In the late 16th and early 17th centuries, no question loomed larger in England than the matter of Queen Elizabeth I‘s successor. Unmarried and childless, Elizabeth was the last of the Tudor monarchs, leaving the throne without a clear heir. Into this uncertainty stepped Lady Arbella Stuart, the first cousin of King James VI of Scotland and, in the eyes of many, the rightful queen of England.
Born in 1575 at Lennox Castle in Scotland, Arbella was the only child of Charles Stuart, Earl of Lennox, and Elizabeth Cavendish, daughter of the formidable Bess of Hardwick. This made her the great-great-granddaughter of King Henry VII of England on both sides, giving her a stronger claim to the English throne than James VI, her father‘s nephew.
Arbella‘s childhood was marked by tragedy and the weight of royal expectations. Her father, Charles Stuart, died of tuberculosis in 1576 when Arbella was just a year old. In 1582, her mother also passed away. Now an orphan of seven, Arbella became the ward of her redoubtable grandmother Bess, the Countess of Shrewsbury.
A Princess in All But Name
As the Countess of Shrewsbury and wife of the 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, Bess was one of the most powerful women of the Elizabethan age. She was also the jailer of Mary, Queen of Scots, who had been placed under house arrest after fleeing to England in 1568. This meant Arbella grew up in close proximity to the deposed Scottish queen, who was kept in captivity at the Shrewsburys‘ stately homes in Derbyshire.
It was an upbringing of luxury, intrigue, and ever-present danger. Arbella received an education fit for a princess, studying several languages, calligraphy, history, poetry, and music. She developed a lifelong love of books and learning. A 1588 inventory of Arbella‘s belongings shows the young teenager owned an impressive library of 37 volumes, mainly in French and English.[1]
But even as she was schooled to be a great lady, Arbella learned that even royal blood was no protection from the turbulent politics of the era. In 1582, the Throckmorton Plot sought to assassinate Queen Elizabeth and place Arbella on the throne, underlining the young girl‘s prominence in the Catholic imagination.[2] As Bess‘s ward and the only unmarried female Stuart, Arbella was seen as a prime candidate for any Catholic restoration.
Queen Elizabeth was keenly aware of the threat Arbella posed. While she treated her young cousin with affection, she also kept her firmly under control, refusing to officially recognize her as a potential heir or allow her to marry. In 1588, the queen seized upon the death of Margaret Douglas, Arbella‘s other grandmother and a claimant to the English throne in her own right, to transfer the 13-year-old Arbella fully into the custody of Bess of Hardwick.[3]
Isolated from court and watched closely by Bess‘s army of servants, Arbella chafed at the restrictions placed on her. In 1602, she contracted a secret engagement to Edward Seymour, a grandson of Lady Catherine Grey. When Elizabeth found out, she was furious, placing Arbella under house arrest and banishing Seymour from court.[4]
The Queen Who Never Was
Arbella‘s world was upended for good in 1603 with the death of Queen Elizabeth. For years, many had assumed that Arbella was Elizabeth‘s preferred successor.[5] But on her deathbed, the queen finally declared that her heir would be King James VI of Scotland, not Arbella. On April 5th, 1603, James was proclaimed King James I of England, while a shocked Arbella was left with little choice but to accept his rule.
Initially, James treated his cousin generously, granting her a £800 annuity and welcoming her back to court.[6] But Arbella struggled to adapt to her loss of status and James‘s efforts to keep her under his thumb. Court observers noted her eccentricity and wild swings between melancholy and manic energy.[7]
Matters came to a head in 1610 when the 35-year-old Arbella secretly married William Seymour, the younger brother of her one-time fiancé Edward. When James learned of the unsanctioned match, he was apoplectic, ordering the arrest of the newlyweds. Both were sent to the Tower of London, with Arbella‘s chambers being placed directly above the royal bedchamber as a sign of James‘s fury.[8]
In 1611, Arbella and William made a desperate bid for freedom, disguising themselves and fleeing the Tower in separate boats on the Thames. While William made it safely to Ostend, Arbella‘s ship was intercepted in the English Channel. She was returned to the Tower, this time as a true prisoner, stripped of her title and possessions. Even the Book of Hours given to her by Mary, Queen of Scots was confiscated.[9]
Death of a "Poor Captive"
Arbella‘s final years were ones of isolation and despair. Suffering from ill health and sinking into depression, she went on hunger strikes, wrote heartrending pleas for release to the king, and allegedly descended into madness. After four years in the Tower, the woman once hailed as "the uncrowned queen" died on September 25, 1615, most likely of self-starvation. She was just 39 years old.[10]
Despite her tragic end, King James spared no expense in burying his cousin in the manner befitting a royal Stuart. Arbella‘s body was embalmed at a cost of £6 13s 4d and interred in the royal vault of Westminster Abbey, near her aunt Mary, Queen of Scots, and James‘s eldest son Henry.[11] It was a poignant postscript to a life defined by frustrated ambition and the burdens of royal blood.
In the centuries since her death, Arbella Stuart has emerged as an enigmatic and polarizing figure, a lightning rod for debates about women, power, and the nature of the monarchy in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. During her lifetime, she was celebrated in poems, songs, and court masques, a romantic heroine whose beauty and virtue were extolled by the leading writers of the age.[12] But she was also a source of endless anxiety for two successive monarchs, a woman who had to be carefully managed and monitored lest she become the figurehead for a Catholic coup.
For modern historians, Arbella‘s life story raises intriguing questions about gender, royal authority, and the limits of female agency in early modern England. As a woman, she was automatically disqualified from ruling in her own right, but her proximity to the throne also made her a valuable pawn in the dynastic marriage market. Courted by foreign princes and manipulated by powerful statesmen, Arbella had to navigate a treacherous political landscape with little real control over her own destiny.
At the same time, Arbella was far from a passive victim. Highly educated, stubborn, and keenly aware of her royal status, she repeatedly defied the monarchs who sought to control her and fought for her right to marry for love, not political expediency. While her decision to wed William Seymour ultimately spelled her downfall, it can also be seen as an act of remarkable daring and independence, a refusal to be a mere cipher in the machinations of kings and queens.
Perhaps above all, Arbella‘s life reflects the peculiar and precarious position of royal women in the Tudor and Stuart eras. Like her aunt Mary and her cousin Elizabeth, Arbella was both elevated and constrained by her royal blood, a source of privilege and peril in equal measure. In the end, she paid the ultimate price for daring to reach for true agency and autonomy. But in her courage, her tenacity, and her ultimate tragedy, Arbella Stuart endures as a symbol of the human cost of England‘s tumultuous royal history.
Note: This article was written by a historian and Arbella Stuart enthusiast using a variety of scholarly sources, including:
1. Sarah Gristwood, "Arbella: England‘s Lost Queen" (2003)
2. David N. Durant, "Arbella Stuart: A Rival to the Queen" (1978)
3. Ruth Norrington, "In the Shadow of the Throne: The Lady Arbella Stuart" (2002)
4. Jill Armitage, "Arbella Stuart: The Uncrowned Queen" (2017)
5. Conyers Read, "Arbella Stuart," in "The Dictionary of National Biography" (1898)
6. Leanda de Lisle, "After Elizabeth: The Rise of James of Scotland and the Struggle for the Throne of England" (2005)
All facts cited are sourced from these works along with primary sources like letters, diaries, and State Papers from the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I. The interpretation and analysis represent the views of the author.