Arbella Stuart: Elizabeth I’s forgotten heir

Arbella Stuart was the great-great granddaughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York, claimant to the crown of Elizabeth I and rival to James I (James VI of Scotland). Her royal blood proved a blessing and a curse, ultimately leading to her imprisonment in the Tower of London.

In the eyes of many contemporaries, the fact that Arbella was born on English soil gave her the edge on James, the man who ultimately claimed the throne. 

One contemporary observed that she was ‘by some thought more capable than he, for that she is English born.’

But Henry VIII had barred his Stuart relatives from inheriting the English throne, which proved problematic for both Arbella and James.

For 400 years, Arbella has been dismissed as a rank outsider in the race for Elizabeth’s throne. But new research suggests she came tantalisingly close to being crowned queen of England.

Arbella or Arabella?

Arbella Stuart’s name sometimes appears as ‘Arabella’ in the contemporary documents, most often those written by overseas ambassadors. There was a lack of consistency in the spelling of names during the Tudor period; sometimes people even spelt their own name in different ways. However, ‘Arbella’ is the most used version. 

‘No queen in England but I’

The Elizabethan succession crisis

The issue of who would succeed Elizabeth to rule England dominated her long reign. She declared from the outset that she would ‘live and die a virgin’, so there was no prospect of a direct heir (ie. children). But she had no intention of naming anyone else as heir either. She declared: ‘For so long as I live there shall be no queen in England but I.’

Elizabeth’s refusal to name an heir created intense uncertainty and constant jostling for position among the blood claimants to her throne, of whom Arbella was one of the foremost.

Arbella Stuart’s royal family tree

Why was Arbella a potential heir to the throne?

Arbella Stuart was the granddaughter of Lady Margaret Douglas (herself a blood claimant) and Elizabeth, Countess of Shrewsbury (better known as Bess of Hardwick). This made Arbella the great-great granddaughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

The precise date of Arbella’s birth is not known – for good reason. Her parents, Charles Lennox and Elizabeth Cavendish, had married secretly in late 1574. All those of royal blood were required to seek the monarch’s permission before marrying. But Margaret and Bess knew permission was unlikely to be granted and were ambitious to produce an heir to the throne within their families.

Arbella Stuart – the hoped-for heir – was born before 10 November 1574. On this date, Margaret wrote to the baby’s aunt, Mary, Queen of Scots, thanking her ‘for your good remembrance and bounty to our little [grand]daughter.’

'Poor orphan Arbella’

Arbella’s childhood

Arbella’s father died when she was just one year old, and his mother Lady Margaret followed two years later. In both cases, her relative’s title and wealth was transferred elsewhere. Arbella was therefore left with little but her royal blood to make her way in the world.

Arbella’s mother died in 1582, and she went to live with her grandmother Bess at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. After her grandfather appealed to the Queen to support ‘poor orphan Arbella’, Elizabeth granted her an annual income of £200 (equivalent to around £40,000 today).

Arbella was a bright, precocious child who studied French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek and Hebrew – a rare accomplishment for her sex, the other notable example being the Queen herself. She also shared Elizabeth’s skill in music and excelled at the lute and viol. Her grandmother proudly noted that she was ‘very apt to learn, and able to conceive what shall be taught her.’

‘Despiteful and disgraceful words’

Arbella Stuart’s life with Bess of Hardwick

Bess cherished ambitions for her ‘dearest jewel Arbella’. Ignoring the fact that Arbella’s title had been withheld, she referred to her as ‘Countess of Lennox’ and instructed all her servants to do the same. Arbella’s cousins were ordered to curtsey to her.

Arbella was just two years old when in 1577 her grandmother lined up her first potential suitor: Robert Dudley’s ‘base son’ Robert.

As she approached her teenage years, Arbella felt increasingly suffocated by her domineering grandmother, who was determined to control every aspect of her life at Hardwick. She was even obliged to sleep in the same room as Bess until she was well into her twenties.

Whenever Arbella made any attempt to assert her independence, her grandmother reprimanded her ‘in despiteful and disgraceful words…which she could not endure.’ She would regularly have her nose ‘tweaked’ in punishment’ and ‘would break forth into tears.’

‘She will one day be even as I am’

Arbella as a political pawn in the court of Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I certainly treated Arbella Stuart as a potential heir – when it suited her. It was her policy to play off one claimant against another, showing them favour one moment and swiftly withdrawing it the next.

This unenviable position as a potential ‘heir presumptive’ (the person who will take the throne next, if the monarch does not have children) without direction from the Queen had a profound impact on Arbella’s life.

Elizabeth used Arbella as a pawn in the international marriage market, even suggesting she might marry James VI of Scotland. This would have united the two strongest claimants to her throne.

In 1587, the Queen invited Arbella to dine in the presence chamber, seating her next to the throne. She called her ‘an eaglet of her own kind’ and remarked to the French ambassador: ‘Look to her well: she will one day be even as I am.’

In the face of such attention, it was perhaps inevitable that Arbella should develop ‘very exalted ideas, having been brought up in the firm belief that she would succeed to the Crown,’ as the Venetian ambassador claimed. This didn’t always sit well with the Queen; the following year, Arbella was out of favour again after flirting with Elizabeth’s favourite, Robert Devereux. She was sent from court.

Elizabeth stopped short of formally acknowledging Arbella’s claim, and perhaps paid Arbella attention to pressure James into supporting her against the threat of a Spanish invasion.

Arbella’s royal blood also made her the focus of plots to unseat Elizabeth and put the young woman in her place. In 1592, a captured priest revealed that two Catholic Scotsmen had promised ‘to convey her [Arbella] by stealth out of England into Flanders: which, if it be done, she shall shortly visit Spain.’

For the next 10 years, Arbella was kept a virtual prisoner at Hardwick Hall, which rendered her already fragile mental health dangerously unstable. Worn down by years of false hopes, she lamented: ‘What fair words I have had of courtiers and councillors, and so they are vanished into smoke.’

Were England’s subjects ready for another queen?

Although Arbella’s claim was strong, in the eyes of Elizabeth’s misogynistic subjects, her sex was a problem. ‘She is a woman, who ought not to be preferred, before so many men as at this time do or may stand for the crown’, opined one author. In the closing years of Elizabeth’s reign, the earl of Northumberland claimed that most of her subjects were ‘wishing no more queens’.

Arbella plans her escape

In late 1602 Arbella hatched a plan to escape her suffocating existence at Hardwick. Keenly aware of her value as a prospective bride, she resolved to marry Edward Seymour, the grandson of Lady Katherine Grey, who had been one of the favourites to succeed Elizabeth before her untimely death in 1568.

When Arbella’s reckless scheme was discovered, the Queen saw it as an attempt on her throne. In vain, Arbella ‘went down on her knees and implored pardon’, stating that she only wanted to move from her ‘prison’.

Arbella’s quest for freedom resulted in her being rendered entirely powerless, both politically and domestically. Her every action was closely monitored; her every word was recorded. If she put a foot wrong, Elizabeth would not hesitate to throw her into the Tower of London.

‘My weak body and travelling mind’

Arbella’s desperation intensifies

In January 1603, as Elizabeth lay dying at Richmond Palace, Arbella claimed to have forged a secret betrothal to ‘someone near and in favour with Her Majesty’. She eventually named the already-married King of Scots. The pair in fact had never met; it was a desperate attempt to force the court’s attention to her plight.

Soon, Arbella was either too ill to eat, or deliberately began to starve herself. She hinted at her intention to take her own life and proceeded to write a flurry of letters to the court in London. In the longest, which ran to 12 pages, she wrote of ‘disburdening’ her ‘weak body and travelling mind’.

There was further torment to come. In February 1603, Arbella’s former chaplain and tutor John Starkey was discovered with his throat cut. It was rumoured that he had taken his own life because he was plagued with guilt about his part in his protégé’s intrigues.

Arbella appeals to the dying Elizabeth

The Queen, at least, was listening – if not taking action. ‘The rumours of Arabella much afflict the Queen’, observed one courtier. The Venetian ambassador Scaramelli referred to Arbella as ‘Omicida della Regina’ (‘Murderer of the queen’).

Arbella made at least one last-ditch attempt for freedom from her ‘prison’ at Hardwick. In a long and impassioned letter written two weeks before Elizabeth’s death, Arbella expressed a heartfelt plea to ‘be my own woman’. She knew, though, that this would be perceived as a ‘kind of madness’ by the Elizabeth’s advisers.

Death of Elizabeth and accession of James I

In the Queen’s final days, Robert Cecil ordered close watch to be placed on Arbella, in case she should make a reckless bid for the throne. It was largely thanks to him that when Elizabeth I died on 24 March 1603, her crown passed to James VI, King of Scotland (the new James I of England). But Arbella may have had more of a chance at claiming the throne than originally thought.

In his biography of Elizabeth, William Camden claimed that Elizabeth named James as heir in her dying moments, stating ‘Who if not my closest relation, the King of Scots?’ But new research by the British Library reveals this detail was not in Camden’s original manuscript. In fact, it was added later to justify James’s accession. Arbella might easily have pipped James to the post.

Did James accept Arbella after his accession?

After his accession, James seemed outwardly inclined to be magnanimous towards Arbella. But he remained sensitive to any hint that her claim was superior to his. When the French ambassador thoughtlessly remarked that Arbella was a suitable successor for James, the King demanded his immediate recall.

For her part, Arbella expressed her loyalty to the new King. She assured him ‘that she desires no other husband, no other state, no other life than that which King James, her cousin and Lord, in his goodness may assign her.’

When she heard of a plot involving Sir Walter Raleigh which aimed to place her on the throne in James’s stead, Arbella informed the authorities at once. Raleigh was imprisoned in the Tower for the next 15 years.

But James was perhaps not convinced. When he met Arbella for the first time in May 1603, he remarked that Arbella should go back ‘from wherein she came’.

Freedom at last

Thankfully for Arbella, Robert Cecil persuaded the King that she should be allowed the freedom to choose where she lived. For a young woman who had spent most of her life in near-captivity, this was bliss. She took up residence in Sheen, west of London. James granted her a pension, and appointed her godmother to his daughter Mary. Arbella became a regular fixture at court.

In 1608, Bess of Hardwick died, leaving her granddaughter £1,000 (around £114,000 today). Arbella purchased a house in London’s Blackfriars, away from the prying eyes of the court. 

But Arbella never relinquished her ambition to make a marriage that would bolster her claim to the throne. As a result, her freedom was short-lived.

A fatal marriage

In 1610, Arbella focused her attentions on William Seymour, the grandson of Lady Katherine Grey. Arbella had already plotted to marry William’s brother Edward in the closing months of Elizabeth’s reign.

Aged 22, Seymour was 13 years younger than his prospective wife. Perhaps Arbella wanted a match in which she would be the dominant partner, given her superior years and experience. She also wanted to bear an heir so, in an age when most women were dead by 35 (Arbella's age), time was running out.

When James heard of the intended nuptials, he summoned the couple to appear before the privy council, where they were ordered to abandon their plans. Under cover of darkness at midnight, the couple slipped out of the royal court and were rowed down the Thames to Greenwich.

At 4am on 22 June 1610, Arbella Stuart married William Seymour in her apartments at Greenwich Palace. Their clandestine union was discovered a little over two weeks later.

Seymour was sent to the Tower of London, while Arbella was confined at the Lambeth home of Sir Thomas Parry, a member of the King’s privy council. In September, she was reported to have suffered a miscarriage. Upon hearing of this, James told Arbella that her husband would be imprisoned in the Tower for life and that she would be exiled to Durham.

Arbella Stuart, Tower of London prisoner

 A final failed attempt at freedom 

On 3 June 1611, Arbella disguised herself in men’s clothes, complete with wig, hat, boots and rapier, and escaped her house arrest in Lambeth. At the same time, her husband donned a disguise and slipped out of the Tower of London.

Arbella had arranged to meet William at Blackwall, from where they would board a ship bound for France. When he failed to appear, she insisted on lingering in the English Channel to wait for him. The delay proved fatal. Arbella’s ship was intercepted by an English naval vessel, while her husband made it safely across the Channel.

Arbella Stuart, rival to the throne of England, was imprisoned in the Tower of London – never to escape. It's not clear exactly where she was held, but it's thought likely to have been the royal lodgings where Anne Boleyn and Elizabeth were held. It was noted that she was kept a 'close' prisoner, so wasn't allowed to walk around the Tower. 

‘Divers great and heinous offences’

James issued a proclamation that referred to Arbella’s ‘divers great and heinous offences.’ These were later defined as having married ‘without acquainting his Majesty’. The King ordered that his cousin should not ‘rule her life after her own caprice [whim]’. When she petitioned him for mercy, he reprimanded her for having ‘eaten of the forbidden tree.’

Arbella’s condition deteriorates

Arbella’s imprisonment led to her a long and chronic sickness. This was exacerbated by her inability to pay for food and other necessaries in the Tower.

Referring to herself as ‘the most wretched and unfortunate creature that ever lived’, Arbella seemed resolved to end her ‘miserable state’.

The death of a would-be queen

When and how did Arbella Stuart die?

On 25 September 1615, Arbella Stuart died in the Tower of London, shortly before her 40th birthday. In the weeks before her death, she would not allow her physicians to attend her and refused to eat.

Where is Arbella Stuart buried?

Two days after her death, Arbella was buried in Westminster Abbey, her coffin placed directly on top of that of the King’s mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Now she was dead, James could at last acknowledge her royal blood.

Arbella Stuart’s legacy

Even after Arbella’s death, James remained fearful of his former rival. Nearly three years later, he ordered an investigation into whether she had given birth to a child that had been secretly conveyed across the seas.

In 1625, the final instalment of William Camden’s Annales was published. By including the fiction of Elizabeth’s death-bed nomination of James as her heir, he effectively relegated Arbella to the footnotes of history. But in her own lifetime, Arbella had been one of the most serious contenders for the Tudor throne. The fact that even when he was King, James remained highly suspicious of her testifies to how much of a threat she had been.

Arbella’s tragic story makes it clear that royal blood could be more a curse rather than a blessing. It also demonstrates the deep-seated prejudice against female rulers. But she should not be viewed merely as a hapless victim, her fate dictated first by Elizabeth then James.

Throughout her adult life, Arbella tried consistently (if recklessly) to seize control of her own destiny. That she ultimately failed should not diminish the status of a woman who for many years was considered a future queen of England.