So may your princess of the blood grow a great
queen, and then we shall be safe from _the danger of missuperscribing
letters_."[328] This last passage seems to allude to something. What is
meant by "the danger of missuperscribing letters?"
If this royal offer were ever made, it was certainly forbidden. Can we
imagine the refusal to have come from the lady, who, we shall see, seven
years afterwards, complained that the king had neglected her, in not
providing her with a suitable match? It was at this very time that one
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.
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