The distresses of this unhappy creature were heightened by her dependence on the crown. She was the cousin of James, and it was his narrow policy to constrain her from a match suitable to her rank, or perhaps to keep her single for life. Her supplies were unequal: at one time she had a grant of the duty on oats; at length he assigned her a pension of 1600l.: but whenever he suspected a natural desire in her heart she was out of favour. No woman was ever more solicited to the conjugal state, or seems to have been so little averse to it. “Every noble youth who sighed for distinction, ambitioned the notice of the lady Arabella.”
Her renewal of an early attachment to Mr. William Seymour, second son of lord Beauchamp, and grandson of the earl of Hertford, forms a story which “for its misery, its pathos, and its terror, even romantic fiction has not executed.” It was detected, and the lady Arabella and Seymour were summoned before the privy council, where Seymour was “censured for seeking to ally himself with the royal blood, although that blood was running in his own veins.” In his answer, “he conceived that this noble lady might, without offence, make the choice of any subject within this kingdom.” He says, “I boldly intruded myself into her ladyship’s chamber, in the court, on Candlemass day last, at what time I imparted my desire unto her, which was entertained; but with this caution on either part, that both of us resolved not to proceed to any final conclusion without his majesty’s most gracious favour first obtained: and this was our first meeting.” The lovers gravely promised to suppress their affections, with what sincerity is not known, for they married secretly; and in July the lady Arabella was arrested, and confined at the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Seymour committed to the Tower, “for contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the king’s leave.”
Arabella wrote a letter to the king, which was “often read without offence, nay, it was even commended by his highness, with the applause of prince and council.” She adverted to her wrongs, and required justice with a noble fortitude, though in respectful terms. She says, “I do most heartily lament my hard fortune, that I should offend your majesty the least, especially in that whereby I have long desired to merit of your majesty, as appeared before your majesty was my sovereign: and though your majesty’s neglect of me, my good liking to this gentleman that is my husband, and my fortune, drew me to a contract before I acquainted your majesty, I humbly beseech your majesty to consider how impossible it was for me to imagine it could be offensive to your majesty, having few days before given me your royal consent to bestow myself on any subject of your majesty’s (which likewise your majesty had done long since). Besides, never having been either prohibited any, or spoken to for any, in this land, by your majesty these seven years that I have lived in your majesty’s house, I could not conceive that your majesty regarded my marriage at all; whereas if your majesty had vouchsafed to tell me your mind, and accept the free-will offering of my obedience, I would not have offended your majesty, of whose gracious goodness I presume so much, that if it were now as convenient in a worldly respect, as malice may make it seem, to separate us, whom God hath joined, your majesty would not do evil that good might come thereof, nor make me, that have the honour to be so near your majesty in blood, the first precedent that ever was, though our princes may have left some as little imitable, for so good and gracious a king as your majesty, as David’s dealing with Uriah.”
She moved the queen, through lady Jane Drummond, to interest James in her favour. A letter from lady Jane communicates his majesty’s coarse and conceited reply, and she concludes by frankly telling the captive wife, “the wisdom of this state, with the example how some of your quality in the like case has been used, makes me fear that ye shall not find so easy end to your troubles as ye expect or I wish.”
To lady Drummond’s prophetic intimation, Arabella answers by sending the queen a pair of gloves “in remembrance of the poor prisoner that wrought them, in hopes her royal hands will vouchsafe to wear them:” and she adds, that her case “could be compared to no other she ever heard of, resembling no other.” She contrived to correspond with Seymour, but their letters were discovered, and the king resolved to change her place of confinement.
James appointed the bishop of Durham to be his jailor on the occasion. “Lady Arabella was so subdued at this distant separation, that she gave way to all the wildness of despair; she fell suddenly ill, and could not travel but in a litter, and with a physician. In her way to Durham, she was so greatly disquieted in the first few miles of her uneasy and troublesome journey, that they would proceed no further than to Highgate. The physician returned to town to report her state, and declared that she was assuredly very weak, her pulse dull and melancholy, and very irregular; her countenance very heavy, pale, and wan; and though free from fever, he declared her in no case fit for travel. The king observed, ‘It is enough to make any sound man sick to be carried in a bed in that manner she is; much more for her whose impatient and unquiet spirit heapeth upon herself far greater indisposition of body than otherwise she would have.’ His resolution however was, that ‘she should proceed to Durham, if he were king!’ ‘We answered,’ replied the doctor, ‘that we made no doubt of her obedience.’—‘Obedience is that required,’ replied the king, ‘which being performed, I will do more for her than she expected.’” Yet he consented to her remaining a month at Highgate. As the day of her departure approached, she appeared resigned. “But Arabella had not, within, that tranquillity with which she had lulled her keepers. She and Seymour had concerted a flight, as bold in its plot, and as beautifully wild, as any recorded in romantic story. The day preceding her departure, Arabella found it not difficult to persuade a female attendant to consent that she would suffer her to pay a last visit to her husband, and to wait for her return at an appointed hour. More solicitous for the happiness of lovers than for the repose of kings, this attendant, in utter simplicity, or with generous sympathy, assisted the lady Arabella in dressing her in one of the most elaborate disguisings. ‘She drew a pair of large French-fashioned hose or trowsers over her petticoats; put on a man’s doublet or coat; a peruke, such as men wore, whose long locks covered her own ringlets; a black hat, a black cloak, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side,’ Thus accoutred, the lady Arabella stole out with a gentleman about three o’clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a mile and a half, when they stopped at a poor inn, where one of her confederates was waiting with horses, yet she was so sick and faint, that the ostler, who held her stirrup, observed, that ‘the gentleman could hardly hold out to London.’ She recruited her spirits by riding; the blood mantled in her face, and at six o’clock our sick lover reached Blackwall, where a boat and servants were waiting. The watermen were at first ordered to Woolwich; there they were desired to push on to Gravesend, then to Tilbury, where, complaining of fatigue, they landed to refresh; but, tempted by their freight, they reached Lee. At the break of morn they discovered a French vessel riding there to receive the lady; but as Seymour had not yet arrived, Arabella was desirous to lie at anchor for her lord, conscious that he would not fail to his appointment. If he indeed had been prevented in his escape, she herself cared not to preserve the freedom she now possessed; but her attendants, aware of the danger of being overtaken by a king’s ship, overruled her wishes, and hoisted sail, which occasioned so fatal a termination to this romantic adventure. Seymour indeed had escaped from the Tower; he had left his servant watching at his door to warn all visiters not to disturb his master, who lay ill with a raging toothache, while Seymour in disguise stole away alone, following a cart which had just brought wood to his apartment. He passed the warders; he reached the wharf, and found his confidential man waiting with a boat, and he arrived at Lee. The time pressed; the waves were rising; Arabella was not there; but in the distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board, to his grief, on hailing it, he discovered that it was not the French vessel charged with his Arabella; in despair and confusion he found another ship from Newcastle, which for a good sum altered its course, and landed him in Flanders.”
On the lady Arabella’s escape, “couriers were despatched swifter than the winds wafted the unhappy Arabella, and all was hurry in the seaports. They sent to the Tower to warn the lieutenant to be doubly vigilant over Seymour, who, to his surprise, discovered that his prisoner had ceased to be so for several hours. James at first was for issuing a proclamation in a style so angry and vindictive, that it required the moderation of Cecil to preserve the dignity while he concealed the terror of his majesty. By the admiral’s detail of his impetuous movements, he seemed in pursuit of an enemy’s fleet; for the courier is urged, and the postmasters are roused by a superscription, which warned them of the eventful despatch, ‘Haste, haste, post haste! Haste for your life, your life!’ To these words, in a letter from the earl of Essex to the lord high admiral at Plymouth, were added the expressive symbol of a gallows prepared with a halter, thus
.” There is no doubt, as is well expressed, that “the union and flight of these two doves, from their cotes, shook with consternation the grey owls of the cabinet:” even “prince Henry partook of this cabinet panic.”
Meanwhile “we have left the lady Arabella alone and mournful on the seas, not praying for favourable gales to convey her away, but still imploring her attendants to linger for her Seymour; still straining her sight to the point of the horizon for some speck which might give a hope of the approach of the boat freighted with all her love. Alas! never more was Arabella to cast a single look on her lover and her husband! She was overtaken by a pink in the king’s service, in Calais roads; and now she declared that she cared not to be brought back again to her imprisonment should Seymour escape, whose safety was dearest to her!”