Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/803

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OF CELEBRATED WOMEN.
789

and was buried in St. Edmond's chapel, in Westminster, with great solemnity.

Female Worthies.


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

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