsed into her old infirmity.
She renewed a connexion, which had commenced in childhood, with Mr.
William Seymour, the second son of Lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the
Earl of Hertford. His character has been finely described by Clarendon:
he loved his studies and his repose; but when the civil wars broke out,
he closed his volumes and drew his sword, and was both an active and a
skilful general. Charles the First created him Marquis of Hertford, and
governor of the prince; he lived to the Restoration, and Charles the
Second restored him to the dukedom of Somerset.
This treaty of marriage was detected in February, 1609, and the parties
summoned before the privy council. Seymour was particularly censured for
daring to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was
running in his own veins. In a manuscript letter which I have
discovered, Seymour addressed the lords of the privy council. The style
is humble; the plea to excuse his intended marriage is, that being but
"A young brother, and sensible of mine own good, unknown to the world,
of mean estate, not born to challenge anything by my birthright, and
therefore my fortunes to be raised by mine own endeavour, and she a lady
of great honour and virtue, and, as I thought, of great means, I did
plainly and honestly endeavour lawfully to gain her in marriage." There
is nothing romantic in this apology, in which Seymour describes himself
as a fortune-hunter! which, however, was probably done to cover his
undoubted affection for Arabella, whom he had early known. He says, that
"he conceived that this noble lady might, without offence, make the
choice of any subject within this kingdom; which conceit was begotten in
me upon a general report, after her ladyship's _last being called before
your lordships_,[333] that it might be." He tells the story of this
ancient wooing--"I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship's chamber in
the court on Candlemas-day last, at what time I imparted my desire unto
her, which was entertained, but with this caution on either part, that
both of us resolved not to proceed to any final conclusion without his
majesty's most gracious favour first obtained. And this was our first
meeting! After that we had a second meeting at Briggs's house in
Fleet-street, and then a third at Mr. Baynton's; at both which we had
the like conference and resolution as before." He assures their
lordships that both of them had never intended marriage without his
majesty's approbation.[334]
But Love laughs at privy councils and the grave promises made by two
frightened lovers. The parties were secretly married, which was
discovered about July in the following year. They were then separately
confined, the lady at the house of Sir Thomas Parry at Lambeth, and
Seymour in the Tower, for "his contempt in marrying a lady of the royal
family without the king's leave."
This, their first confinement, was not rigorous; the lady walked in her
garden, and the lover was a prisoner at large in the Tower. The writer
in the "Biographia Britannica" observes that "Some intercourse they had
by letters, which, after a time, was discovered." In this history of
love these might be precious documents, and in the library at Long-leat
these love-epistles, or perhaps this volume, may yet lie unread in a
corner.[335] Arabella's epistolary talent was not vulgar: Dr. Montford,
in a manuscript letter, describes one of those effusions which Arabella
addressed to the king. "This letter was penned by her in the best terms,
as she can do right well. It was often read without offence, nay it was
even commended by his highness, with the applause of prince and
council." One of these amatory letters I have recovered. The
circumstance is domestic, being nothing more at first than a very pretty
letter on Mr. Seymour having taken cold, but, as every love-letter
ought, it is not without a pathetic _crescendo_; the tearing away of
hearts so firmly joined, her solitary imprisonment availed little; for
that he lived and was her own, filled her spirit with that consciousness
which triumphed even over that sickly frame so nearly subdued to death.
The familiar style of James the First's age may bear comparison with our
own. I shall give it entire.
"LADY ARABELLA TO MR. WILLIAM SEYMOUR.
"SIR,
"I am exceeding sorry to hear you have not been well. I pray you let me
know truly how you do, and what was the cause of it. I am not satisfied
with the reason Smith gives for it; but if it be a cold, I will impute
it to some sympathy betwixt us, having myself gotten a swollen cheek at
the same time with a cold. For God's sake, let not your grief of mind
work upon your body. You may see by me what inconveniences it will bring
one to; and no fortune, I assure you, daunts me so much as that weakness
of body I find in myself; for _si nous vivons l'age d'un veau_, as Marot
says, we may, by God's grace, be happier than we look for, in being
suffered to enjoy ourself with his majesty's favour. But if we be not
able to live to it, I for my part shall think myself a pattern of
misfortune, in enjoying so great a blessing as you, so little awhile. No
separation but that deprives me of the comfort of you. For wheresoever
you be, or in what state soever you are, it sufficeth me you are mine!
_Rachel wept, and would not be comforted, because her children were no
more._ And that, indeed, is the remediless sorrow, and none else! And
therefore God bless us from that, and I will hope well of the rest,
though I see no apparent hope. But I am sure God's book mentioneth many
of his children in as great distress, that have done well after, even in
this world! I do assure you nothing the state can do with me can trouble
me so much as this news of your being ill doth; and you see when I am
troubled, I trouble you too with tedious kindness; for so I think you
will account so long a letter, yourself not having written to me this
good while so much as how you do. But, sweet sir, I speak not this to
trouble you with writing but when you please. Be well, and I shall
account myself happy in being
"Your faithful loving wife,
"ARB. S."[336]
In examining the manuscripts of this lady, the defect of dates must be
supplied by our sagacity. The following "petition," as she calls it,
addressed to the king in defence of her secret marriage, must have been
written at this time. She remonstrates with the king for what she calls
his neglect of her, and while she fears to be violently separated from
her husband, she asserts her cause with a firm and noble spirit, which
was afterwards too severely tried!
"TO THE KING.
"MAY IT PLEASE YOUR MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY.
"I do most heartily lament my hard fortune that I should offend your
majesty the least, especially in that whereby I have long desired to
merit of your majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my sovereign.
And though your majesty's neglect of me, my good liking of this
gentleman that is my husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract
before I acquainted your majesty, I humbly beseech your majesty to
consider how impossible it was for me to imagine it could be offensive
to your majesty, having _few days before given me your royal consent to
bestow myself on any subject of your majesty's_ (which likewise your
majesty had done long since). Besides, never having been either
prohibited any, or spoken to for any, in this land, by your majesty,
_these seven years_ that I have lived in your majesty's house, I could
not conceive that your majesty regarded my marriage at all; whereas if
your majesty had vouchsafed to tell me your mind, and accept the
free-will offering of my obedience, I would not have offended your
majesty, of whose gracious goodness I presume so much, that _if it were
now as convenient in a worldly respect, as malice make it seem, to
separate us, whom God hath joined_, your majesty would not do evil that
good might come thereof, nor make me, that have the honour to be so near
your majesty in blood, the first precedent that ever was, though our
princes may have left some as little imitable, for so good and gracious
a king as your majesty, as David's dealing with Uriah. But I assure
myself, if it please your majesty in your own wisdom to consider
thoroughly of my cause, there will no solid reason appear to debar me of
justice and your princely favour, which I will endeavour to deserve
whilst I breathe."
It is indorsed, "A copy of my petition to the King's Majesty." In
another she implores that "If the necessity of my state and fortune,
together with my weakness, have caused me to do somewhat not pleasing to
your majesty, let it be all covered with the shadow of your royal
benignity." Again, in another petition, she writes:--
"Touching the offence for which I am now punished, I most humbly beseech
your majesty, in your most princely wisdom and judgment, to consider in
what a miserable state I had been, if I had taken any other course than
I did; for my own conscience witnessing before God that I was then the
wife of him that now I am, I could never have matched any other man, but
to have lived all the days of my life as a harlot, which your majesty
would have abhorred in any, especially in one who hath the honour (how
otherwise unfortunate soever) to have any drop of your majesty's blood
in them."
I find a letter of Lady Jane Drummond, in reply to this or another
petition, which Lady Drummond had given the queen to present to his
majesty. It was to learn the cause of Arabella's confinement. The pithy
expression of James the First is characteristic of the monarch; and the
solemn forebodings of Lady Drummond, who appears to have been a lady of
excellent judgment, showed, by the fate of Arabella, how they were true!
"LADY JANE DRUMMOND TO LADY ARABELLA.
"_Answering her prayer to know the cause of her confinement_.
"This day her majesty hath seen your ladyship's letter. Her majesty
says, that when she gave your ladyship's petition to his majesty, he did
take it well enough, but gave no other answer than that _ye had eaten of
the forbidden tree_. This was all her majesty commanded me to say to
your ladyship in this purpose; but withal did remember her kindly to
your ladyship, and sent you this little token in witness of the
continuance of her majesty's favour to your ladyship. Now, where your
ladyship desires me to deal openly and freely with you, I protest I can
say nothing on knowledge, for I never spoke to any of that purpose but
to the queen; _but the wisdom of this state, with the example how some
of your quality in the like case has been used, makes me fear that ye
shall not find so easy end to your troubles as ye expect or I wish_."
In return, Lady Arabella expresses her grateful thanks--presents her
majesty with "this piece of my work, to accept in remembrance of the
poor prisoner that wrought them, in hopes her royal hands will vouchsafe
to wear them, which till I have the honour to kiss, I shall live in a
great deal of sorrow. Her case," she adds, "could be compared to no
other she ever heard of, resembling no other." Arabella, like the Queen
of Scots, beguiled the hours of imprisonment by works of embroidery; for
in sending a present of this kind to Sir Andrew Sinclair to be presented
to the queen, she thanks him for "vouchsafing to descend to these petty
offices to take care even of these womanish toys, for her whose serious
mind must invent some relaxation."
The secret correspondence of Arabella and Seymour was discovered, and
was followed by a sad scene. It must have been now that the king
resolved to consign this unhappy lady to the stricter care of the Bishop
of Durham. Lady Arabella was so subdued at this distant separation, that
she gave way to all the wildness of despair; she fell suddenly ill, and
could not travel but in a litter, and with a physician. In her way to
Durham, she was so greatly disquieted in the first few miles of her
uneasy and troublesome journey, that they would proceed no further than
Highgate. The physician returned to town to report her state, and
declared that she was assuredly very weak, her pulse dull and
melancholy, and very irregular; her countenance very heavy, pale, and
wan; and though free from fever, he declared her in no case fit for
travel. The king observed, "It is enough to make any sound man sick to
be carried in a bed in that manner she is; much more for her _whose
impatient and unquiet spirit heapeth upon herself far greater
indisposition of body than otherwise she would have_." His resolution,
however, was, that "she should proceed to Durham, if he were king!" "We
answered," replied the Doctor, "that we made no doubt of her
obedience."--"Obedience is that required," replied the king, "which
being performed, I will do more for her than she expected."[337]
The king, however, with his usual indulgence, appears to have consented
that Lady Arabella should remain for a month at Highgate, in
confinement, till she had sufficiently recovered to proceed to Durham,
where the bishop posted, unaccompanied by his charge, to await her
reception, and to the great relief of the friends of the lady, who hoped
she was still within the reach of their cares, or of the royal favour.
A second month's delay was granted, in consequence of that letter which
we have before noticed as so impressive and so elegant, that it was
commended by the king, and applauded by Prince Henry and the council.
But the day of her departure hastened, and the Lady Arabella betrayed no
symptom of her first despair. She openly declared her resignation to her
fate, and showed her obedient willingness, by being even over-careful in
little preparations to make easy a long journey. Such tender grief had
won over the hearts of her keepers, who could not but sympathise with a
princess whose love, holy and wedded too, was crossed only by the
tyranny of statesmen. But Arabella had not within that tranquillity with
which she had lulled her keepers. She and Seymour had concerted a
flight, as bold in its plot, and as beautifully wild, as any recorded in
romantic story. The day preceding her departure, Arabella found it not
difficult to persuade a female attendant to consent that she would
suffer her to pay a last visit to her husband, and to wait for her
return at an appointed hour. More solicitous for the happiness of lovers
than for the repose of kings, this attendant, in utter simplicity, or
with generous sympathy, assisted the Lady Arabella in dressing her in
one of the most elaborate disguisings. "She drew a pair of large
French-fashioned hose or trowsers over her petticoats; put on a man's
doublet or coat; a peruke such as men wore, whose long locks covered her
own ringlets; a black hat, a black coat, russet boots with red tops, and
a rapier by her side. Thus accoutred, the Lady Arabella stole out with a
gentleman about three o'clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a
mile and a half, when they stopped at a poor inn, where one of her
confederates was waiting with horses, yet she was so sick and faint,
that the ostler, who held her stirrup, observed, that "the gentleman
could hardly hold out to London." She recruited her spirits by riding;
the blood mantled in her face; and at six o'clock our sick lover reached
Blackwall, where a boat and servants were waiting. The watermen were at
first ordered to Woolwich; there they were desired to push on to
Gravesend; then to Tilbury, where, complaining of fatigue, they landed
to refresh; but, tempted by their freight, they reached Lee. At the
break of morn, they discovered a French vessel riding there to receive
the lady; but as Seymour had not yet arrived, Arabella was desirous to
lie at anchor for her lord, conscious that he would not fail to his
appointment. If he indeed had been prevented in his escape, she herself
cared not to preserve the freedom she now possessed; but her attendants,
aware of the danger of being overtaken by a king's ship, overruled her
wishes, and hoisted sail, which occasioned so fatal a termination to
this romantic adventure. Seymour indeed had escaped from the Tower; he
had left his servant watching at the door, to warn all visitors not to
disturb his master, who lay ill of a raging toothache, while Seymour in
disguise stole away alone, following a cart which had brought wood to
his apartment. He passed the warders; he reached the wharf, and found
his confidential man waiting with a boat; and he arrived at Lee. The
time pressed; the waves were rising; Arabella was not there; but in the
distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board,
to his grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not the French
vessel charged with his Arabella. In despair and confusion, he found
another ship from Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course,
and landed him in Flanders. In the meanwhile, the escape of Arabella was
first known to government; and the hot alarm which spread may seem
ludicrous to us. The political consequences attached to the union and
the flight of these two doves from their cotes, shook with consternation
the grey owls of the cabinet, more particularly the Scotch party, who,
in their terror, paralleled it with the gunpowder treason; and some
political danger must have impended, at least in their imagination, for
Prince Henry partook of this cabinet panic.
Confusion and alarm prevailed at court; couriers were despatched swifter
than the winds wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in the
seaports. They sent to the Tower to warn the lieutenant to be doubly
vigilant over Seymour, who, to his surprise, discovered that his
prisoner had ceased to be so for several hours. James at first was for
issuing a proclamation in a style so angry and vindictive, that it
required the moderation of Cecil to preserve the dignity while he
concealed the terror of his majesty. By the admiral's detail of his
impetuous movements, he seemed in pursuit of an enemy's fleet; for the
courier is urged, and the post-masters are roused by a superscription,
which warned them of the eventful despatch: "Haste, haste, post haste!
Haste for your life, your life!"[338] The family of the Seymours were in
a state of distraction; and a letter from Mr. Francis Seymour to his
grandfather, the Earl of Hertford, residing then at his seat far remote
from the capital, to acquaint him of the escape of his brother and the
lady, still bears to posterity a remarkable evidence of the trepidation
and consternation of the old earl; it arrived in the middle of the
night, accompanied by a summons to attend the privy council. In the
perusal of a letter written in a small hand, and filling more than two
folio pages, such was his agitation, that in holding the taper he must
have burnt what he probably had not read; the letter is scorched, and
the flame has perforated it in so critical a part, that the poor old
earl journeyed to town in a state of uncertainty and confusion. Nor was
his terror so unreasonable as it seems. Treason had been a political
calamity with the Seymours. Their progenitor, the Duke of Somerset the
Protector, had found that "all his honours," as Frankland strangely
expresses it, "had helped him too forwards to hop headless." Henry,
Elizabeth, and James, says the same writer, considered that it was
needful, as indeed in all sovereignties, that those who were nearest the
crown "should be narrowly looked into for marriage."
But we have left the Lady Arabella alone and mournful on the seas, not
praying for favourable gales to convey her away, but still imploring her
attendants to linger for her Seymour; still straining her sight to the
point of the horizon for some speck which might give a hope of the
approach of the boat freighted with all her love. Alas! never more was
Arabella to cast a single look on her lover and her husband! She was
overtaken by a pink in the king's service, in Calais roads and now she
declared that she cared not to be brought back again to her imprisonment
should Seymour escape, whose safety was dearest to her!
The life of the unhappy, the melancholy, and the distracted Arabella
Stuart is now to close in an imprisonment, which lasted only four years;
for her constitutional delicacy, her rooted sorrow, and the violence of
her feelings, sunk beneath the hopelessness of her situation, and a
secret resolution in her mind to refuse the aid of her physicians, and
to wear away the faster if she could, the feeble remains of life. But
who shall paint the emotions of a mind which so much grief, and so much
love, and distraction itself, equally possessed!
What passed in that dreadful imprisonment cannot perhaps be recovered
for authentic history; but enough is known; that her mind grew impaired,
that she finally lost her reason, and if the duration of her
imprisonment was short, it was only terminated by her death.[339] Some
loose effusions, often begun and never ended, written and erased,
incoherent and rational, yet remain in the fragments of her papers. In a
letter she proposed addressing to Viscount Fenton, to implore for her
his majesty's favour again, she says, "Good my lord, consider the fault
cannot be uncommitted; neither can any more be required of any earthly
creature but confession and most humble submission." In a paragraph she
had written, but crossed out, it seems that a present of her work had
been refused by the king, and that she had no one about her whom she
might trust.
"Help will come too late; and be assured that _neither physician nor
other, but whom I think good, shall come about me while I live_, till I
have his majesty's favour, without which I desire not to live. And _if
you remember of old, I dare die_, so I be not guilty of my own death,
and oppress others with my ruin too, if _there be no other way_, as God
forbid, to whom I commit you; and rest as assuredly as heretofore, if
you be the same to me,
"Your lordship's faithful friend, "A.S."
That she had frequently meditated on suicide appears by another
letter--"I could not be so unchristian as to be the cause of my own
death. Consider what the world would conceive if I should be violently
enforced to do it."
One fragment we may save as an evidence of her utter wretchedness.
"In all humility, the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever
lived, prostrates itselfe at the feet of the most merciful king that
ever was, desiring nothing but mercy and favour, not being more
afflicted for anything than for the losse of that which hath binne this
long time the onely comfort it had in the world, and which, if it weare
to do again, I would not adventure the losse of for any other worldly
comfort; mercy it is I desire, and that for God's sake!"
Such is the history of the Lady Arabella, who, from some circumstances
not sufficiently opened to us, was an important personage, designed by
others, at least, to play a high character in the political drama.
Thrice selected as a queen; but the consciousness of royalty was only
felt in her veins while she lived in the poverty of dependence. Many
gallant spirits aspired after her hand, but when her heart secretly
selected one beloved, it was for ever deprived of domestic happiness!
She is said not to have been beautiful, and to have been beautiful; and
her very portrait, ambiguous as her life, is neither the one nor the
other. She is said to have been a poetess, but not a single verse
substantiates her claim to the laurel. She is said not to have been
remarkable for her intellectual accomplishments, yet I have found a
Latin letter of her composition in her manuscripts. The materials of her
life are so scanty that it cannot be written, and yet we have sufficient
reason to believe that it would be as pathetic as it would be
extraordinary, could we narrate its involved incidents, and paint forth
her delirious feelings. Acquainted rather with her conduct than with her
character, for us the Lady ARABELLA has no palpable historical
existence; and we perceive rather her shadow than herself! A writer of
romance might render her one of those interesting personages whose
griefs have been deepened by their royalty, and whose adventures,
touched with the warm hues of love and distraction, closed at the bars
of her prison gate: a sad example of a female victim to the state!
Through one dim lattice, fring'd with ivy round,
Successive suns a languid radiance threw,
To paint how fierce her angry guardian frown'd,
To mark how fast her waning beauty flew!
SEYMOUR, who was afterwards permitted to return, distinguished himself
by his loyalty through three successive reigns, and retained his
romantic passion for the lady of his first affections; for he called the
daughter he had by his second lady by the ever-beloved name of ARABELLA
STUART.