Arbella Stuart

Lady Arbella Stuart, claimant to the English throne, traditionally has been portrayed as either a hero or fool for marrying against King James's edict and attempting to flee from France. This is Stuart's story as she tells it in more than one hundred letters written to relatives, her husband, the royal family, public officials, and friends. Based largely on original manuscripts, this volume reveals a powerful personal and public drama, as Stuart's royal birth and demand for independence place her in conflict with Queen Elizabeth and King James. Verbally gifted, Stuart creates a fictional lover, maneuvers within the patronage network, and, after her marriage, applies her considerable rhetorical skills to solicit favor and freedom. Her own revisions, which are included, offer the reader unusual access to the thinking of a talented Renaissance writer as she shapes her prose. Steen has transcribed, ordered, dated, annotated, and critically analyzed the letters and drafts.

The woman expected to succeed the Virgin Queen

'It is Arbella they would proclaim Queen if her mistress should happen to die' Sir William Stanley, 1592 Niece to Mary, Queen of Scots, granddaughter to the great Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick, Lady Arbella Stuart was brought up in the belief that she would inherit Elizabeth I's throne. Her very conception was dramatic: the result of an unsanctioned alliance that brought down the wrath of the authorities. Raised in restricted isolation at Hardwick, in the care - the 'custody' - of the forceful Bess, Arbella was twenty-seven before, in 1603, she made her own flamboyant bid for liberty. She may also have been making a bid for the throne. If so, she failed. But the accession of her cousin James thrust her into the colourful world of his court, and briefly gave her the independence she craved at the heart of Jacobean society. Then, aged thirty-five, Arbella risked everything to make her own forbidden marriage. An escape in disguise, a wild flight abroad and capture at sea led, in the end, to an agonizing death in the Tower in 1615. Along with the rumours about her sanity, her story influenced even Webster's The Duchess of Malfi. Yet perhaps nothing in her tale is as striking as the degree to which a woman so widely discussed in her own day has been written out of history. Nothing as remarkable as the almost modern freedom with which, in a series of extraordinary letters, Arbella Stuart revealed her own passionate and curiously accessible personality. Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary sources, Sarah Gristwood has painted a powerful and vivid portrait of a woman forced to carve a precarious path through the turbulent years when the Tudor gave way to the Stuart dynasty. But more remarkable still, the turmoils of Arbella's life never prevented her from claiming the right to love freely, to speak her wrongs loudly - and to control her own destiny.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1866.

Lost in history . . . losing her self. Uncover Tudor heroine Arbella Stuart's incredible story, reimagined by Elizabeth Fremantle in this tense, historical thriller. Hardwick Hall, sixteenth-century England. Formerly a beacon of wealth and power. Now a gilded prison. Hidden away, forgotten, one young woman seeks escape. But to do so she must trust those on the outside. Those who have their own motives... Discovery means death. But what choice has any woman trapped in a man's world? Imprisoned by circumstance, Arbella Stuart is an unwilling contender for the throne. In a world where women are silenced, what chance does she have to take control of her destiny? Praise for The Girl in the Glass Tower: 'A top-notch literary thriller' Daily Telegraph 'Thrilling, clever and beautifully written' The Times, 'Books of the Year' 'Filled with dense, dark political and social intrigue' Daily Mail 'Shots are fired, troths are plighted, sea voyages taken, escapes dared and mysteries solved' Daily Telegraph 'Beautifully written, completely engrossing and a book that stays with you after the pages are closed' Historia