Lady Arbella Stuart (also Arabella, or Stewart; 10 November 1575 – 25 September 1615) was an English noblewoman who was considered a possible successor to Elizabeth I. During the reign of James VI and I (her first cousin), she married William Seymour, 2nd Duke of Somerset, another claimant to the English throne, in secret. King James imprisoned Seymour and placed her under house arrest. When she and her husband tried to escape England, she was captured and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where she died at age 39.
She was the only child of Charles Stuart, 1st Earl of Lennox (of the third creation), by his marriage to Elizabeth Cavendish. She was a grandchild of Matthew Stewart, 4th Earl of Lennox (of the second creation) and Lady Margaret Douglas, the daughter and heiress of Archibald Douglas, 6th Earl of Angus, and of Margaret Tudor, daughter of King Henry VII of England and widow of King James IV of Scotland. Arbella was therefore a great-great-granddaughter of Henry VII and was in line of succession to the English throne, although she did not herself aspire to it.
Her paternal grandparents, the 4th Earl of Lennox and Margaret Douglas, had, of their eight children, two sons who survived childhood: Arbella's father Charles and his older brother Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who became the second husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, and the father of Arbella's cousin James VI and I of Scotland, England and Ireland. Her maternal grandparents were Sir William Cavendish and his wife Elizabeth, better known as "Bess of Hardwick".
Arbella's father died in 1576 when she was an infant. She was raised by her mother Elizabeth Cavendish, Countess of Lennox, until 1582. The death of her mother left seven-year-old Arbella an orphan, whereupon she became the ward of her grandmother Bess, rather than Lord Burghley, the Master of the Court of Wards, as might have been expected.
During most of her childhood she lived in the protective isolation of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire with her grandmother, who had married George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, in 1568. It seems she enjoyed periodic visits to the court and to London, including court visits during the summers of 1587 and 1588 and one that lasted from November 1591 to July 1592.
Starting in early 1589 or thereabouts "one Morley ... attended on Arbell and read to her", as reported in a dispatch from Bess of Hardwick to Lord Burghley, dated 21 September 1592. Bess recounts Morley's service to Arbella over "the space of three years and a half". She also notes he had hoped for an annuity of £40 a year (equivalent to £13,300 in 2025) from Arbella based on the fact that he had "been so much damnified [i.e. that much out of pocket] by leaving the University". This has led to speculation that Morley was the poet Christopher Marlowe, whose name was sometimes spelt that way.
For some time before 1592, Arbella was considered one of the natural candidates to succeed her first cousin twice removed, Queen Elizabeth I.
Arbella’s exact place in the line of succession was a matter of debate both legally and politically. By strict Primogeniture, she was second behind her cousin James before the birth of his children. However, the Treason Act 1351 from the reign of Edward III barred “aliens” from inheriting the English throne which Arbella’s supporters (mainly Catholics who opposed James) argued meant she was first in line as she was born in England and James was not. Further complicating matters was that Henry VIII’s will had bypassed the Stuarts altogether to place his niece Frances Grey (daughter of his younger sister Mary) and her descendants behind his own children. Due to the ambiguity surrounding her, Arbella became a key chess piece to the various groups who wanted to use her for their own ends.
However, between the end of 1592 and the spring of 1593, the influential Cecils – Elizabeth's Lord Treasurer, Lord Burghley, and his son, Secretary of State Sir Robert Cecil – turned their attention away from Arbella towards her cousin James VI of Scotland, regarding him as a preferable successor. James had many perceived strengths over Arbella: he was staunchly Protestant while she was of ambiguous religious affiliation, he had proved himself a successful ruler in Scotland, he was a man and she was a woman after two Queens in a row, and he was married and had children which secured his own succession.
Sometimes she was invited to Elizabeth's court, but much of her time she spent away living with her grandmother. Continuing her education into her twenties, she studied several languages and could play the lute, viol and virginals. Elizabeth told Marie de La Châtre, the wife of the French ambassador Guillaume de l'Aubespine de Châteauneuf, about Arbella's skills in speaking Latin, French and Italian.
In 1603 James became James I of England at the Union of the Crowns. Arbella refused to act as the chief mourner at the funeral of Elizabeth I. She came to court in August 1603. There was plague in London, and the court moved west to Basing House and Winchester in October. Arbella wrote letters to the Earl of Shrewsbury criticising a masque, Prince Henry's Welcome at Winchester produced by Anne of Denmark for her son, Prince Henry, and also the childish singing and games in the queen's household.
In November 1603 those involved in the Main Plot were said to have conspired to overthrow King James and put Arbella on the throne. Arbella had been invited to participate and agree in writing to Philip III of Spain, however, she immediately reported the invitation to the king. In March 1604 the royal family celebrated their Entry to London, which had been delayed because of the plague. There was a procession, and Arbella followed Anne of Denmark in a carriage with some of the queen's maids of honour. This was a public acknowledgement of her royal status.
The Venetian ambassador Nicolò Molin described her in 1607, writing that she was 28 (sic) years old, not very beautiful, but highly accomplished in several languages, with refined manners, and always studying.
Owing to Arbella's status as a possible heir to the throne, there were discussions of appropriate marriages for her throughout her childhood.
In 1588, it was proposed to James VI of Scotland that Ludovic Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, should be married to Arbella, but nothing seems to have come of this suggestion. James VI was interested in this match but the Countess of Lennox's servant Thomas Fowler discouraged him. Other potential matches were the sons of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, who could claim the English throne as descendants of John of Gaunt. The idea was to secure toleration for English Catholics or even win Arbella for the Catholic faith. However, the eldest son, Ranuccio, was already married, and the younger son, Odoardo, was a Cardinal sworn to priestly celibacy. The Pope was reportedly prepared to absolve Odoardo from his obligations but the resistance of Queen Elizabeth I to such a marriage stopped the plan probably even before Arbella could be approached.
In 1599, an English Catholic, Edmund Ashfield, wrote to James VI on the subject of the succession to the throne of England. He considered the possibility that Elizabeth might allow Arbella Stuart to marry an English husband, and thus "assisted by some domestical match", she might become queen and continue the "sweet pleasing government" of England by a female ruler.
In the closing months of Elizabeth's reign, Arbella fell into trouble through reports that she intended to marry Edward Seymour, a member of the prominent Seymour family. This was reported to the Queen by the supposed groom's father, Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford. Arbella denied having any intention of marrying without the Queen's permission. In 1604, Sigismund III Vasa, King of Poland, sent an ambassador to England to ask for Arbella to be his wife. This offer was rejected.
Marriage to Lord Beauchamp, imprisonment and death