347 ‘The wisdom of this state’: Ibid. f. 65.
348 ‘most wished-for favour’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 113.
349 ‘I most humbly beseech your Majesty’: Ibid. ff. 87–8.
350 ‘let it be covered’: Ibid. f. 85.
351 ‘your Majesty’s neglect of me’: Ibid. f. 57 (secretary’s draft).
352 Arbella’s own first draft: Ibid. f. 82.
353 ‘at this time’: Ibid. f. 78.
354 ‘I must confess I fear’: Steen Letters 250.
355 ‘I am exceedingly sorry’: BL Harl. MS 7003, f. 150.
356 ‘called before the lords’: HMC Belvoir Papers i 427, cited by Handover Arbella Stuart 270. To make an interesting comparison with Arbella’s imprisonment, see Somerset Unnatural Murder 134, on the arrest of Sir Thomas Overbury. Ironically, Sir Edward Coke – to whom, as lord chief justice, Arbella appealed in vain – was to be the jurist who did most to define the law. Coke had savagely prosecuted Essex, Ralegh and the Gunpowder Plotters as traitors to the king, but later in his life – perhaps, even, as a result of those trials? – he was to be the great defender of the common law against royal and ecclesiastical privilege.
357 ‘It is thought that’: CSP Ven xii 110.
358 ‘to enquire by an habeas corpus’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 152.
359 ‘Sir, though you be’: Steen Letters 261–2 (transcript and discussion of correspondent’s identity).
360 ‘the most penitent and sorrowful creature’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 149.
361 ‘my soul overwhelmed’: Ibid. f. 104.
362 ‘the fault cannot be uncommitted’: Ibid. ff. 153–5.
363 An Italian jeweller: for letter and discussion of source see Steen Letters 292–3.
364 ‘hath highly offended us’: BL Harl. MS 7003 ff. 94, 96.
365 ‘forasmuch as it is more necessary’: Ibid.
366 Arbella, he wrote: The bishop’s letter is in SP Dom lxii f. 30; quoted in Cooper ii 146–7.
367 The lists of official expenses: given in full Cooper ii 158–67.
368 ‘cherishing her to life’: Cooper ii 149.
369 ‘the means prescribed’: CSP Dom. 1611–18, 17.
370 ‘For my part’: Cooper ii 150, Hardy 270.
371 ‘It was enough to make any sound man’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 114.
372 She and William had jointly signed a document: Steen Letters 67, citing the Seymour Papers (at Longleat) 6 f. 5. Hardy (268–9) describes it in detail: ‘sealed by Arbella with the Lennox crest, a wolf rampant; the witnesses to it were Rodney and Kirton … The date given on it is 21st March 1610, evidently an error for 1611, since the pair were not married the year before.’
373 ‘very weak, her pulse dull’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 116. Bradley (ii 5–6) and Hardy (271–2) both quote at length – omitting, however, the important (for a diagnosis of porphyria) mention of her ‘water’. See Appendix B.
374 ‘those ordinary helps’: BL Harl. MS 7003 ff. 153–5.
375 On 31 March Croft reported: Lefuse 248.
376 ‘I am in so weak case’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 147.
377 ‘Halcyon days’: BL Harl. MS 7003, f. 89.
378 ‘her willingness’: Lefuse 252, Bradley ii 12–13.
379 ‘My poor opinion’: BL Sloane MS 4161 59; quoted in Handover Arbella Stuart 272.
380 ‘She apprehendeth nothing’: CSP Dom 1611–18, 24.
381 It took her four drafts: BL Harl. MS 7003 ff. 79, 80, 83; the last is the one with her own comments. For full texts and discussion, see Steen Letters 263–6.
382 ‘used not one unkind or wrathful word’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 107.
383 ‘if you want for the honourable lady’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 109.
384 More to the point: CSP Ven xii 153.
385 ‘he would rather lose his life’: Cooper ii 170.
386 ‘I can expect no good from her’: Hardy 258.
387 as they were later described: by Northampton; see Lefuse 283–6.
388 Mary Seton: Talbot ii 250. In this letter, which I have not seen mentioned in other Arbella texts, Mary Seton (Marie de Seton) evokes the memory of the queen of Scots, and makes reference to the religion she and Mary Talbot shared.
389 The Venetian ambassador: Foscarini’s lengthy report to the doge and senate (CSP Ven xii 166–8) is the main source for this chapter. All references to the Venetians are from this document unless otherwise stated.
390 After slipping out: contemporary references abound (Shakespeare’s plays apart!) to women donning male attire. Besides Elizabeth Southwell and the habitual cross-dresser Moll Cutpurse, Queen Elizabeth’s maid Mary Fitton used to ‘put off her head tire and tuck up her clothes and take a large white cloak and march as though she had been a man’ when she went to meet her lover William Herbert (he who subsequently married Arbella’s cousin Mary). See Somerset Ladies-in-Waiting, 90–3.
391 ‘It seems it is a place entailed’: Briscoe 89.
392 ‘a cloak, a cap’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 126.
393 On the day of his escape: Sir John More to Sir Ralph Winwood, Memorials iii 279–81.
394 The collier’s captain: Report in BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 132.
395 ‘Myself being come’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 122.
396 Francis wrote another self-pitying letter: SP Dom lxiv item 8, quoted in Cooper ii 183, Lefuse 279, Bradley ii 38.
397 ‘foolish and boyish’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 124.
398 ‘Council was summoned immediately’: CSP Ven xii 164.
399 By midnight the king’s shipwright: Cooper ii 188, Hardy 294 (who also suggests the involvement of Elizabeth Grey).
400 ‘The wind standing cross’: Lewis Lives ii 322–4 (also for the further progress of William’s journey, described see here).
401 The royal proclamations: CSP Dom 1611–18, 38, quoted Cooper ii 188–9, 275–6. (For Cecil’s letters to ambassadors abroad, see also Cooper ii 191–200.)
402 ‘Couriers were sent’: CSP Ven xii 164.
403 ‘Both parliament and council thought’: Ibid.
404 ‘most pitied by the puritans’: Winwood iii 280, quoted in Handover 279.
405 ‘generally affirmed’: Ibid.
406 While he was sending word: For Admiral Monson’s report, see BL Harl. 7003 f. 130.
407 Chidiock Tichbourne’s poem quoted in Rowse, Tower, 87.
408 The bill of arrests: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 143; also ibid. 140 for an earlier list.
409 But not Markham: Hardy 298 says Crompton and Markham were tortured, but offers no source; a privy council warrant was necessary to authorize torture, but this was the period for which privy council records were destroyed.
410 ‘that if this couple’: Winwood iii 281.
411 ‘for all may be attributed’: CSP Ven xii 167. In the same letter Foscarini describes the embarrassment of the French ambassador.
412 None the less, six weeks after: For Hertford’s letters to Cecil see Cooper ii 204–14.
413 The Florentine secretary: Steen Crime of Marriage 73.
414 Fletcher’s The Noble Gentleman: A sub-plot to The Noble Gentleman tells of mad Shattillion, who claims that his lady love is kept ‘too close in prison’: a lady who had taken to her bed; a lady the king had forbidden him to marry – since she was ‘right heir general’ after him to the crown of France – thus forcing them to try to flee the land.
He is strong opinion’d that the wench he loved
Remaines close prisoner by the Kings command
Fearing her title. (I ii)
And ‘There is no jesting with a Princes title,’ Shattillion all too aptly said. Indeed, L. A. Beaurline, in his introduction to the play in The Dramatic Works in the Beaumont and Fletcher Canon iii (Cambridge University Press, 1976) wrote that, since audiences ‘could not fail’ to recognize the allusion, ‘It seems unlikely that this would have been tolerated on the stage between 1610 and Arabella’s death in the Tower in 1615.’ Beaurline’s point is that the play must have been written later;
other authorities suggest it could have appeared during Arbella’s lifetime, albeit in a modified form. See also Steen Letters 95–6.
415 ‘most excellent most gracious and most redoubted’: quoted in full Lefuse 283–6.
416 ‘She is said to have amassed’: Lefuse 282, Cooper ii 196.
417 ‘is said to be utterly without reason’: Winwood iii 281.
418 ‘my lord putteth me in hope’: Lefuse 298, Hardy 298.
419 track the passage: Ashworth (118) states that the act passed by Henry VIII, forbidding the unlicensed marriage of his relatives, had been rescinded. Cooper (i 5–10) gives the full provisions which might in any case have made it irrelevant.
420 ‘be the crime what it will’: Goodman 209–11.
421 But his complaints: Cooper ii 228–9, Hardy 297.
422 ‘three or four fair rooms’: Batho M 588, quoted in Lefuse 298, Hardy 298.
423 But it is now established: Starkey Elizabeth 142.
424 A wealth of new information: The first suggestions that Arbella was held in the old palace come from the documents in BL Add. MS 63543. Mentions are made of Mary Talbot’s proximity to Arbella, and of their meeting repeatedly; and Charles Cavendish’s letter (cited above) specifically says that Mary’s ‘fair rooms’ are in ‘the Queen’s lodging’; that is, the palace. By the same token, mentions in the same BL folder of walks in a gallery and views of a garden fit better with the palace than the Bell Tower. Further evidence comes from the bill of work, PRO E351/3245 (membrane 4), which reads: ‘To John Taylour for paving with ragstone 50 square yards in Coleharborowe over the pipe that was laid to convey water to the Lady Arbella her kitching.’ ‘Coleharborowe’ (Coldharbour) was the term used for the area between Coldharbour Gate and the old palace, and makes the identification almost a certainty.
425 Later in her incarceration: the phrase ‘close prisoner’ is used in BL Add. MS 63543 f. 11, where Mary Talbot blames Arbella’s doctor for having passed a message on to court, alleging that since she was kept close prisoner the news could have spread in no other way – suggesting that her contacts really were monitored with unusual stringency. Acts May 1613–Dec. 1614 606 refers to Samuel Smyth ‘servant to the Lady Arbella, now close prisoner’, but it is hard to know whether the mistress or the man is so described.
426 The autobiography of John Gerard: See 109 for the account of torture, 117 for the diet.
427 In her first days in the Tower: In 1613 (Hardy 317) Crompton’s accounts still show Arbella receiving money ‘on a warrant from my lady [Mary Talbot]’. Arbella was also using some of the old goods that William had left behind (see Waad’s letter in Cooper ii 216–21).
428 ‘That they cause all such sums of money’: CSP Dom 1611–18, 51.
429 ‘take them to the Tower’: CSP Dom 1611–18, 75.
430 ‘Item – A poignard diamond ring’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 141.
431 ‘at the cost price’: Cooper ii 226–7.
432 ‘The king hath granted’: Batho O 153.
433 ‘The Lady Arbella desireth’: BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 72.
434 ‘being employed by her ladyship’: Acts May 1613–Dec. 1614 423 (29 April 1614), and a similar permission (implying that it had not simply been taken for granted in the interval) fourteen months later on 30 June 1615.
435 The Tower, after all, held: CSP Dom 1611–18, 148, names of prisoners in the Tower; further evidence of who was there in PRO E351/3247.
436 ‘we have no news’: Briscoe 66.
437 ‘a thing of no such consequence’: Winwood iii 282.
438 ‘Our tongues and ears’: Briscoe 67.
439 ‘now neither willing’: Winwood iii 283.
440 ‘out of respect to his Majesty’: Briscoe 68.
441 ‘The king is much concerned’: CSP Ven xii 174.
442 ‘hath brought a letter from the archduke’: Winwood iii 301–2.
443 ‘those parts where I might be liable’: Briscoe 69–70.
444 ‘some Jesuit’: Briscoe 66.
445 ‘had such supply from home’: Briscoe 70.
446 For this reason James: The allowance is described in BL Add. MS 63543 f. 20. This collection of papers will be discussed below. It is largely concerned with Arbella’s illness and imprisonment, but ff. 17–20 are letters between William and his grandfather.
447 An article written in 1951: Biographical Studies 1534–1829 [a.k.a. Recusant History] i (1951–2) 117–19.
448 ‘They all called themselves merchants’: Briscoe 69.
449 It was no fun: For Hertford’s letters, see BL Add. MS 63543; on the point that he might ‘hate William’s memory,’ f. 19.
450 ‘is less grief to parents’: ibid. f. 20.
451 ‘It is no small comfort’: Hardy 310, Lefuse 294.
452 Sir William Waad replied: the letter is quoted in full, Cooper ii 216–21.
453 Coincidentally or otherwise: On Mary Talbot’s case, see Spedding iv 297–301, Cobbett ii 770–8. Spedding writes that ‘A speech evidently made for this occasion is printed in the Cabala (iv 369) and though the name of the speaker is not mentioned, I suppose every body will agree with Robert Stephens that Bacon must have been the author. I have not met with any manuscript of it, or any independent copy.’ Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart, in their recent biography of Francis Bacon, briefly mention it as among his cases, though the turn of words might seem to suggest a confusion between Arbella and Mary.
Spedding seems (300) to make a distinction between a full Star Chamber trial and the hearing given to Mary – one she clearly thought inadequate; but Alan Cromartie points out to me that this might well be thought little more than a linguistic quibble. More interesting is the point Spedding makes (301) that his information here ‘come[s] from the posthumous portion of [Sir Edward] Coke’s reports, not prepared for publication by himself; and from some short comments and queries in the margin of the paragraph in which he states the substance of the charge, I gather that at some later time he would perhaps have been disposed to question the soundness of this judgement.’
It is exciting to see the repercussion of Arbella’s tale affecting the progress of Coke’s thought in any way. Coke, of course, was the man to whom Arbella had appealed for the right of habeas corpus – and the man who did most to ensure that, twenty years later, her pleas could not have gone unheard so easily.
454 Her allowance from the exchequer: Durant Arbella 203–4.
455 Most of the appeals she wrote have since been reallocated: by Steen, whose dating I have followed except in the case immediately below, ‘In all humility’ (BL Harl. MS 7003 f. 146). This Steen describes (Letters 260) as being ‘perhaps’ written in spring 1611. More commonly, she describes the dating as ‘likely’.
456 Elizabeth may instead: Hardy 315 states that Frederick also pleaded for Arbella, but as usual gives no source.
457 ‘kind tenderness’: BL Add. MS 63543 f. 6.
458 ‘here is a fine piece of work’: Ibid. f. 1.
459 ‘not knowing how it should be done’: Ibid. f. 3.
460 ‘we could not say’: Ibid.
461 ‘Not well’: Ibid. f. 5.
462 ‘thorn’ in her side: Ibid.
463 ‘will condemn me’: Ibid. f. 1.
464 This sudden estrangement: Ibid. f. 9.
465 ‘I will not be of her religion’: Ibid. f. 5.
466 ‘there is not the meanest gentleman’: Ibid. f. 1.
467 ‘the meanest word I speak’: Ibid.
468 ‘The Lady Arbella doth not deny’: Ibid. f. 7.
469 Mary Talbot had said the lieutenant’s throat: Ibid f. 9.
470 ‘force and bloodshed’: Ibid. f. 7.
471 ‘come all from one root’: Ibid. f. 11.
472 ‘Now, that there was a plot’: Ibid. f. 12.
473 ‘deboshed carriage’: Ibid.
474 ‘fits of distemper’: Ibid. f. 11.
475 ‘minister physic’: Ibid.
476 ‘the Lady Arbella hath been dangerously sick’: Cha
mberlain i 437. (Also 434 to Winwood in much the same words; since Chamberlain’s letters were in a sense news bulletins, he did not hesitate to replicate phraseology.)
477 ‘continues crackt’: Chamberlain i 443; also 449 to Winwood.
478 ‘love and dalliance’: Ibid.
479 ‘certain gold embezzled’: Chamberlain i 452.
480 Here the evidence comes from Viscount Fenton: Steen Letters 90, 94.
481 At the end of April 1613: On Sir Thomas Overbury, see Somerset, Unnatural Murder.
482 ‘With much ado’: SP James Dom lxxv f. 7; quoted in Cooper ii 241, with the name given as ‘Revenes [Ruthven?]’. Lefuse 313 quotes in full, giving Ruthven. Hardy 319 offers Revenes interpreted as Ruithven or Reeves.
483 ‘He answered that Master Ruthen’: BL Add. MS 63543 f. 25.
484 ‘Dr Palmer, a divine’: Chamberlain i 546–7.
485 ‘far out of frame’: Ibid.
486 ‘to let him and his lady’: BL Cotton MS Caligula E X1.
487 ‘as one long us’d to’t’: The Duchess of Malfi IV i.
488 There is one particularly telling glimpse: BL Add. MS 63543 f. 15. See Steen Letters 93n for a discussion of the dating.
489 ‘should be dead at Dunkirk’: Chamberlain i 476.
490 The earl of Northampton wrote mockingly: Northampton’s letters (in BL Cotton MS Titus C VI) were discussed by Steen in ‘“How Subject to Interpretation”: Lady Arbella Stuart and the Reading of Illness’.
491 seem likely from internal evidence: BL Cotton MS Titus C VI f. 89, for example, goes on (after recounting how Lady Waad had held Arbella ‘in one of her fits’) to discuss arrangements for ‘her grace’s transport’ in terms which seem to link it to the wedding of the Princess Elizabeth in spring 1613.
492 ‘of no special disease’: Ibid. f. 94.
493 ‘upon my former knowledge’: Ibid. f. 99.
494 ‘pretends to fast’: Ibid.
495 ‘She prays, she rails’: Ibid.
496 ‘The Lady Arbella, prisoner in the Tower’: Acts May 1613–Dec. 1614 (12 Sept 1614).
497 the ‘cordials’ she had previously been prescribed: Steen Letters 99.
498 ‘I dare to die’: BL Harl. MS 7003 ff. 153–5. David Durant voiced the idea that Arbella might have starved herself to death; Norrington attributes her end to porphyria. Steen (Letters 99–100) incorporates both explanations, postulating ‘a complex set of interactions that may have included her inability or refusal to eat, with porphyria as the underlying disease that brought about her natural death’.
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