RECORDS OF WOMAN ARABELLA STUART ["THE LADY ARABELLA," as she has been frequently entitled, was descended from Margaret, eldest daughter of Henry VII., and consequently allied by birth to Elizabeth as well as James I. This affinity to the throne proved the misfortune of her life, as the jealousies which it constantly excited in her royal relatives, who were anxious to prevent her marrying, shut her out from the enjoyment of that domestic happiness which her heart appears to have so fervently desired. By a secret but early discovered union with William Seymour, son of Lord Beauchamp, she alarmed the cabinet of James, and the wedded lovers were immediately placed in separate confinement. From this they found means to concert a romantic plan of escape; and having won over a female attendant, by whose assistance she was disguised in male attire, Arabella, though faint from recent sickness and suffering, stole out in the night, and at last reached an appointed spot, where a boat and servants were in waiting. She embarked; and at break of day a French vessel engaged to receive her was discovered and gained. As Seymour, however, had not yet arrived, she was desirous that the vessel should lie at anchor for him; but this wish was overruled by her companions, who, contrary to her entreaties, hoisted sail, "which," says Disraeli, "occasioned so fatal a termination to this romantic adventure. Seymour, indeed, had escaped from the Tower; he reached the wharf, and found his confidential man waiting with a boat, and arrived at Lee. A A The time passed; the waves were rising; Arabella was not there; but in the distance he descried a vessel. Hiring a fisherman to take him on board, he discovered, to his grief, on hailing it, that it was not the French ship charged with his Arabella; in despair and confusion he found another ship from Newcastle, which for a large sum altered its course, and landed him in Flanders." Arabella, meantime, whilst imploring her attendants to linger, and earnestly looking out for the expected boat of her husband, was overtaken in Calais Roads by a vessel in the king's service, and brought back to a captivity, under the suffering of which her mind and constitution gradually sank. "What passed in that dreadful imprisonment cannot perhaps be recovered for authentic history, but enough is known-that her mind grew impaired, that she finally lost her reason, and, if the duration of her imprisonment was short, that it was only terminated by her death. Some effusions, often begun and never ended, written and erased, incoherent and rational, yet remain among her papers."-DISRAELI'S Curiosities of Literature. The following poem, meant as some record of her fate, and the imagined fluctuations of her thoughts and feelings, is supposed to commence during the time of her first imprisonment, whilst her mind was yet buoyed up by the consciousness of Seymour's affection, and the cherished hope of eventual deliverance.] "And is not love in vain, Torture enough without a living tomb ?"-BYRON. "Fermossi al fin il cor che balzo tanto."-PINDEMONTE. I "TWAS but a dream! I saw the stag leap free, ARABELLA STUART A princely band, with horn, and hound, and spear, II 'Tis past! I wake, A captive, and alone, and far from thee, My love and friend! Yet fostering, for thy sake, And feeling still my woman-spirit strong, In the deep faith which lifts from earthly wrong A heavenward glance. I know, I know our love By its undying fervour, and prevail— Sending a breath, as of the spring's first gale, Through hearts now cold; and, raising its bright face, With a free gush of sunny tears, erase The characters of anguish. In this trust, 3 I bear, I strive, I bow not to the dust, That I may bring thee back no faded form, III And thou too art in bonds! Yet droop thou not, O my beloved! there is one hopeless lot, But one, and that not ours. Beside the dead,— There sits the grief that mantles up its head, Loathing the laughter and proud pomp of light, When darkness from the vainly doating sight Covers its beautiful! * If thou wert gone To the grave's bosom, with thy radiant browIf thy deep-thrilling voice, with that low tone Of earnest tenderness, which now, even now Seems floating through my soul, were music taken For ever from this world-oh! thus forsaken, Could I bear on? Thou livest, thou livest, thou'rt mine! With this glad thought I make my heart a shrine, And by the lamp which quenchless there shall burn, Sit a lone watcher for the day's return. I V And lo! the joy that cometh with the morning, Brightly victorious o'er the hours of care! I have not watched in vain, serenely scorning * 66 Wheresoever you are, or in what state soever you be, it sufficeth me you are mine. Rachel wept and would not be comforted, because her children were no more. And that, indeed, is the remediless sorrow, and none else!"-From a letter of Arabella Stuart's to her husband.-See Curiosities of Literature. ARABELLA STUART The wild and busy whispers of despair! V Sunset! I tell each moment: From the skies Like a king's banner! Now it melts, it dies! 5 The expected voice; my quick heart throbbed too soon. Shower down less golden light. Beneath her beam Under the vine or in the citron grove, May breathe from terror. Now the night grows deep, And silent as its clouds, and full of sleep. I hear my veins beat. Hark! a bell's slow chime! |