of those butterflies, who quiver on the fair flowers of a court, writes
that "My Ladye Arbella spends her time in lecture, reiding, &c., and she
will not hear of marriage. Indirectly there were speaches used in the
recommendation of Count Maurice, who pretendeth to be Duke of Guildres.
I dare not attempt her."[329] Here we find another princely match
proposed. Thus far, to the Lady Arabella, crowns and husbands were like
a fairy banquet seen at moonlight, opening on her sight, impalpable and
vanishing at the moment of approach.

Arabella from certain circumstances was a dependent on the king's
bounty, which flowed very unequally; often reduced to great personal
distress, we find by her letters that "she prayed for present money,
though it should not be annually." I have discovered that James at
length granted her a pension. The royal favours, however, were probably
limited to her good behaviour.[330]

From 1604 to 1608 is a period which forms a blank leaf in the story of
Arabella. In this last year this unfortunate lady had again fallen out
of favour, and, as usual, the cause was mysterious, and not known even
to the writer. Chamberlain, in a letter to Sir Ralph Winwood, mentions
"the Lady Arabella's business, _whatsoever it was_, is ended, and she
restored to her former place and graces. The king gave her a cupboard of
plate, better than 200_l._, for a new year's gift, and 1000 marks to pay
her debts, besides some yearly addition to her maintenance, want being
thought the chiefest cause of her discontentment, though _shee be not
altogether free from suspicion of being collapsed_."[331] Another
mysterious expression, which would seem to allude either to politics or
religion but the fact appears by another writer to have been a discovery
of a new project of marriage without the king's consent. This person of
her choice is not named; and it was to divert her mind from the too
constant object of her thoughts, that James, after a severe reprimand,
had invited her to partake of the festivities of the court in that
season of revelry and reconciliation.

We now approach that event of the Lady Arabella's life which reads like
a romantic fiction: the catastrophe, too, is formed by the Aristotelian
canon; for its misery, its pathos, and its terror even romantic fiction
has not exceeded!

It is probable that the king, from some political motive, had decided
that the Lady Arabella should lead a single life; but such wise purpose