Lady Arbella Stuart

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Lady Arbella Stuart bigraphy, stories - British noble

Lady Arbella Stuart : biography

1575 – 27 September 1615

Lady Arbella Stuart (or "Arabella" and/or "Stewart") (1575 – 25 September 1615) was a noblewoman who was for some time considered a possible successor to Queen Elizabeth I of England.

Born in England, Arbella Stuart was the only child of Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox, (of the third creation), and Elizabeth Cavendish. She was a grandchild of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox, (of the second creation), and Lady Margaret Douglas, who was, in turn, the daughter of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus and Princess Margaret Tudor. Arbella was therefore a great great granddaughter of Henry VII of England and in line to the English throne – something to which she did not herself aspire.Rosalind K. Marshall, ‘Stuart , Lady Arabella (1575–1615)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

Her paternal grandparents, the 4th Earl of Lennox and Margaret Douglas, had two sons: Arbella’s father Charles and his older brother, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who became the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the father of Arbella’s cousin James VI and I of Scotland, England and Ireland. Her maternal grandparents were Sir William Cavendish and Elizabeth Talbot, Countess of Shrewsbury, nowadays better known as "Bess of Hardwick".

In her final days, as a prisoner in the Tower of London, Lady Beauchamp (her married name), refusing to eat, fell ill, and died on 25 September 1615. She was buried in Westminster Abbey on 29 September 1615. In the 19th century, during a search for the tomb of James I, Arbella’s lead coffin was found in the vault of Mary, Queen of Scots, placed directly on top of that of the Scots queen.

Notes

Marriage to William Seymour

William Seymour The 2nd Duke of Somerset. In 1610, Arabella, who was fourth in line to the English throne, was in trouble again for planning to marry William Seymour, then known as Lord Beauchamp, who later succeeded as 2nd Duke of Somerset. William Seymour was sixth-in-line, grandson of Lady Catherine Grey, a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey and a granddaughter of Mary Tudor, younger sister of King Henry VIII and Arbella’s ancestor, Margaret Tudor.

Although the couple at first denied that any arrangement existed between them, they later married in secret on 22 June 1610 at Greenwich Palace. For marrying without his permission, King James imprisoned them: Arbella in Sir Thomas Perry’s house in Lambeth and Seymour in the Tower of London. The couple had some liberty within those buildings, and some of Arbella’s letters to Seymour and to the King during this period survive. When the King learned of her letters to Seymour, however, he ordered Arbella’s transfer to the custody of William James, Bishop of Durham. Arbella claimed to be ill, so her departure for Durham was delayed.

The couple used that delay to plan their escape. Arbella dressed as a man and escaped to Lee (in Kent), but Seymour did not meet her there before their getaway ship was to sail for France. Sara Jayne Steen records that Imogen, the virtuous, cross-dressed heroine of William Shakespeare’s play Cymbeline (1610–1611) has sometimes been read as a reference to Arbella.Steen, 96

Seymour did escape from the Tower, but by the time he reached Lee, Arbella was gone, so he caught the next ship to Flanders. Arbella’s ship was overtaken by King James’s men just before it reached Calais, France. She was returned to England and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She never saw her husband again and died in the Tower on 25 September 1615 from illnesses exacerbated by her refusal to eat.

Childhood

Arbella Stuart as a child Arabella’s father died in 1576 when she was still an infant. She was raised by her mother Elizabeth Cavendish until 1582.Antonia Fraser, Mary, Queen of Scots, p. 535 The death of her mother left seven-year-old Arbella an orphan, whereupon she became the ward of her grandmother Bess, rather than Lord Burghley the Master of the Court of Wards, as might have been expected.Sarah Gristwood, Arbella: England’s Lost Queen, Bantam, 2003, p.49