A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Seymour, (Arabella)
SEYMOUR (ARABELLA), born about 1577,
Daughter of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lenox, youngest brother of Lord Darnley, who died in the 29th year of his age, leaving this only child, of whose education a more than ordinary care was taken, and not in vain; for we are told she had a great facility in poetical compositions, and that her papers are still preserved in the Harleian and Longleat libraries.
Her affinity to the crown occasioned her many troubles, and was the cause of her almost perpetual confinement. It appears, that she was under a kind of durance in the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign. But be this as it may, it is certain that many were forming accusations against her, of which she greatly complained in her letters to her friends.
About this time the pope had a design to raise Arabella to the throne of England, by marrying her to cardinal Farnese, brother to the duke of Parma. King Henry IV. of France seemed to favour this project, from an apprehension that England would become too powerful, if it was united with Scotland.
Soon after the accession of King James to the crown of England, some English lords projected a scheme to make Arabella Queen of England. But this conspiracy being detected, some were capitally punished, and the rest obtained the king's pardon.
These transactions seemed to have occasioned her confinement in her own house, and to have impaired both her fortune and health.
It is observed, in a letter from Mr. Chamberlain to Sir Ralph Winwood in 1609, that the Lady Arabella's business (whatever it was) is ended, and she restored to her former place and grace. The King gave her a cupboard of plate, better than 200 l. for a new-year's gift; and a thousand marks to pay her debts, besides some yearly addition to her maintenance; want being thought the chiefest cause of her discontent.
Soon after this, she was privately married to Mr. William Seymour, second son to the Earl of Hertford, who was afterwards Earl of Hertford, and at length restored to the dukedom of Somerset. Their marriage being soon divulged, they were both committed prisoners to the Tower.
After an imprisonment of about a year, though under the care of different keepers, they both made their escape at the same time: at the news of which the court was terribly alarmed, and a proclamation immediately issued for their apprehension.
She went off in man's apparel, and had arrived at a French bark that waited for her and her husband, who by some mistake did not meet her; and a pinnace which was sent after them overtook and made her little vessel strike. She was then taken with her followers, and brought back to the Tower; not so sorry for her own restraint, as glad that Mr. Seymour had escaped as she hoped.
This unfortunate lady being from this time under close confinement in the Tower, spent the remaining part of her life in a melancholy retirement, which deprived her of reason. When she had been a prisoner four years, she was happily released from all her sorrows by death (not without suspicion of poison) 1615, and interred in the vault with Mary, Queen of Scots, in King Henry VIIth's chapel, without any monumental inscription.