His father, Captain Peter Garrick, who had married Arabella Clough, the daughter of a vicar choral of Lichfield cathedral, was on a recruiting expedition when his famous third son was born at Hereford on the 19th of February 1717.
On account of the descent from Henry VII., the jealousy of Elizabeth had already caused her to imprison Arabella's mother Elizabeth, daughter of Sir William Cavendish, on learning that she had presumed to marry Lennox.
In the same year he married Arabella, daughter of Henry Cavendish, 2nd duke of Newcastle; she died in 1698 and in 1700 he married Anne Churchill, daughter of the famous duke of Marlborough.
BianchiGiovini's biography (1836) is greatly marred by digressions, and is inferior in some respects to that by Arabella Georgina Campbell (1869), which is enriched by numerous references to MSS.
In 1602 the queen's suspicions were increased by the discovery of a plot to marry Arabella to Edward, eldest son of Lord Beauchamp, who as grandson of Edward Seymour, earl of Hertford, and of Lady Catherine Grey (younger sister of Lady Jane Grey), was heir to the throne after Elizabeth according to the will of Henry VIII.