him says that the heavens might have allowed her to close his eyes— and him bed farewell, Sith other offices for mother meet They would not graunt Yet, maulgre them, farewell, my sweetest sweet. There are probably no missing words in the third line, the sentence merely breaking off owing to the allusion being dangerous. If there were, the rhyme would be with "farewell." With this incident, which evidently relates to some legal dispute with the Crown, the story of Florimell is mixed up: The carcas with the streame was carried downe, But th' head fell backeward on the Continent; So mischief fel upon the meaners crowne. They three be dead with shame, the Squire lives with renowne." The meaning is closely hidden; but I think the episode probably refers to the unpopular French marriage, and points to the fact that Ralegh's appearance at Court may, by his engaging the Queen's affections, have done much to prevent it. In that construction the "three fosters would be Charles IX., Anjou (afterwards Henry III.), and Alençon (d. 1584). Proposals of marriage were made at different times by Catherine on behalf of all the three brothers. There is apparently an allusion to these proposals, as regards the two elder, in one of the Partheniades (addressed to the Queen), which the supposed "Puttenham " refers to as his own work: "A constante mynde, a courage chaste and colde, Not Venus brandes nor Cupide can take holde Nor speeche prevayle, teares, plainte, purple, or golde; This wott ye all full well yf I do lye, Kinges, and kinges peeres, who have soughte farr and wye, But all in vayne, to bee her paramoures. Since two Capetts, three Cezaimes assayde, And bidd repulse of the great Britton mayde." I think "Cezaimes" is probably a word formed out of "Caesar" and "aimer," and the reference would be to the marriage proposals of Philip of Spain, the Archduke, and the King of Sweden. (For an account of these poems, see The Arte of English Poesie, 1589, Arber Reprints, 1906, p. 11.) This note, however, is subject to the remarks on the dual character of Timias in Chapter XVII. The writer may, in this incident, be thinking rather of his own prowess in withstanding the French marriage through the letter presented to the Queen by Sir Philip Sidney in 1580, of which I believe Bacon to be the author (see Chapter VII.). See also the remarks about Mother Hubberds Tale in Chapter VI. The tydinges bad, Which now in Faery court all men doe tell, And sudden parture of faire Florimell To find him forth and after her are gone All the brave knightes that doen in armes excell To saveguard her ywandred all alone. (III. viii. 46.) Florimell is a beautiful character. She is first heard of as being pursued by a "foule ill-favoured foster" (III. i. 17 and v. 6), who appears there to represent some one of brutal manners who wished to marry her. She is described as— Also, a gentle Lady of great sway And high accompt throughout all Elfin land. (III. v. 4.) Lives none this day that may with her compare The goodly ornaments of beautie bright; And is ycleped Florimell the fayre, Faire Florimell belov'd of many a knight, Yet she loves none but one, that Marinell is hight. Again, All her delight is set on Marinell, (Ibid. 8.) But he sets nought at all by Florimell. (Ibid. 9.) She has various sorrowful adventures (III. vii. and viii.), which, in viii. 20, are referred to as follows: But Florimell her selfe was far away, Driven to great distresse by fortune straunge, And taught the carefull Mariner to play, Sith late mischaunce had her compeld to chaunge The land for sea, at randon there to raunge: Yett there that cruell Queene avengeresse, Not satisfyde so far her to estraunge From courtly blis and wonted happinesse, Did heape on her new waves of weary wretchednesse. She reappears in Part II., having been imprisoned in a sea-dungeon by Proteus, because she will not yield to his desire: And all this was for love of Marinell Marinell hears her in her sea-prison lamenting his hardness of heart, and, smitten with remorse, falls desperately in love with her. His mother thereupon arranges matters: To Proteus selfe to sew she thought it vaine, But unto great king Neptune selfe did goe, To graunt to her her sonnes life, which his foe, A cruell Tyrant, had presumpteouslie By wicked doome condemn'd a wretched death to die. To whom God Neptune, softly smyling, thus: To none but to the seas sole Soveraine. Read therefore who it is which this hath wrought, And for what cause; the truth discover plaine, For never wight so evill did or thought, But would some rightfull cause pretend, though rightly nought." To whom she answer'd: "Then, it is by name So shall you by one gift save all us three alive." He graunted it and streight his warrant made, Commaunding Proteus straight t' enlarge the mayd, He lately tooke, and sithence kept as thrall. Which she receiving with meete thankefulnesse, Who, reading it with inward loathfulnesse, Was grieved to restore the pledge he did possesse. (IV. xii. 29-32.) The appearance at his home of Florimell restores Marinell, and their wedding takes place, with a great III THE FAERIE QUEENE" 87 contest of knights, at the "Castle of the Strond" (V. ii. 4 and Canto iii.). The conclusion at which I have arrived with regard to this episode, though with much hesitation, is that in Marinell there is an allusion to George Clifford, 3rd Earl of Cumberland, and that in Florimell we have a portrait of his wife, Margaret, youngest daughter of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford. A separate account of both is given in the Dictionary of National Biography. The Earl of Cumberland and Ralegh were the principal representatives of the navigators at the Court, men on whom the Queen depended so largely both for supplies and in her struggle with Spain. Clifford seems to have been a man of valour and endurance in the highest degree. From 1586 to the time of his death in 1605 he was constantly engaged on more or less piratical expeditions, in which he risked his money in association with the Queen, Ralegh, and other "adventurers." He was born in 1558, was the eldest son of Henry, 2nd Earl of Cumberland (16th Lord Clifford and 12th Baron of Westmorland), by his second wife, Anne, daughter of William, 3rd Lord Dacre of Gillesland; he succeeded to the Earldom in 1570 on the death of his father, when he became a ward of the Earl of Bedford, whose youngest daughter, Lady Margaret Russell, he married in 1577. He was in residence at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1571 to 1574, so that he must have met Francis Bacon, as a boy, at the same college. For the rest, Clifford (in the words of the writer of the article above mentioned) "is described as a man of great personal beauty, strong and active, accomplished in all knightly exercises, splendid in dress, and of romantic valour. On the other hand he was a gambler and a spendthrift, a faithless husband, and for several years before his death was separated (owing, apparently, to an intrigue with another lady of the Court) from his wife." 2 1 "Margaret," the mother of Ferdinando Stanley (see p. 65 above), was Clifford's half-sister. 2 There are pictures of both in the National Portrait Gallery, that of the Earl a very striking one, in which he is seen wearing the Queen's glove in his hat. The Countess, his wife, was a sister of Anne, wife of Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick,' and was mother of one daughter, Anne, Countess of Dorset, Pembroke, and Montgomery, who married (1609) Richard Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, afterwards 2nd Earl of Dorset. The daughter was a great builder, and, among other things, erected the monument to Spenser in Westminster Abbey. The writer of the article above mentioned states that she describes her mother as a "woman of greate naturall wit and judgment, of a swete disposition, truly religious and virtuous, and endowed with a large share of those four moral virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance"; and that a manuscript note in a Bodleian copy of Walpole's Noble Authors ascribes to her "some beautiful verses in the stile of Spenser," which are said to appear on a monument of Richard Candish of Suffolk, in Hornsey Church, Middlesex.2 Samuel Daniel was, for a time, the tutor of the daughter. 8 Upton suggests that "perhaps Marinell,' who has his name from the sea, was intended to represent the Lord High Admiral, the Lord Howard"; but "Marinell " is referred to as a youth (IV. xii. 13), and Howard, being born in 1536, was too old for the story; also nothing is known about the relations with his wife (Catherine, daughter of Henry Carey, 1st Lord Hunsdon, first cousin to the Queen) which would justify any analogy. One of Howard's daughters married, in 1587, Sir Richard Leveson, who was apparently much employed in naval commands and became Vice Admiral, but that connection gives no clue. Some connection with the Cinque Ports might possibly be alluded to, of which Lord Cobham was Lord Warden, but there again nothing emerges. I have failed also to make out anything which would apply 1 The "Fowre Hymnes" are dedicated to these two sisters. It may be mentioned that their brother, Lord John Russell (d. 1584), married Bacon's maternal aunt, Elizabeth, fourth daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke. 2 The verses are quoted in Walpole, continued by Park, 1806. I find nothing Spenserian about them. 3 This was the lady, as the Countess of Nottingham, who is said to have intercepted the "ring" sent to the Queen by the Earl of Essex before his execution. The story is discredited by some modern writers. |