Arbella
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193 She described how: Lefuse 97. Bradley (i 166–7) gives Strickland as the original authority.
194 ‘Lady Arbella has been released’: CSP Ven x 18.
195 ‘There is a foolish rhyme’: Manningham 235.
196 ‘to free our cousin’: Hatfield xv 65.
197 Arbella had by this time: It has also been suggested (leaving aside the Venetian’s report that Arbella had been sent to a palace where Elizabeth had been imprisoned) that Arbella was initially sent to Sheriff Hutton: Cooper i 248.
198 ‘The Lady Arbella Stuart, being of the royal blood’: BL Sloane MS 718 f. 39; cited in Steen Letters 43, Lefuse 88, Cooper i 256. The original source is usually described as being an old servant of Lord Burghley’s; Scaramelli (CSP Ven x 10) also reports the suggestion (he says, James’s suggestion) that Arbella should attend the funeral, though not her refusal.
199 ‘the duty of every good Catholic’: CSP Ven x 48.
200 ‘We have been informed’: Hatfield xv 65.
201 ‘Lady Arbella, who is a regular termagent’: CSP Ven x 42. (Art. X 492 says ‘virago’.)
202 ‘from wherein she came’ and ‘to deal tenderly’: Cooper i 263.
203 ‘to remember the king’s Majesty of my maintenance’: all five letters transcribed in Steen Letters 176–9.
204 James’s very coronation: the ceremony is described by Nichols in his Progresses … of King James I 229–34.
205 ‘in her appointments’: CSP Ven x 82.
206 ‘though it bend directly northward’: Talbot ii ff. 188–9.
207 ‘Most of the conspirators’: CSP Ven x 70.
208 ‘a pair of virginals’: Arundel Castle MSS Autograph Letters 1585–1617 no. 167, transcribed in Steen Letters 230–2.
209 ‘embroiderers, jewellers, tire-women’: Ben Jonson Epicoene III i.
210 ‘some company come to fetch me’: Talbot ii ff. 194–5.
211 ‘never intermitted attendance’: Talbot ii ff. 257–8.
212 ‘merry at the Dutchkin’: Lambeth Palace Library MS 3201 ff. 124–5, transcribed in Steen Letters 182–3.
213 ‘I … interpret your postscript’: Talbot ii ff. 192–3.
214 ‘the danger of missuperscribing letters’: Talbot ii f. 224.
215 ‘I beseech you’: Talbot ii ff. 212–13.
216 ‘long expected trusty messenger’: Talbot ii ff. 198–9.
217 ‘my bad eyes’: Talbot ii ff. 196–7.
218 ‘my eyes are extremely swollen’: Talbot ii ff. 200–1.
219 On 17 November: The trial of Sir Walter Ralegh (with, to a lesser degree, his fellow accused) is widely reported: for example, in Birch i 10–32, who prints descriptive letters from Cecil and Carleton. Cobbett ii 1–70 gives an extensive rendition of speeches, with correspondence. Hele’s dismissal of Arbella is on 5, Coke’s description of her as ‘a stale’ on 8, the interjections of Nottingham and Cecil on 23.
220 The Venetians stated flatly: CSP Ven x 117.
221 ‘The most comprehensive manuscript’: Mark Nicholls, ‘Sir Walter Ralegh’s Treason’, English Historical Review 110, Sept. 1995. The evidence concerning Arbella appears on p. 910. See also Nicholls, ‘Two Winchester Trials: Lord Cobham and Lord Grey, 1603’, Historical Research 68, Feb. 1995, and ‘Treason’s Reward: The Punishment of Conspirators in the Bye Plot of 1603’, Historical Journal 38,1995. I am grateful to Pauline Croft for bringing these articles to my attention.
222 ‘Frances Kirton’: It was an Edward Kirton (or Kyrton) who in 1610 assisted Arbella’s escape – and Kyrton or Kirton was the name of the lawyer, employed by the earl of Hertford, who was instrumental in the 1590s proposal for a marriage between Arbella and one of the Seymour family. Arbella (Hatfield xii 584) states that he was also married to a stepdaughter of Bess’s.
223 ‘For the Lady Arbella’: Birch i 18.
224 ‘I humbly thank you’: Talbot ii ff. 210–11.
225 ‘although now proved innocent’: CSP Ven x 117.
226 ‘extreme pain of my head’: Talbot ii ff. 202–3.
227 ‘extreme cold’: Talbot ii ff. 204–5.
228 ‘When any great matter’: Talbot ii ff. 206–7.
229 Her letter to Gilbert: Talbot ii ff. 208–9.
230 ‘I have reserved the best news’: Talbot ii ff. 210–11.
231 ‘confusion of imbassages’: Talbot ii ff. 208–9.
232 ‘was required to put his gift’: Glashen 53.
233 ‘a trifle’: Talbot ii ff. 218–19.
234 ‘the queen regarded not the value’: Talbot ii ff. 206–7.
235 ‘will come very unseasonably’: Talbot ii ff. 208–9.
236 ‘a large essay’: Talbot ii ff. 214–15.
237 ‘Your venison’: Talbot ii ff. 210–11.
238 ‘the sharpest salad’: Talbot ii f. 254.
239 The King’s Men: It is also possible that Arbella saw As You Like It earlier in December, and that it was to this performance that she made slighting reference in a letter to Mary Talbot (Talbot ii ff. 208–9): ‘There was an interlude but not so ridiculous (as ridiculous it was) as my letter.’ Handover (212) suggests that in her years at court Arbella came to share the puritan disapproval of all plays.
240 ‘The queen intendeth’: Talbot ii ff. 210–11.
241 the Vision of the Twelve Goddesses: Information on, and interpretation of, the significance of the masques is from Barroll.
242 ‘First came the messengers’: Nichols, Progresses … of King James I i 324–423. The Venetian Molin noted Arbella’s presence: CSP Ven x 139.
243 ‘if ever there were such a virtue’: Lambeth Palace Library MS 3201 ff.124–5, transcribed in Steen Letters 182.
244 ‘there were certain child’s plays’: Talbot ii ff. 208–9.
245 ‘Our great and gracious ladies’: Talbot ii ff. 190–1.
246 ‘I daily see’: Talbot ii ff. 208–9.
247 ‘I must a little touch’: Lodge iii 227–8; quoted in Handover Arbella Stuart 198, Bradley i 209.
248 ‘I dare not write’: Talbot ii ff. 210–11.
249 ‘a prince’s court’: John Webster The Duchess of Malfi I i.
250 ‘I wish I waited now’: Starkey ed. The English Court 196.
251 ‘After I had once carved’: Talbot ii ff. 232–3.
252 Several books were dedicated: Steen Letters 56.
253 ‘because I know my uncle’: Talbot ii ff. 222–3.
254 ‘I observed’: Cooper ii 23–9, Hardy 176–8.
255 ‘although her virtue’: Cooper i 281.
256 ‘I assure myself’: Talbot ii ff. 228–9.
257 ‘These people’: Talbot ii ff. 232–3.
258 Nevertheless, when she was stricken with the measles: Norrington (87, 94–5) suggests that on this occasion (as when she was later described as having smallpox) Arbella may instead have been exhibiting the rash of variegate porphyria, but Gilbert’s reference – in the letter where he informs Cecil of Arbella’s recovery – to that of all the other ‘fair ladies’ (Handover Arbella Stuart 211) would surely seem to suggest the presence of an infectious disease.
259 ‘I neither think’: Talbot ii ff. 190–1.
260 ‘I shall as willingly play the fool’: Talbot ii ff. 232–3.
261 ‘I make it my end’: Arundel Castle MSS Autograph Letters 1585–1617 no. 167, transcribed in Steen Letters 230–2.
262 ‘You know I have cause’: Talbot ii ff. 222–3.
263 ‘had desired so earnestly’: Rawson 343.
264 ‘Mr Ca[ve]ndish is at London’: Lefuse 178.
265 ‘you may soon be dispatched’: Talbot ii ff. 222–3.
266 ‘The Lady Arbella spends her time’: Batho M 260; see also Batho K 121 (incorporating 120), 124, 163. Fowler wrote of Arbella as the eighth wonder of the world and the ‘phoenix of her sex’ – ‘more fairer than fair, more beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself’ – and sent to Gilbert some verses in her honour, quoted in Hardy 166, Lefuse 117, Bradley 175–6:
/> Thou godly nymph, possest with heavenly fear,
Divine in soul, devout in life and grave,
Rapt from thy sense and sex, thy spirits doth steer
Toys to avoid which reason doth bereave.
267 ‘A great ambassador’: Talbot ii f. 224.
268 ‘being conducted to his lodgings’: Lefuse 184.
269 ‘late high favour and grace’: BL Harl. MS 6986 ff. 71–2.
270 Henry, while always on good terms: My picture of Henry and his circle was informed by Roy Strong’s biography Henry, Prince of Wales. An instance of the ‘received impression’ of his affection for Arbella is Hardy 193.
271 Indeed, had it succeeded: the suggestion was made by Pauline Croft in a website set up to support Channel Four’s programme on the Gunpowder Plot in the ‘Plague, Fire, War and Treason’ series, November 2001.
272 ‘The nearest relative’: CSP Ven x 514.
273 ‘such fees as may arise’: Cecil Papers 134 f. 94.
274 ‘for that I thought’: Ibid.
275 ‘Their thirty-pound butter’d eggs’: Stone Crisis 559.
276 ‘Ladies abandon’: Harington Nugae Antiquae ii 126.
277 ‘one lady and that under a baroness’: Chamberlain i 252–3.
278 ‘even greater mounds of my debtors’: translated from the Latin original and transcribed in Steen Letters 223–4.
279 ‘The Danish king, it was said’: Hardy 197 supplies this possibly rather bowdlerized version of the incident.
280 ‘I shall think that breath’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 42.
281 ‘by the patronage’: Ibid. f. 48.
282 ‘although I know’: Ibid. f. 37 (Latin version); f. 38 is translator’s copy.
283 ‘the Thames is quite frozen’: Chamberlain i 253.
284 ‘my lady Arbella is gone towards you’: Batho L 141.
285 The months ahead: For Bess’s will, see Durant Arbella Stuart 161 (also 165 for more on Arbella’s finances).
286 She was popularly supposed: Lefuse 198, Batho L 155.
287 She petitioned James: CSP Dom lxi Feb; also Lefuse 208, Bradley i 229 (for her grant of the impost on oats, see Batho L 158).
288 ‘To remember to be ready’: Jardine and Stewart 300.
289 ‘the muttering of a bill’: Chamberlain i 266–7.
290 ‘I have found by experience’: Talbot ii f. 254.
291 ‘For want of a nunnery’: Ibid.
292 There is a lovely description: Erondell 86–104.
293 ‘London has got a great way’: Wilson Society Women 209
294 ‘My lady Skinner’: Hardy 215.
295 ‘my Lady Arbella will be at Sheffield’: Lefuse 212, Cooper ii 89.
296 Arbella’s steward: Crompton’s detailed account of expenses is quoted in full in Bradley ii 227–37; see also Hardy 218: The original document is at Longleat.
297 ‘I would be glad to know’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 55.
298 ‘Some friends of mine’: SP Dom James 50 f. 136, transcribed in Steen Letters 233.
299 ‘promised when he ascended’: CSP Ven x 514.
300 ‘I can learn no more’: Chamberlain i 292.
301 ‘His Majesty had a hint’: CSP Ven xi 405. (Art. X. 497 says Arbella was trying ‘to escape over sea in company of a certain Scotchman called Douglas, with intent to marry abroad’ – i.e. not to marry Douglas, necessarily.)
302 ‘Lady Arbella’s troubles’: CSP Ven xi 414.
303 ‘In reply to a question on religion’: Ibid.
304 ‘neither affirm nor deny’: CSP Ven xi 410.
305 ‘is seldom seen’: CSP Ven xi 427.
306 The unnamed play: Steen Letters 62n. For discussion see Handover 261.
307 ‘much suspicion about’: CSP Ven xi 433–4.
Part V
The documents which deal with Arbella’s imprisonment at Lambeth and abortive journey towards the north – including her own letters and petitions – are concentrated in the British Library (Harl. MS 7003). The Acts of the Privy Council for 1611 (38–44) provide a kind of diary of the week of her escape, with Winwood’s Memorials also providing much useful material. Many of these documents have been widely reproduced in earlier biographies but Maria Theresa Lewis, looking at that time from the perspective of William, rather than of Arbella, offers a rather different selection, and the report of the Venetian envoy provides a refreshing alternative to the much-quoted tale told by Sir John More. The chief difficulty here, however, is in marrying up the different accounts.
Things are very different when Arbella reaches the Tower. It proved surprisingly difficult to build up a picture of Arbella’s life in the Tower – and only partly becase of the destruction of important records. To get a feel for her daily life, one may turn to the biographies of other prisoners; but the attempts of writers before Durant to reconstruct her own experience are damaged by the assumption that she was held predominantly in the Bell Tower, which now seems unlikely to have been the case. It was Anna Keay, then a curator at the Tower, who suggested searching the exchequer records in the Public Record Office for evidence of Arbella’s location, and she who first confirmed that the document found there (combined with other evidence, available only in recent years) placed Arbella rather in the old royal palace. Sara Jayne Steen, in her introduction to the Letters (98–100) and in her subsequent essay for Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, ‘“How Subject to Interpretation”: Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness’, first publicized the documents (most notably BL Add. MS 63543 ff. 1–25) I cite see here.
308 In 1606, a request made by the painter William Larkin: Strong William Larkin 21.
309 ‘The Lady Arbella who’: Winwood iii 119.
310 ‘Why might I not marry?’: Ibid. III ii.
311 William Seymour: sources for Seymour’s later life and character are more fully discussed under the Epilogue below.
312 in his early twenties: The year of William’s birth is a matter of dispute. Both Burke’s Peerage and the Dictionary of National Biography give it as 1588. The only precise evidence, however, comes from a document relating to the inheritance of his grandfather’s titles and property. This states that when his grandfather died on 6 April 1621 William was ‘aged 33 years, 7 months and 5 days’ – and marks the year of his birth as 1587: Wilts. Inq. p.m., Charles I, Brit. Rec. Soc., see here, quoted in G. E. C., The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant, 13 vols (St Catherine’s Press, 1910–40), vol. 12, part 1. see here.
313 ‘Love maketh no miracles’: Lambeth Palace Library MS 3201 ff. 124–5; Steen Letters 182–4.
314 ‘The misery of us’: The Duchess of Malfi I ii.
315 ‘myself being a younger brother’: Lewis Lives ii 290–2, Lefuse 221–3, Hardy 232–3, Cooper ii 104–6.
316 ‘I boldly intruded’: Lewis Lives ii 290–2, Lefuse 221–3, Hardy 232–3, Cooper ii 104–6.
317 ‘given me your royal consent’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 82.
318 ‘there is neither promise’: Lewis Lives ii 290–2, Lefuse 221–3, Hardy 232–3, Cooper ii 104–6.
319 ‘denying her guilt’: CSP Ven xi 439. Art. X 500 says rather that Arbella was forced to return William’s rings.
320 ‘should confess directly’: CSP Ven xi 439.
321 ‘hath seriously considered’: Seymour Papers (at Longleat) 6 ff. 1–3, transcribed in Steen Letters 290–1. Bradley i 247, Hardy 235.
322 Arbella got the price: on her rights to sell wine, see Cooper ii 107, Hardy 236.
323 ‘he never spake’: Lewis ii 295, Hardy 238.
324 ‘composed of shells’: Cooper ii 111, Hardy 240–1.
325 ‘did sit up in the Lady Arbella her chamber’: Hardy 241–2, Lefuse 229. The Mrs Biron mentioned here may well be Arbella’s devoted waiting gentlewoman Margaret Byron.
326 ‘a contract in a chamber’: The Duchess of Malfi I ii.
327 The Lawe’s Resolution of Womens Rights: Picard, Restorati
on London 224–31.
328 ‘so much the goods’: Somerset Unnatural Murder 9.
329 ‘in time to bring me’: Lewis Lives ii 285–6, Ashdown 189.
330 Antonia Fraser has noted: in The Gunpowder Plot 28.
331 ‘Alas: your shears’: The Duchess of Malfi III ii.
332 ‘the lady’s hot blood’: Birch i 124.
333 ‘before she is too old to bear him children’: CSP Ven xii 49.
334 ‘A law forbidding’: CSP Ven xii 19.
335 ‘a capital messuage’: Cooper ii 111–12.
336 ‘one or two of her women’: Ibid. 112, Bradley ii 241.
337 ‘minded nothing but her lady’: Lucy Hutchinson, Memoirs of the Life of Colonel Hutchinson Written by his Widow Lucy (George Bell & Sons, 1905) 44, quoted in Hardy 257.
338 ‘There are divers’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 71.
339 But her next letter: Ibid. f. 74.
340 Another letter that summer: Ibid. f. 92.
341 ‘If Crompton should die’: Cooper ii 113.
342 ‘Restraint of liberty’: Three drafts in BL Harl. MS 7003 ff. 90, 91. For comparison of the versions, see Steen Letters 239–41.
343 ‘declared that he did not blush’: CSP Ven xii 49.
344 ‘distempered’: The inquiry into the rumours of Arbella’s pregnancy can be found in Acts 1616–17 133–5 for the answers of Mrs Bradshaw, William, Dr Moundford and the attendants; 183–4 for Mary Talbot. See also PRO SP 14/97 item 126, ff. 290–292. Steen, in her article in Early Modern Women’s Letter Writing, ‘“How Subject to Interpretation”: Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness’, suggests (with reference to Macalpine) that such swelling could also be symptomatic of porphyria.
345 ‘when [the queen] gave’: BL Harl. MS 7003, ff. 64–5.
346 ‘I cannot rest satisfied’: Ibid. f. 70.