ABSTRACT

Arbella Stuart, a great-great-grandchild of Henry VII, shared Katherine’s royal lineage and her unhappy fate. Similarly prevented from marrying, first by Elizabeth and then by James I, Arbella also eventually took matters into her own hands, marrying Katherine and Edward Seymour’s grandson William, he who erected the Salisbury monument. The daughter of Elizabeth Cavendish and Charles Stuart, 6th Earl of Lennox, Arbella was brought up by her formidable maternal grandmother, Elizabeth Countess of Shrewsbury, more commonly referred to as Bess of Hardwick. Although Arbella’s proximity to the throne dramatically receded England had a King with three healthy children, including two sons, her potential marriage continued to be the subject of debate. Food refusal closes the body’s boundaries, creating and claiming an impenetrable sanctuary within the self previously absent from the habitual incursions into Arbella’s personal space integral to life at Hardwick under Bess’s eagle eye.