In the Shadow of the Throne: The Lady Arabella Stuart

by Ruth Norrington

Book by Norrington, Ruth

Genres: History, British Literature

220 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2002

Reviews

[Marianne Coxon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although straight forward to read, and interesting, some of information given is incorrect which is really annoying because it is so easy to check facts even when the book was written at the beginning of the 21st century. So what are the errors? Bess of Hardwick, Arbella’s grandmother was described by the author as fairly tall, I disagree, she was believed by historians to stand around 5’4” tall - her statue on her tomb at Derby Cathedral gives an indication of her build. In the book the Countess was described as having ash blonde hair, but her portraits show her throughout her life as having red hair. It is possible that the author may have in mind a portrait that I am aware of showing a middle aged female sitter with quite light coloured hair, but this one has been judged to portray Bess’s daughter Mary the 7th Countess of Shrewsbury after the death of the 6th Earl. Her eyes may well have been hazel as they appear so in her portraits. She is described by some historians as having a ruddy complexion which indicates rosacea, but as this aspect doesn’t appear on her portraits as her skin is painted a milky white colour so the ruddy complexion theory cannot be taken as fact. Ms Norrington‘s description of Bess’s character is rather extreme too, was she really so rapacious? Yes she was determined and had had to fight for her rights from very early on in her life. I think she was a strong willed woman in a male dominated society were women were regarded as the property of their husbands and inferior to men. Bess proved she was not inferior to any man.

Arbella’s life was a tragedy of unfulfilled promise and I believe that Bess did the girl a disservice by bringing her up to be a princess of the blood destined for the throne of England which, of course, never came to fruition. Arbella’s death in the Tower was appalling. Life dealt her an extremely poor hand. For all the above, the book is very detailed, especially about Arbella’s ill health. It is believed that Arbella, as did many of the Royal House of Stuart, suffered from distressing condition of porphyria. The illness also had a huge impact on her mental health. Bess was an elderly woman trying to look after and protect a distressed, sick and at times unruly young woman. Arbella had to be protected not only from herself but also the fact of her proximity to the throne made Lady a target for kidnap. It was a very sad situation for both parties. Read the book it’s worth your time and effort, and most of all enjoy it.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting insight into the life of Arbella, however the writer allowed too much personal bias to seep into the pages for my own enjoyment...