years resided in England. Her double relation to royalty was equally, obnoxious to the jealousy of Elizabeth and the timidity of James, and they secretly dreaded the supposed danger of her leav. ing a legitimate offspring. The former, therefore, prevented her from marrying Esme Stuart, her kinsman, and heir to the titles and estates of her family, and afterwards imprisoned her for listen. ing to some overtures from the son of the earl of Northumberland: the latter, by obliging her to reject many splendid offers of marriage, unwarily encouraged the hopes of inferior pretenders. Thus circumscribed, she renewed a childish connection with William Seymour, grandson to the earl of Hertford, which was discovered in 1609; when both parties were summoned to appear before the privy council, and received a severe reprimand. This mode of proceeding produced the very consequence which James meant to avoid; for the lady, sensible that her reputation had

been wounded by this inquiry, was in a manner forced into a marriage; which becoming publicly known in the course of the next spring, she was committed to close custody in the house of sir Thomas Parry, at Lambeth, and Mr. Seymour to the Tower. In this state of separation, however, they concerted means for an escape, which both effected on the same day, June 3, 1611; and Mr. Seymour got safely to Flanders: but the poor, lady was re-taken in Calais road, and imprisoned in the Tower; where the sense of these undeserved oppressions operating too severely on her high spirit, she became a lunatic, and languished in that wretched state, augmented by the horrors of a prison, till her death on the 27th Sept. 1615.

3 See Lodge's Illustrations of British History, 4to. vol. iii. p. 178; Brydges's Peers of the Reign of James the First, vol. i; and Winwood's Memorials.

ON

THE LADY ARABELLA.

How do I thanke thee, Death, and blesse thy power
That I have past the guard, and scaped the Tower!
And now my pardon is my epitaph,

And a small coffin my poore carkasse hath.
For at thy charge both soule and body were
Enlarged at last, secured from hope and feare;
That among saints, this amongst kings is laid,
And what my birth did claim, my death hath paid.

UPON

MISTRIS MALLET,

AN

UNHANDSOME GENTLEWOMAN,

WHO MADE LOVE UNTO HIM.

HAVE I renounc't my faith, or basely so'd
Salvation, and my loyalty, for gold?

Have I some forreigne practice undertooke
By poyson, shott, sharp-knife, or sharper booke
To kill my king? have I betrayd the state
To fire and fury, or some newer fate,
Which learned murderers, those grand destines,
The Jesuites, have nurc'd? if of all these

♦ For this vehement attack upon the weakness of in infatuated woman, the author must be screened under the example of Horace, Ep. 8-and 12,

I guilty am, proceed; I am content
That Mallet take mee for my punishment.
For never sinne was of so high a rate,
But one nights hell with her might expiate.
Although the law with Garnet', and the rest,
Dealt farr more mildly; hanging's but a jest
To this immortall torture. Had shee bin then
In Maryes torrid dayes engend'red, when
Cruelty was witty, and Invention free
Did live by blood, and thrive by crueltye,
Shee would have bin more horrid engines farre
Than fire, or famine, racks, and halters are.
Whether her witt, forme, talke, smile, tire I name,
Eath is a stock of tyranny, and shame;

Bu for her breath, spectatours come not nigh,
That layes about; God blesse the company!

5 Henry Garnet, provincial of the order of Jesuits in Engind, who was arraigned and executed at the west end of St Paul's, for his connivance at, rather than for any active participation in, the Gunpowder Plot, May 3, 1605. See Sate Trials.