The Frenchman stood thirteen shots before he surrendered, and then Arabella, anxious to avoid bloodshed, came on deck, discovered herself to the captain, and acknowledged there was no use in further resistance. The crew of the boat boarded the French ship, and arrested Arabella, at the same time demanding her husband. She made them a brave and noble answer, saying she had not seen him; she hoped and believed he was safe, and the joy she experienced at his escape far outweighed the sorrow she felt at her own capture.
She was then taken as a close prisoner on board ‘The Adventure,’ with all the rest of the passengers. The King, overjoyed at the news, lost no time; Arabella and her aunt and confidante, Lady Shrewsbury, were sent to the Tower, with several of their adherents, and others, lodged in different prisons—her faithful Crompton, Markham, the minister’s wife, Sir James Crofts, and no end of arrests.
Lord Shrewsbury was kept a prisoner in his house, and the aged Earl of Hertford summoned to London, to Court. ‘If he be found healthful enough to travel, he must not delay.’
The two ladies were examined before the Privy Council, and we are told that Arabella answered the Lords ‘with good judgment and discretion,’ while the Countess is said ‘to be utterly without reason, crying out that all is but tricks and giggs, that she will answer nothing in private, and if she have offended in law she will answer in public.’ A reply by no means unreasonable, although it would appear that the younger lady was calm and dignified under provocation and persecution, and the elder excited and indignant. The chief count against Lady Shrewsbury was the ready money she had advanced for her niece’s escape, by which she was accused of intending to bribe the Catholic party.
The Scotch and English faction, we are informed by the same authority, were at great issue on this subject. Seymour was safe beyond seas, and James was at rest on that score, as long as the unhappy pair were separated.
In vain were appeals made in Arabella’s behalf to the hard-hearted tyrant. Bishop Goodman says of her: ‘She is a virtuous and good lady, of great intellectuals, and harmless, and gives no offence.’ She was in all things gentle, and showed gratitude for the slightest kindness, but she was treated with great indignity,—the money and jewels found on her person seized by the King’s orders, her servants denied access to her, and Lady Shrewsbury was not even allowed to have an attendant of any kind. What a contrast to the sumptuous life at Hardwicke, Chatsworth, and all the other palaces to which she had been accustomed in her mother’s lifetime!
Lord Shrewsbury wrote a most pitiful appeal respecting the dilapidated state of his wife’s apartments in the Tower, to Lord Salisbury, and after a time some mercy was shown her, and a servant appointed to wait on her, and, crowning grace! a copy of verses, written by Charles Cavendish for the poor prisoner’s delectation, was allowed to be placed in her hands. The wretched Arabella spent her hours in weeping and mourning. Sometimes she roused herself to embroider a gift for the King, which he would not accept. Her pen was seldom idle; ‘in all humility, in most humble wise,’ she wrote to James, ‘the most wretched, and unfortunate creature that ever lived, prostrates herself at the feet of the most merciful King that ever was.’ She wrote to Lord Northampton to complain of how badly she is nourished in sickness, of how others, however poor and unfortunate, are preserved alive for charity. ‘I can neither get clothes nor posset at all, nor any complement fit for a sick body in any case, when I call for it.’
Body and mind at last gave way, beneath constant suffering. Arabella showed signs of aberration of intellect, and was now moody, now despairing, now prone to fits of forced gaiety. Hearing of the marriage of her former friend and pupil, the Princess Elizabeth, the unhappy captive contrived to procure a new gown, in which she decked herself with much care. But little effect was produced at Court by the poor prisoner’s gala dress, and the betrothed was too happy to waste much thought on her favourite of other days.
In the same letter, quoted above, she says ‘that help will come too late,’ and declares ‘I do not fear to die, so I be not guilty of my own death, and oppress others with my ruin.’
Gradually but surely her intellect became undermined. She made some incoherent accusations against Lady Shrewsbury, which proved very disadvantageous to that lady, the rigour of whose captivity had been lately mitigated; but was again summoned before the Council, charged with contempt towards the King in refusing to answer questions, again replied scornfully, and pleaded the privilege of her person and nobility, and a rash vow she had made to be silent. She was remanded to the Tower, but the evident signs of insanity evinced by her unfortunate niece nullified the charges brought against her. Early in March 1613 Arabella was attacked with convulsions, and declared insane by a physician. Her humble friend Crompton had laid a second plan for her escape, but deliverance was to come in another guise.