Sir

There is an analogy as well from the relations of father and son, the young Earl of Essex being the stepson of the Earl of Leicester, who had also introduced him at Court. In what follows, the construction, after the manner of oracles, is ambiguous. “His coosen Constantius" might mean Sir Philip Sidney, whose mother was Dudley's sister, and therefore when Dudley married the mother of Essex, he and Philip Sidney became cousins by marriage. In that case "his fathers" would mean the father of Constantius, and "the crowne that was his fathers right" the governorship of Ireland, Sir Henry Sidney having been known as the " King of Ireland," and having looked forward to his son Philip succeeding him in the government of that country. Philip Sidney's death in 1586 put an end to these hopes; therefore the transfer of rule to Essex would be "without dread," that is, without offence. But political considerations, as well as the construction itself, point rather to "his fathers" meaning the father of the new favourite, namely Leicester, and, in that case, "his coosen Constantius" must mean James of Scotland (whose cousin Essex would become by marrying the Queen), and "the crowne that was his fathers right" would mean the Crown of England, which Leicester had narrowly missed securing. Written, as this passage evidently was, in 1588-89, it indicates the far-reaching and ambitious thoughts in the author's mind. If Essex had had more judgment, he might possibly have succeeded Elizabeth, not only without much opposition, but with popular acclamation, so strong was the feeling among many against an alien sovereign.1 The heraldic allusion to Leicester as the "a Lyon" (cf. p. 27, above) in stanza 30 is additional evidence that there has been an interpolation.

A double allusion might possibly be intended in a later stanza in Merlin's prophecy :

For the popu

1 Compare, for example, Donne, Satire vii. 103 to end. larity of Essex with the Londoners, Shakespeare, Henry V. and Richard II., and two street ballads in the British Museum (Roxburghe Coll.), written after his execution, are good evidence.

Tho, when the terme is full accomplishid,

There shall a sparke of fire, which hath long while
Bene in his ashes raked up and hid,

Bee freshly kindled in the fruitfull Ile

Of Mona, where it lurked in exile;

Which shall breake forth into bright burning flame,
And reach into the house that beares the stile

Of roiall majesty and soveraine name:

So shall the Briton blood their crowne agayn reclame.

Upton explains this by the accession of Henry of Richmond (Henry VII.): "Henry descended from the Tudors was born in Mona, now called Anglesey." This is the obvious meaning, but the words might also be made to apply to Ferdinando Stanley's right to the succession to the English Crown through his mother Margaret, granddaughter to Mary of France, the younger sister of Henry VIII., who married (secondly) Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The Earls of Derby were Lords of Man, having obtained it by grant from the Crown in 1406. The passage embodies the theory (very popular in England) of the Briton origin from Brute of Troy. Anglesey ("Mona Caesaris "), the home of the Druids, was the island where, according to Tacitus, the Britons made their last stand against the Romans, and "Mona" is said to be the ancient name of that island; but Holinshed says it is the name for Man, and the author may have had the significance in mind.1 Ferdinando Stanley succeeded his father as 5th Earl of Derby in 1593. He was apparently a man of splendid tastes, and maintained a company of players (known as "Lord Strange's company "). He is celebrated by Spenser as "Amyntas," and his wife, Alice, daughter of Sir John Spencer of Althorp, as "Amaryllis." 2 He is also eulogised by Nashe under the same name in a passage on which this stanza of Spenser perhaps throws light. Nashe, in a book of a fantastic character called

1 On further consideration I do not think this probable, but I have let the paragraph stand as originally written, because I wish to draw attention to the passage in Nashe which follows.

2 This lady lived into Milton's time, and her name is connected with his "Arcades" and "Comus."

F

Pierce Penilesse his Supplication to the Divell, published in 1592, affects to wonder how Spenser could have forgotten to include a sonnet for him in the catalogue of sonnets to various noblemen, etc., annexed to "thy famous Fairie Queene," and proceeds to supply one of his own, which "long since I happened to frame." In this passage

he refers to Stanley's "farre derived discent," and describes him as "the matchless Image of Honor, and magnificent rewarder of vertue, Ioues eagle-borne Ganimed, thrice noble Amintas"; and adds, “None but Desert should sit in Fames grace, none but Hector be remembered in the chronicles of Prowesse, none but thou, most courteous Amyntas, be the seconde musical argument of the knight of the Red-crosse." The first "musical argument of the Faerie Queene (which, it will be noticed, seems to be here attributed to the Redcrosse Knight as the author of it) is, no doubt, Queen Elizabeth. Stanley could only appropriately be made the "second," if the poet had in mind the possibility of his succeeding to the Crown. But why should Nashe have "put in his oar" in such a delicate matter? There is a point to notice in connection with this, that Spenser's poem (Colin Clouts Come Home Again), which refers to Stanley under the name of "Amyntas," did not appear till 1595, though it purports to have been sent over from Ireland to Ralegh in a letter dated "From my house of Kilcolman, the 27 of December 1591." But the poem could not have contained the reference to "Amyntas" then, because it refers to him as dead, and Stanley's death occurred in 1594. Spenser is supposed to have returned to Ireland early in 1591, and not to have returned to England till the close of 1595. It is to be noted as a curious fact that Nashe, writing in London in 1592, should have used this name in the same connection.

Further evidence of the identity of the Earl of Leicester with "Arthegall," before the transformation of the character, is to be found in the following passages in Canto ii. of Book III.-"the noble Arthegall" (9); his prowesse paragone" (13); "portly his person was " (24);

the whole description perfectly tallying with Dudley at that age.1 Upton suggested that "His crest was covered with a couchant Hownd" (25) meant the "GRAY-hound," and I think he was right, though it did not occur to him that the object was to divert the very obvious allusions to Leicester in the preceding stanzas from him to Lord Grey. The writer, who follows generally Geoffrey of Monmouth's pretended History, has invented "Arthegall" as a half-brother (by implication) of Arthur, with whom he is used interchangeably; and I feel sure he got the suggestion, not by anagram, as is supposed, from Arthur Lord Grey, but from " Arthgallo," brother of Gorbonian, “a most just king," and himself (after afflictions) a ruler “who exercised strict justice towards all men." But the name happened also to suit Lord Grey, and so serve for concealment. Confirmation of this is found in the way in which "Arthgallo," in his proper place in the succession, has been altered (to avoid confusion) to "Archigald" (II. x. 44).

Additional evidence of a decisive character of the identity of Essex with "Arthegall" at the time when the first three books were published appears in Book II. Canto ix. 6:

And in her favor high bee reckoned,

As Arthegall and Sophy now beene honoured.

Compare Bacon's "Discourse in Praise of the Queen," written, as is supposed, for a Court device in 1591 or 1592: "What shall I say of the great storm of a mighty invasion, not of preparation, but in act, by the Turk upon the King of Poland, lately dissipated only by the beams of her reputation, which with the Grand Signor is greater than that of all the states of Europe put together." On

1 Cf. the following description of Leicester (as I believe, from personal knowledge—see Chapter VII.) in "Leicester's Ghost":

"My brain had wit, my tongue was eloquent,

Fit to discourse or tell a courtly tale ;

My presence portly, brave, magnificent,
My words imperious, stout, substantiall;

My gestures loving, kind, heroicall;

My thoughts ambitious, proud, and full of ire,

My deeds were good and bad, as times require."

2 G. of M., Hist. Brit. iii. 16, 17. Holinshed calls him "Archigallus."

which Spedding quotes a letter from William Cecil, Burghley's grandson, to Lord Talbot, 23rd October 1590, in which it is stated that the Turk withdrew his forces only for her Majesty's sake." And "the Turk himself hath written to her Majesty letters with most great titles, assuring her that if she would write her letters to him to require him, he will make the King of Spain humble himself to her." In the same paragraph in Bacon's " Discourse," dealing with the Queen's "merit of her neighbours and the states about her," reference is clearly made to the employment of Essex in assisting Henry IV. in France in 1591, and he is described under the phrase "one that she favoureth most."1

This expedition is one of the episodes in Book V. of the Faerie Queene, and in it further proof is found that Arthegal is intended to represent Essex. The author is dealing with Elizabeth's "justice," and, going back in history, he displays, under the figure of Prince Arthur (who represents here, generally, the pride and power of England, with an allusion in the "particular" perhaps to Sir John Norris 2 and, in the later history, to Leicester), her succour of the Netherlands in their struggle against Spain and the Inquisition (Cantos x. and xi.). At stanza 36 of Canto xi. he turns" to the noble Artegall," and begins the Irish episode. At stanza 43, however, he breaks off to celebrate the assistance rendered by Elizabeth to Henry of Navarre in his wars against the Catholic League. Essex was the leader of the expedition (1591), and is therefore Arthegal. "Burbon " (49) is, of course, Henry, and the Lady "Flourdelis " is the French Crown. The shield which Burbon received from the Redcrosse Knight is the Protestant faith, and his changing it for another is an allusion to his formal acceptance of Catholicism by hearing mass at St. Denis in July 1593. A letter to him from Elizabeth survives showing (if it is a genuine expression of her feelings, as presumably it is) that she was much upset by the 1 Spedding, Life, i. 135.

2 In the sonnet to Norris, among those prefixed to the first three books, the writer says he has "eternized your name." I can find no other clear evidence of this, but he may be among the "three brethren" in IV. ii. 45 sq.