So stately by old Thames’s side,
Fair Arabella, child of woe,
For many a day had sat and sighed.
And as she heard the waves arise,
And as she heard the black wind roar,
As fast did heave her heartfelt sighs,
And still so fast her tears did pour.”
William Seymour survived Arabella for nearly half-a-century; he married again, his second wife being a sister of the Parliamentary general, the Earl of Essex, the son of Elizabeth’s favourite and victim. In 1660 Seymour became Duke of Somerset, and lived just long enough to welcome Charles II. He had shown far more loyalty to Charles I. than he had done to poor Arabella Stuart.
In 1613, Sir William Waad, to the great delight of Raleigh, as well as of the other prisoners in the Tower, vacated his post as Lieutenant. He had been charged with the theft of the unfortunate Arabella’s jewels, but his dismissal was also connected with a still more tragic story—the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury—a murder which throws a very lurid light upon the doings of James the First’s court and courtiers. Two years before Arabella’s death, the Tower had been the scene of a most foul murder. Scandalous as was the court of James, murder had not yet been associated with it, but in the year 1613 the fate of Sir Thomas Overbury added that dark crime to its other villainies.
