Talk:Lady Arbella Stuart

message: I edited the lead section to attempt to summarize the main points of the article. Open to suggestions. Srbsf7 14:29, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
thread_title: Updated Lead section

message: To whom this may concern, Lady Arbella was never "Lady Beauchamp" because her husband's elder brother was still alive at the time and did not in fact die until after the death of Lady Arbella in 1618, three years after.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.240.178 (talk) 04:30, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: I have attempted to tidy up the mess that this article has become. I have added a lot of citation requests. I removed most of the material about Marlowe, keeping only the stuff relevant to Arbella; I will place the rest into the Christopher Marlowe article. I removed the stuff claiming Aemilia Lanier didn't write her poem, which was not supported by any citations and seemed like eccentric original research. The Singing Badger 17:15, 26 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: I am looking for historical proof that Arbella had children by Seymour.
- No historical proof, but speculation that Mary Dyer was the result of their marriage, given off to one of her ladies in waiting (Mary's mother in law). The records and letters passed back and forth show Arabella's medical conditions during the period similar to pregnancy, combined with James I's ambiguous wording about any products of the match not being a threat to his legitimacy. But no historical or incontrovertable proof.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.94.163.36 (talk) 17:42, 6 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Children by Seymour?

message: The article on Arbella Stuart mentions — but does not identify by name — a Duke of Parma, a Pope, a cardinal who was the Pope's brother, as well as the kings of France, Spain and Poland. I want to identify and make links for the Pope, cardinal and kings mentioned in the article.
My sketchy memory of the names of European leaders of the late 16th and early 17th centuries makes me ask these questions:
:Is the King of France Henry IV?
:Is the King of Spain Philip III?
:Is the Pope Clement VIII? Did he have a brother who was a cardinal? Was that cardinal really defrocked in order to marry Arbella Stuart?
:And who are the Duke of Parma and King of Poland mentioned in the article?
I would appreciate someone who knows more about the period to find out and add the appropriate links to the article. Many thanks.
— Diamantina 05:02, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Some of this stuff seems dubious.  The ODNB article on Arbella mentions the Earl of Leicester's son, James VI, and the Duke of Parma's sons as possible suitors, but makes no mention of the Pope's brother or the House of Savoy. john k 15:23, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: According to one of the sources linked, it was the Duke of Parma's younger son who was the cardinal, not any Pope's brother. Str1977 (talk) 20:26, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Identity of monarchs?

message: Please would someone explain the lady's alternative names or spellings? I suppose spelling was simply inexact? I have only heard of her (and indeed the name generally) as Arabella, but I am no historian. Could we have some sources please? Jezza (talk) 19:47, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Arabella Stuart gets >100,000 hits in Google Books, Arbella Stuart just 5000.  In Google Scholar, just under 1500 and 327 respectively. I think this page should be renamed, as Arabella is the more favored form. Agricolae (talk) 02:34, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the more critical point is that Arbella invariably used that spelling herself, although she used both "Stewart" and "Stuart" for her family name. From Blanche Christabel Hardy's Arbella Stuart: a biography (1913) to Sarah Gristwood's Arbella: England's lost queen (2005), Arbella is the form preferred by those most familiar with the subject.  For Arbella's signatures, see Hardy, p. 20. Moonraker2 (talk) 02:58, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The form used by the person is not the standard for Wikipedia nomenclature. Agricolae (talk) 19:25, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: No doubt you are correct in that. If the criterion is simply Google hits, then the commonest form of a name is likely to prevail at Wikipedia, whether it is a correct form or not. In this case, neither is incorrect, but 'Arabella' is really more popular than scholarly. Having said that, Encyclopedia Britannica moved from an article by P. M. Handover called Arbella Stuart in 1957 to one by Ian McInnes called Arabella in 1968. Curiously, the single name seems to have been used in 1968 because McInnes's own preference is for "Lady Arabella Seymour"! Moonraker2 (talk) 20:46, 16 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: At some point, an overwhelming popular usage overrides scholarly usage, but the question is at what point.  How about DNB and ODNB?  What do they use? Agricolae (talk) 20:28, 17 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The DNB article is here. The ODNB has also used Arabella. Moonraker2 (talk) 04:46, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Seeing as the DNB article uses Arabella, I think it behooves us to follow suit and change the article's name to Lady Arabella Stuart.--Jeanne Boleyn (talk) 10:50, 21 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I admit I'm not convinced. There is still a strong use of 'Arbella' in reliable sources, and given the movement of opinion towards "authenticity", which gives us Ælfthryth instead of Elfrida and Cnut the Great instead of Canute, I suspect the trend in this case is probably towards Arbella. Arabella is essentially an 18th century revision. Moonraker2 (talk) 02:21, 22 January 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: This 'authenticity' trend is not stable - the early Scottish kings' names have gone back from the more authentic Gaelic forms to more popular ones (e.g. Mac Bethad is now Macbeth), and various others such as Godwin (not Godwine) and Alfred (not Ælfræd) retain the popular over the more authentic.  Your own example actually mixes the two: Ælfthryth, wife of Edgar (not Eadgar). As to Cnut/Canute, that issue was just re-raised in the Harald I -> Harald Bluetooth rename discussion - it all just shows how there is no consensus for how popular a popular form must be before it trumps authenticity. Agricolae (talk) 07:55, 23 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for Arbella or Arabella, etc? 

message: and  Dougweller (talk) 17:25, 30 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources for court visits 

message: Which Lennox was suggested for her husband in 1588, when she was 13?  The article currently says Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox (1574-1624) (succeeded to the Dukedom in 1583); but we also have an article Esmé Stuart, 2nd Duke of Lennox, which claims that he was the proposed husband.
It's not clear whether the latter is an error for the actual 2nd Duke, ie Ludovic; or whether his younger brother Esmé Stewart, 3rd Duke of Lennox (1579 – 1624) (succeeded briefly to the dukedom in 1624) might have been intended.
At the moment the article cites Sarah Gristwood's Arbella: England's Lost Queen, p. 109: "In 1588 and again the following year King James, frantic for alternatives to the ever-threatened Farnese alliance, suggested that Arbella should marry Ludovic Stuart, son of his first favourite Esmé"
To try to track where the confusion with Esmé may have come from, here are some hits from Google for "Arabella Stuart" with "Esmé Stuart":
* 1911 Britannica (here) said "Lord Esme Stuart, whom [King James VI] had created duke of Lennox" -- but Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox (1542 – 1583), who had been made Duke of Lennox in 1581 by James, was dead, and had been married since 1572, as well as being far older than Arabella.
* The National Trust webpage  includes "Esme Stuart, Duke of Lenox" as one of Arbella's proposed suitors, citing "Miss Bradley's 'Life of Arabella Stuart', 1889".
* Cates (1867), A Dictionary of General Biography, p. 1081: "her cousin, King James, was inclined to marry her to Lord Esmé Stuart, whom he had created Duke of Lennox, and whom, before his marriage, he considered as his heir". 
* Elizabeth Cooper (1866), The Life and Letters of Lady Arabella Stuart. vol 1, p. 118 describes a letter (now in the State Papers) from Robert Bowes to Lord Burghley in 1592, reporting that the "Duke of Lennox ... longeth after Arbella". Cooper seems to misinterpret the Duke in question as Esmé Stewart, 1st Duke of Lennox.
*: (and cf our (rather colourful) bio of Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox for more of Bowes' reporting).
* Leigh Hunt (1843), One Hundred Romances of Real Life, p. 20 "James himself, then unmarried, proposed for the husband of the Lady Arabella one of her cousins, Lord Esme Stuart, whom he had created Duke of Lennox, and designed for his heir."
* (1837), 
(more to follow)  Jheald (talk) 13:30, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Which Lennox in 1588?  Ludovic or Esmé?