Stuart, Arabella

▪ English noble

Stuart also spelled  Stewart  

born 1575

died Sept. 25, 1615, London, Eng.

 English noblewoman whose status as a claimant to the throne of her first cousin King James I (James VI of Scotland) led to her tragic death.

      The daughter of James's uncle Charles Stewart, Earl of Lennox, and great-granddaughter of King Henry VIII's sister Margaret Tudor, Arabella was recognized during the last years of the reign of Queen Elizabeth I as second, after James VI, in line of succession to the English throne. Some Englishmen felt that she was better qualified than James to rule the country because she was English by birth and upbringing. When James became ruler of England in 1603, he invited Arabella to live at the royal court, but the question of her marriage soon created difficulties. James apparently feared that a union between Arabella and a foreign ruler might pose a threat to his position; hence, she was arrested and temporarily imprisoned when she attempted to leave England in 1609, probably to wed an obscure Balkan prince. Upon her release she promptly fell in love with William Seymour (later Duke of Somerset), himself a claimant to the throne. Against James's orders the couple was secretly married on June 22, 1610. When the king received the news, he imprisoned Seymour in the Tower of London and had Arabella taken into custody. The two lovers escaped from confinement, but they failed to rendezvous as planned. Although Seymour made his way to Ostend (in modern Belgium), Arabella was captured aboard ship in the English Channel. Imprisoned in the Tower, she suffered a mental breakdown and finally died in 1615.

Additional Reading

P.M. Handover, Arbella Stuart (1957); Ian McInnes, Arabella (1968).

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