Historical Tales Volume Iv Part 19

After this we had a second meeting at Brigg's house in Fleet Street, and then a third at Mr. Baynton's; at both of which we had the like conference and resolution as before."

Neither of them would think of marrying without "his Majesty's most gracious favor," they declared. This favor could not be granted. The safety of the English crown had to be considered. The lovers were admonished by the privy council and dismissed.

But love laughs at privy councils, as well as at locksmiths. This time the Lady Arabella was not to be hindered. She and Seymour were secretly married, without regard to "his Majesty's most gracious favor," and enjoyed a short period of connubial bliss in defiance of king and council.

Their offence was not discovered till July of the following year. It roused a small convulsion in court circles. The king had been defied.

The culprits must be punished. The lovers--for they were still lovers--were separated, Seymour being sent to the Tower, for "his contempt in marrying a lady of the royal family without the king's leave;" the lady being confined at the house of Sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth.

Their confinement was not rigorous. The lady was allowed to walk in the garden. The gentleman was given the freedom of the Tower. Letters seem to have pa.s.sed between them. From one of these ancient love-letters we may quote the affectionate conclusion. Seymour had taken cold. Arabella writes:

"I do a.s.sure you that nothing the State can do with me can trouble me so much as this news of your being ill doth; and, you see, when I am troubled I trouble you with too tedious kindness, for so I think you will account so long a letter, yourself not having written to me this good while so much as how you do. But, sweet sir, I speak not of this to trouble you with writing but when you please. Be well, and I shall account myself happy in being

"Your faithful, loving wife.

ARB. S."

They wrote too much, it seems. Their correspondence was discovered.

Trouble ensued. The king determined to place the lady in closer confinement under the bishop of Durham.

Arabella was in despair when this news was brought her. She grew so ill from her depression of spirits that she could only travel to her new place of detention in a litter and under the care of a physician. On reaching Highgate she had become unfit to proceed, her pulse weak, her countenance pale and wan. The doctor left her there and returned to town, where he reported to the king that the lady was too sick to travel.

"She shall proceed to Durham if I am king," answered James, with his usual weak-headed obstinacy.

"I make no doubt of her obedience," answered the doctor.

"Obedience is what I require," replied the king. "That given, I will do more for her than she expects."

He consented, in the end, that she should remain a month at Highgate, under confinement, at the end of which time she should proceed to Durham. The month pa.s.sed. She wrote a letter to the king which procured her a second month's respite. But that time, too, pa.s.sed on, and the day fixed for her further journey approached.

The lady now showed none of the wild grief which she had at first displayed. She was resigned to her fate, she said, and manifested a tender sorrow which won the hearts of her keepers, who could not but sympathize with a high-born lady thus persecuted for what was a.s.suredly no crime, if even a fault.

At heart, however, she was by no means so tranquil as she seemed. Her communications with Seymour had secretly continued, and the two had planned a wildly-romantic project of escape, of which this seeming resignation was but part. The day preceding that fixed for her departure arrived. The lady had persuaded an attendant to aid her in paying a last visit to her husband, whom she declared she must see before going to her distant prison. She would return at a fixed hour. The attendant could wait for her at an appointed place.

This credulous servant, led astray, doubtless, by sympathy with the loving couple, not only consented to the request, but a.s.sisted the lady in a.s.suming an elaborate disguise.

"She drew," we are told, "a pair of large French-fas.h.i.+oned hose or trousers over her petticoats, put on a man's doublet or coat, a peruke such as men wore, whose long locks covered her own ringlets, a black hat, a black coat, russet boots with red tops, and a rapier by her side.

Thus accoutred, the Lady Arabella stole out with a gentleman about three o'clock in the afternoon. She had only proceeded a mile and a half when they stopped at a post-inn, where one of her confederates was waiting with horses; yet she was so sick and faint that the hostler who held her stirrup observed that the gentleman could hardly hold out to London."

But the "gentleman" grew stronger as she proceeded. The exercise of riding gave her new spirit. Her pale face grew rosy; her strength increased; by six o'clock she reached Blackwall, where a boat and servants were waiting. The plot had been well devised and all the necessary preparations made.

The boatmen were bidden to row to Woolwich. This point reached, they were asked to proceed to Gravesend. Then they rowed on to Tilbury. By this time they were fatigued, and landed for rest and refreshment. But the desired goal had not yet been reached, and an offer of higher pay induced them to push on to Lee.

Here the fugitive lady rested till daybreak. The light of morn discovered a French vessel at anchor off the harbor, which was quickly boarded. It had been provided for the escape of the lovers. But Seymour, who had planned to escape from the Tower and meet her here, had not arrived. Arabella was desirous that the vessel should continue at anchor until he appeared. If he should fail to come she did not care to proceed. The land that held her lord was the land in which she wished to dwell, even if they should be parted by fate and forced to live asunder.

This view did not please those who were aiding her escape. They would be pursued, and might be overtaken. Delay was dangerous. In disregard of her wishes, they ordered the captain to put to sea. As events turned out, their haste proved unfortunate for the fair fugitive, and the "cause of woes unnumbered" to the loving pair.

Leaving her to her journey, we must return to the adventures of Seymour.

Prisoner at large, as he was, in the Tower, escape proved not difficult.

A cart had entered the enclosure to bring wood to his apartment. On its departure he followed it through the gates, un.o.bserved by the warder.

His servant was left behind, with orders to keep all visitors from the room, on pretence that his master was laid up with a raging toothache.

Reaching the river, the escaped prisoner found a man in his confidence in waiting with a boat. He was rowed down the stream to Lee, where he expected to find his Arabella in waiting. She was not there, but in the distance was a vessel which he fancied might have her on board. He hired a fisherman to take him out. Hailing the vessel, he inquired its name, and to his grief learned that it was not the French s.h.i.+p which had been hired for the lovers' flight. Fate had separated them. Filled with despair, he took pa.s.sage on a vessel from Newcastle, whose captain was induced, for a fair consideration, to alter his course. In due time he landed in Flanders, free, but alone. He was never to set eyes on Arabella Stuart again.

Meanwhile, the escape of the lady from Highgate had become known, and had aroused almost as much alarm as if some frightful calamity had overtaken the State. Confusion and alarm pervaded the court. The Gunpowder Plot itself hardly shook up the gray heads of King James's cabinet more than did the flight of this pair of parted doves. The wind seemed to waft peril. The minutes seemed fraught with threats. Couriers were despatched in all haste to the neighboring seaports, and hurry everywhere prevailed.

A messenger was sent to the Tower, bidding the lieutenant to guard Seymour with double vigilance. To the surprise of the worthy lieutenant, he discovered that Seymour was not there to be guarded. The bird had flown. Word of this threw King James into a ludicrous state of terror.

He wished to issue a vindictive proclamation, full of hot fulminations, and could scarcely be persuaded by his minister to tone down his foolish utterances. The revised edict was sent off with as much speed as if an enemy's fleet were in the offing, the courier being urged to his utmost despatch, the postmasters aroused to activity by the stirring superscription, "Haste, haste, post-haste! Haste for your life, your life!" One might have thought that a new Norman invasion was threatening the coast, instead of a pair of new-married lovers flying to finish their honey-moon in peace and freedom abroad.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROTTEN ROW. LONDON.]

When news of what had happened reached the family of the Seymours, it threw them into a state of alarm not less than that of the king. They knew what it meant to offend the crown. The progenitor of the family, the Duke of Somerset, had lost his head through some offence to a king, and his descendants had no ambition to be similarly curtailed of their natural proportions. Francis Seymour wrote to his uncle, the Earl of Hertford, then distant from London, telling the story of the flight of his brother and the lady. This letter still exists, and its appearance indicates the terror into which it threw the earl. It reached him at midnight. With it came a summons to attend the privy council. He read it apparently by the light of a taper, and with such agitation that the sheet caught fire. The scorched letter still exists, and is burnt through at the most critical part of its story. The poor old earl learned enough to double his terror, and lost the section that would have alleviated it. He hastened up to London in a state of doubt and fear, not knowing but that he was about to be indicted for high treason.

Meanwhile, what had become of the disconsolate Lady Arabella? The poor bride found herself alone upon the seas, mourning for her lost Seymour, imploring her attendants to delay, straining her eyes in hopes of seeing some boat bearing to her him she so dearly loved. It was in vain. No Seymour appeared. And the delay in her flight proved fatal. The French s.h.i.+p which bore her was overtaken in Calais roads by one of the king's vessels which had been so hastily despatched in pursuit, and the lady was taken on board and brought back, protesting that she cared not what became of her if her dear Seymour should only escape.

The story ends mournfully. The sad-hearted bride was consigned to an imprisonment that preyed heavily upon her. Never very strong, her sorrow and depression of spirits reduced her powers, while, with the hope that she might die the sooner, she refused the aid of physicians. Grief, despair, intense emotion, in time impaired her reason, and at the end of four years of prison life she died, her mind having died before. Rarely has a simple and innocent marriage produced such sad results through the uncalled-for jealousy of kings. The sad romance of the poor Lady Arabella's life was due to the fact that she had an unreasonable woman to deal with in Elizabeth, and a suspicious fool in James. Sound common-sense must say that neither had aught to gain from this persecution of the poor lady, who they were so obstinately determined should end life a maid.

Seymour spent some years abroad, and then was permitted to return to England. His wife was dead; the king had naught to fear. He lived through three successive reigns, distinguis.h.i.+ng himself by his loyalty to James and his two successors, and to the day of his death retaining his warm affection for his first love. He married again, and to the daughter born from this match he gave the name of Arabella Stuart, in token of his undying attachment to the lady of his life's romance.

_LOVE'S KNIGHT-ERRANT._

On the 18th of February, 1623, two young men, Tom and John Smith by name, plainly dressed and attended by one companion in the attire of an upper-servant, rode to the ferry at Gravesend, on the Thames. They wore heavy beards, which did not look altogether natural, and had pulled their hats well down over their foreheads, as if to hide their faces from prying eyes. They seemed a cross between disguised highwaymen and disguised n.o.blemen.

The ancient ferryman looked at them with some suspicion as they entered his boat, asking himself, "What lark is afoot with these young bloods?

There's mischief lurking under those beards."

His suspicions were redoubled when his pa.s.sengers, in arbitrary tones, bade him put them ash.o.r.e below the town, instead of at the usual landing-place. And he became sure that they were great folks bent on mischief when, on landing, one of them handed him a gold-piece for his fare, and rode away without asking for change.

"Aha! my brisk lads, I have you now," he said, with a chuckle. "There's a duel afoot. Those two youngsters are off for the other side of the Channel, to let out some angry blood, and the other goes along as second or surgeon. It's very neat, but the law says nay; and I know my duty. I am not to be bought off with a piece of gold."

Pocketing his golden fare, he hastened to the nearest magistrate, and told his story and his suspicion. The magistrate agreed with him, and at once despatched a post-boy to Rochester, with orders to have the doubtful travellers stopped. Away rode the messenger at haste, on one of the freshest horses to be found in Gravesend stables. But his steed was no match for the thoroughbreds of the suspected wayfarers, and they had left the ancient town of Rochester in the rear long before he reached its skirts.

Rochester pa.s.sed, they rode briskly onward, conversing with the gay freedom of frolicsome youth; when, much to their alarm as it seemed, they saw in the road before them a stately train. It consisted of a carriage that appeared royal in its decorations and in the glittering trappings of its horses, beside which rode two men dressed like n.o.blemen, following whom came a goodly retinue of attendants.

The young wayfarers seemed to recognize the travellers, and drew up to a quick halt, as if in alarm.

"Lewknor and Mainwaring, by all that's unlucky!" said the one known as Tom Smith.

"And a carriage-load of Spanish high mightiness between them; for that's the amba.s.sador on his way to court," answered John Smith. "It's all up with our escapade if they get their eyes on us. We must bolt."

"How and whither?"

"Over the hedge and far away."

Spurring their horses, they broke through the low hedge that bordered the road-side, and galloped at a rapid pace across the fields beyond.

The approaching party viewed this movement with lively suspicion.