The flight of Lady Arabella Stuart, 1611
Engraved Illustration by Henry Marriott Paget (1857-1936) from a special edition history of England published in 1903. Info from wiki: Lady Arbella Stuart was an English noblewoman who was for some time considered a possible successor to Queen Elizabeth I of England. In 1610, Arbella, who was fourth in line to the English throne, was in trouble for planning to marry William Seymour, who was sixth-in-line, grandson of Lady Catherine Grey, a younger sister of Lady Jane Grey and a granddaughter of Mary Tudor, younger sister of King Henry VIII and Arbella's ancestor, Margaret Tudor. The King wondered whether the marriage was the prelude to an attempt to seize the Crown itself. Although the couple at first denied that any arrangement existed between them, they later married in secret on 22 June 1610 at Greenwich Palace. For marrying without his permission, King James imprisoned them: Arbella in Sir Thomas Perry's house in Lambeth and Seymour in the Tower of London. When the King learned of her letters to Seymour, however, he ordered Arbella's transfer to the custody of William James, Bishop of Durham. Arbella claimed to be ill, so her departure for Durham was delayed. The couple used that delay to plan their escape. Arbella dressed as a man and escaped to Lee (in Kent), but Seymour did not meet her there before their getaway ship was to sail for France. Sara Jayne Steen records that Imogen, the virtuous, cross-dressed heroine of William Shakespeare's play Cymbeline (1610–1611) has sometimes been read as a reference to Arbella.[16] Seymour did escape from the Tower, but by the time he reached Lee, Arbella was gone, so he caught the next ship to Flanders. Arbella's ship was overtaken by King James's men just before it reached Calais, France. She was returned to England and imprisoned in the Tower of London. She never saw her husband again and died in the Tower on 25 September 1615 from illnesses exacerbated by her refusal to eat.
Size: 3249px × 2433px
Photo credit: © Historical Images Archive / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: 25, 1611, 1615, arabella, british, captured, died, dressed, eat, england, english, engraving, escaping, exacerbated, family, fear, flight, fourth, france, history, illnesses, illustration, image, imprisoned, james, jealousy, king, kings, lady, line, london, man, married, marrying, paranoia, permission, picture, plot, refusal, returned, royal, royals, royalty, secretly, seize, september, seymour, sixth--line, stewart, stuart, suspected, throne, tower, upset, william
