Arabella Stuart: A Romance from English History

"Not see me?" exclaimed George Brooke, with a flushed cheek and a flashing eye. "Not see me, for reasons I will know! Body of Satan! but the lady is courteous. Pray tell her, ma...

It was a fine clear morning in September, when, mounted on a powerful horse, and quite alone, William Seymour began his journey towards Buckinghamshire. Seldom were more joyful...

It was a bright and beautiful day upon the whole; though, from time to time, over the deep blue sky, and through the sunshiny air, came some large pelting drops of rain, though...

On the confines of Hampshire and Wiltshire, at the distance of about twenty miles from Salisbury, was a good house belonging formerly to the Dowager Countess of Lennox, surround...

Who has not heard of the masque at Theobalds--perhaps the most disgraceful scene that ever took place in an English court? and yet it is into the midst of that extraordinary spe...

It was the afternoon of a bright summer day, and a grand tilting match had been held on a piece of ground adjoining the park at St. James's. All the world of the Capital had bee...

"All as we could wish, all as we could wish!" cried Rochester, entering a room in Northampton House, in which the Countess of Essex sat with her mother, Lady Suffolk. "We have t...

Neither good soldier nor good man was ever without love for his horse, if he had one; and the reader may have already divined, from certain words let fall by good Sir Harry West...

The old hall was warm and comfortable; the great, wide, open hearth displayed some half-dozen logs of blazing wood; and the fitful flame of the fire, outshining the two candles...

In a house not far from the Strand, there was a dark room, of somewhat large dimensions, lined with small square panels of black oak. The mantelpiece was of the same wood, richl...

There was a large fire blazing in the wide, open chimney of a little village inn, although it was, as we have said, the month of May, and the temperature during the day had been...

"Indeed, lady," replied the maid, with a manner so much less earnest than Arabella's own feelings, that it seemed to her harsh and cold, "Indeed, lady, I am sorry to hear that;...

We must now return for a time to the party which we left upon Tower-Hill. The warder and Sir Harry West walked on talking together, with poor Ida Mara keeping close to the Knigh...

Shakespeare assured his hearers, in the age of which we are now writing, "the course of true love never did run smooth," and the assertion is certainly as true as a proverb. Whe...

With shouts, and jests, and laughter of no very courtly and dignified a sort, the royal party came up to the terrace; and James and his favourite, with a number of attendants, m...

"I must see the King, Master Graves," said William Seymour, on the afternoon of the day, some of the events of which we have just recorded, "and that immediately, if it be possi...

Never did human being, in a world of woe, strive with more patient perseverance for contentment with his lot than did poor Arabella Seymour. She called to her aid all the resour...

We must once more introduce the reader into that school for idle speculation, the ante-chamber of a palace, where four young men were sitting, amusing themselves at the expense...

The recital of the adventure which had just taken place in the streets of Newark, and the apprehension of Slingsby, may well be supposed to have produced considerable excitement...

We must now return to pursue the homeward course of Sir Griffin Markham, as he proceeded from the Tower of London to his little lodgings, in one of the streets at the back of Pe...

Sir Thomas Overbury proceeded from the presence of the King, to give those orders which were to make two happy hearts cold, two noble and amiable beings wretched. Perhaps he fel...

It may be doubted whether Arabella Stuart would have played her part well, in feigning apprehensions that she did not experience, regarding the plague which was then raging in L...

"Now shall you see Sir Thomas Overbury, with pink roses in his shoes, a rapier fit for a Castilian Don, mustachios curling to the moon, and a beard of the most approved cut!" ex...

In the times of our Sovereign Lord, His Sacred Majesty King James I., of happy memory, that peculiar district of the world called Lambeth was in a very different state and condi...

We must now accompany George Brooke on his way, not, indeed, stopping to trace all his proceedings, but merely stating that the time thrown away in consequence of his meeting wi...

It is a strange and terrible ordination that the vices and passions, the follies and prejudices, the wickedness and the iniquity of man, which run in threads through the whole w...

Such, then, as we have seen in the last chapter, was the termination of the conspiracy in which the name of Arabella Stuart was employed by bad men, for their own purposes, with...

One half the world does not know how the other half live, is an old English proverb, and a true one; but there is something more to be said upon the subject than even that,--not...

We must now hurry the reader from the gay capital to a small hunting seat at Royston, in which the King took peculiar delight, on account of the woods and wild forest scenery in...

There was a small, old-fashioned, red brick house, situated just upon the verge of Cambridgeshire, not in the least peculiar in its aspect, and yet deserving a description. The...

Ida Mara sat by the bedside of Arabella during the whole of that night, and a sad and terrible night it was. Her mind, agitated and worn with her own cares, had given way at the...

There is something very curious in the great difference of feeling with which we contemplate scenes of sorrow and those of vice. It might be naturally supposed, that in the grie...

The morning meal was over at the house of Mr. Conyers; and the Lady Arabella, rising from the table, approached one of the windows which stood open, and gazed out upon the green...

There had been a good deal of bustle and confusion in the Tower during the morning, three days after the events which we have related in the last chapter. Two persons, bearing t...

Although duty and propriety, and a number of other considerations, should lead us to follow the messenger of Sir Harry West to the busy and bustling scene which was taking place...

On the morning of a rough and stormy day, a fishing boat, of a large and heavy build, and filled principally with Frenchmen, touched the low beach of the Kentish coast, at the d...

In the great drawing-room of Lord Pembroke's house at Wilton sat the King and Queen of England, offering a strange contrast to each other, both in person and manners; she, in th...

As with the ancient walls of palaces and halls, as with the dungeon and the court of law--so with the old hawthorn tree of the wide chase, the yew tree of the churchyard, or the...

The reader does not require to be informed, that the aspect of London in those days was very different from that which it shows at present. The great fire had not yet swept away...

Weeks, months, and years passed away like a tale that is told; and on their passing we shall not pause, dear reader, for to say truth we should have little to relate, which in a...

One wing of the old palace in the Tower, which has long since been swept away, was, at this time, when the King's general residence was at Whitehall, given up to those prisoners...

We must now turn to the events which were taking place in the City of London on the same day, but a little before the hour at which the Lady Arabella made her escape from the ho...

With a pale check, and a faint heart, and limbs from which all strength seemed gone, Arabella followed the Queen when she rose, and with slow steps accompanied Anne of Denmark t...

There was a grand pageant at the Court, on some one of those many occasions which, in that day, afforded the excuse for revelling and merriment, not of the most refined and inte...

With a pale face, and trembling limbs, Arabella entered the apartments of the Countess of Shrewsbury, and, unable to speak, in her alarm she laid Sir Thomas Overbury's note upon...

The funeral of Arabella was over; and her grave was made, amongst the mighty of the land, in the Abbey of Westminster. Two months had passed; and Ida Mara, in deep mourning, sat...