‘I must shape my own coat according to my cloth, but it shall not be after the fashion of this world, but fit for me’

Niece to Mary, Queen of Scots, granddaughter to the great Tudor dynast Bess of Hardwick, Lady Arbella Stuart was born and bred in the belief that she would one day inherit her cousin Elizabeth I's throne. Many at home and abroad anticipated she would be crowned Queen. However Arbella's fate was to make a forbidden marriage, to die a lonely, squalid death in the Tower and to be written out of history.

Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, including Arbella’s own extraordinary, passionate letters, Sarah Gristwood’s acclaimed biography paints a vivid and powerful portrait of a woman forced to tread a precarious path through one of the most turbulent, treacherous periods in British history, and in so doing rescues this ‘lost queen’ from obscurity.