The circumstances of the life of this accomplished and persecuted lady,
“From kings descended, and to kings allied,”
are familiar to every reader of biographical history. In Lodge’s
Illustrations of British History are some letters which convey an exalted
idea of her mental abilities; and the editor has proved, in opposition to
the assertion of the authors of the Biographia Britannica, that she was
far from deficient in personal beauty.
She was the only child of Charles Stuart, fifth earl of Lennox, (uncle to
James the First, and great-grandson to Henry VII.) by Elizabeth, daughter
of sir William Cavendish, of Hardwick; was born about the year 1578, and
brought up in privacy under the care of her grandmother, the old countess
of Lennox, who had for many years resided in England. Her double
relation to royalty was equally obnoxious to the jealousy of Elizabeth
and the timidity of James, and they secretly dreaded the supposed danger
of her leaving a legitimate offspring. The former, therefore, prevented
her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir to the titles and
estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her for listening to
some overtures from the son of the earl of Northumberland: the latter,
by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of marriage, unwarily
encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders. Thus circumscribed, she
renewed a childish connection with William Seymour, grandson to the
earl of Hertford, which was discovered in 1609; when both parties were
summoned to appear before the privy council, and received a severe
reprimand. This mode of proceeding produced the very consequence which
James meant to avoid; for the lady, sensible that her reputation had
been wounded by this inquiry, was in a manner forced into a marriage;
which becoming publicly known in the course of the next spring, she was
committed to close custody in the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth,
and Mr. Seymour to the Tower. In this state of separation, however, they
concerted means for an escape, which both effected on the same day, June
3, 1611; and Mr. Seymour got safely to Flanders: but the poor lady was
re-taken in Calais road, and imprisoned in the Tower; where the sense of
these undeserved oppressions operating too severely on her high spirit,
she became a lunatic, and languished in that wretched state, augmented by
the horrors of a prison, till her death on the 27th Sept. 1615.[55]