LADY ARABELLA STUART.
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]
ON
THE LADY ARABELLA.
How do I thanke thee, Death, and blesse thy power
That I have past the guard, and scaped the Tower!
And now my pardon is my epitaph,
And a small coffin my poore carkasse hath.
For at thy charge both soule and body were
Enlarged at last, secured from hope and feare;
That among saints, this amongst kings is laid,
And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.
UPON
MISTRIS MALLET[56],
AN
UNHANDSOME GENTLEWOMAN,
WHO MADE LOVE UNTO HIM.
Have I renounc’t my faith, or basely sold
Salvation, and my loyalty, for gold?
Have I some forreigne practice undertooke
By poyson, shott, sharp-knife, or sharper booke
To kill my king? have I betrayd the state
To fire and fury, or some newer fate,
Which learned murderers, those grand destinies,
The Jesuites, have nurc’d? if of all these
I guilty am, proceed; I am content
That Mallet take mee for my punishment.
For never sinne was of so high a rate,
But one nights hell with her might expiate.
Although the law with Garnet[57], and the rest,
Dealt farr more mildly; hanging’s but a jest
To this immortall torture. Had shee bin then
In Maryes torrid dayes engend’red, when
Cruelty was witty, and Invention free
Did live by blood, and thrive by crueltye,
Shee would have bin more horrid engines farre
Than fire, or famine, racks, and halters are.
Whether her witt, forme, talke, smile, tire I name,
Each is a stock of tyranny, and shame;
But for her breath, spectatours come not nigh,
That layes about; God blesse the company!
The man, in a beares skin baited to death,
Would chose the doggs much rather then her breath;
One kisse of hers, and eighteene wordes alone
Put downe the Spanish Inquisition.
Thrice happy wee (quoth I thinking thereon)
That see no dayes of persecution;
For were it free to kill, this grisly elfe
Wold martyrs make in compass of herselfe:
And were shee not prevented by our prayer,
By this time shee corrupted had the aire.
And am I innocent? and is it true,
That thing (which poet Plinye never knew,
Nor Africk, Nile, nor ever Hackluyts eyes
Descry’d in all his East, West-voyages;
That thing, which poets were afrayd to feigne,
For feare her shadowe should infect their braine;
This spouse of Antichrist, and his alone,
Shee’s drest so like the Whore of Babylon;)
Should doate on mee? as if they did contrive
The devill and she, to damne a man alive.
Why doth not Welcome rather purchase her,
And beare about this rare familiar?
Sixe markett dayes, a wake, and a fayre too ’t,
Would save his charges, and the ale to boot.
No tyger’s like her; shee feedes upon a man
Worse than a tygresse or a leopard can.
Let mee go pray, and thinke upon some spell,
At once to bid the devill and her farwell.