Edmund Spenser: 1552?-1599

In May 1569, Spenser left school and matriculated as a sizar^ at Pembroke Hall (now Pembroke
College), Cambridge, receiving a further ten shillings from the Nowell bequest to support
him. Although he had to work for his meals and accommodation, and may often have been ill
during his studies, this appears to have been an important and productive time for the
young poet. At Pembroke, Spenser came to know the master John Young, later Bishop of
Rochester, and probably met Lancelot Andrewes, the future Bishop of London and privy
councillor, who had also been at the Merchant Taylors' school. The most important
influence on Spenser during this period, though, was undoubtedly his intimate friendship
with Gabriel Harvey, himself admitted as a Fellow of Pembroke Hall in 1570. While
Spenser's relationship with Harvey was later satirized by fellow students in a play titled
Pedantius, Harvey appears to have introduced Spenser to a number of important connections
and potential patrons, including Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. After taking his B.A.
(1573) and M.A. (1576), Spenser left Cambridge for Kent, where he acted as secretary for
John Young, recently created Bishop of Rochester. It was there that the poet probably
composed The Shepheardes Calender, which seems to represent the Kentish landscape and
certainly refers to Harvey (as Hobbinol), Young (as Roffy), Archbishop of Canterbury
Grindal (as Algrind), and Spenser himself (as Colin Clout); The Shepheardes Calender was
printed in 1579.

Spenser may have been employed by the Earl of Leicester as early as 1577, perhaps carrying
messages to Leicester's brother-in-law Sir Henry Sidney, then Lord Deputy in Ireland; this
speculation is very uncertain, though Spenser claims to have witnessed the execution of
Murrogh O'Brien in July of that year. By spring 1579, at any rate, Spenser had been
accepted into the employment of the Earl of Leicester, and was living in Leicester House
on the Strand. While in Leicester's home and service, Spenser came into contact with Sir
Philip Sidney and Sir Edward Dyer, then young men at the center of an artistic culture in
Elizabeth's court. With several others, including Harvey, Daniel Rogers, and Thomas Drant,
these men seem to have constituted an informal intellectual society called the 'Areopagus',
discussing matters of law, philosophy, and poetry (for Sidney's inclusive, 'architectonic'
theory of poetry among the disciplines, see his Apology for Poetry). It was at this time
that the well-known printer Henry Bynneman put out two short volumes containing letters
exchanged between Spenser and Harvey, letters that discuss trendy intellectual topics of
the day and give a good deal of biographical information about Spenser's new contacts in
London.

Probably through Leicester's influence, Spenser was in July 1580 appointed secretary to
Arthur, fourteenth Lord Grey de Wilton, then leaving England to take up office as Lord
Deputy of Ireland. Arriving shortly thereafter in Dublin, Spenser accompanied Grey on his
famous and tortuous overland march to Munster, where the Lord Deputy's forces besieged,
captured, and executed a much larger and better provisioned Papal and Spanish force in the
Fort d'Oro at Smerwick. In March 1581 Spenser was appointed clerk of the Chancery for
Faculties in Dublin, probably a sinecure post inherited from Lodowick Bryskett, a former
travelling companion of Sidney's. He obtained a lease of Lord Baltinglas's Dublin home in
1582, and in August 1582 leased New Abbey, County Kildare, serving as Commissioner of
Musters for Kildare in May 1583 and July 1584. When the lands of the attainted Earl of
Desmond were set out in plantation in 1586, Spenser was allotted 3,028 acres near
Doneraile, including the old castle at Kilcolman. He seems to have moved to Munster
sometime within the following two years, perhaps in the company of his sister Sarah,
although the royal grant of his estate was not confirmed by fiant until 1591. In June
1588 he inherited, again from Lodowick Bryskett, the post of Clerk of the Council of
Munster, by which time he certainly appears to have been resident near Cork, where the
Council met. Spenser was at this time, and for many years following, involved in
protracted legal wrangles with Maurice Viscount Roche of Fermoy, an Old English neighbor
financially and socially threatened by the incursions of the New English undertakers in
the area. By 1589 at the latest, Spenser appears to have made the acquaintance of Sir
Walter Ralegh, at that time living on his Munster estate and serving as mayor of the city
Yougal. It was Ralegh who, reading through Spenser's draft of The Faerie Queene, encouraged
him to join him on a trip to London in 1590, where he presented the celebrated poet to the
Queen.

Spenser used his time in London to publish the first three books of The Faerie Queene, and
seems to have attempted to secure enough court patronage to make it possible for him to
remain in England. Although the Queen promised him a handsome pension for his labors, her
generosity was questioned and moderated by the intercession of Lord Burghley, whom Spenser
went on to lampoon in Complaints, printed and almost immediately suppressed (or 'called in')
in 1591. Judging from a commentary on the scandal recently discovered in a contemporary
letter, Spenser seems to have returned to Ireland in the early months of 1591 as a direct
result of the offense he had caused to Burghley. Resuming his residence at Kilcolman, the
poet shortly thereafter fell in love with and courted Elizabeth Boyle, daughter of James
Boyle, himself a kinsman of Richard Boyle, later first earl of Cork. On 11th June 1594,
the couple were married, an event celebrated in Spenser's Amoretti and Epithalamion,
published in London in the following year. According to Amoretti 80, the poet had
completed the second instalment (Books IV-VI) of The Faerie Queene shortly before the
marriage, although it was not to be printed until 1596. Spenser returned to London for the
publication of the second half of The Faerie Queene, and probably remained there for
almost a year, living in Essex House (formerly Leicester House) in the Strand as a guest
of the Earl of Essex. It was probably during this stay that he began work on A vewe of
the present state of Irelande, a treatise on the social and political reformation of
Ireland. Shorter works published during this period include Fowre Hymnes and Prothalamion.

By the time that A vewe appeared on the Stationers' Register in April 1598, Spenser was
probably back in Munster, disappointed with his failure, once again, to secure court
favors. By order of the Privy Council, he was in September 1598 appointed Sheriff for
County Cork; the letter of appointment described him as 'a gentleman dwelling in the
county of Cork who is well known unto you all for his good and commendable parts, being
a man endowed with good knowledge and learning, and not unskilful or without experience
in the wars'. His tenure of this post, which itself might well have led to further
elevation, was destined to be short. The 'upstart' Earl of Tyrone, Hugh O'Neill, had
defeated the Queen's army at the Yellow Ford of the Blackwater in August of 1598; by the
following month, all of Munster was in rebellion, and Spenser and his family fled to the
city of Cork for safety. He was shortly thereafter dispatched by the President of Munster,
Sir Thomas Norris, to London with messages for the Privy Council. Arriving late in 1598,
he took up residence in King's Street, and died there, according to Ben Jonson 'for lake
of bread', on a Saturday in January 1599. It is not clear how a poet so well-loved by so
many, an official so highly-regarded by so many, and a man so politically well-connected
to so many, could have died in the fabled penury to which Jonson later testified. Camden
recorded that the Earl of Essex paid for his funeral, and that poets carried his coffin,
throwing their verses and pens, along with many tears, into his grave. His tomb is
situated, appropriately enough, adjacent to that of Geoffrey Chaucer in Westminster Abbey.

Spenser was known to his contemporaries as 'the prince of poets', as great in English as
Virgil in Latin. He left behind him masterful essays in every genre of poetry, from
pastoral and elegy to epithalamion and epic. Although his prose treatise on the
reformation of Ireland was not published until 1633, it showed even then a shrewd
comprehension of the problems facing English government in Ireland, and a capacity for
political office as thorough as his literary ability. Milton was later to claim Spenser
as 'a better teacher than Aquinas', and generations of readers, students, and scholars
have admired him for his subtle use of language, his unbounded imagination, his immense
classical and religious learning, his keen understanding of moral and political
philosophy, and his unerring ability to synthesize and, ultimately, to delight.

Sources: Entries for 'Edmund Spenser' and 'Sir Philip Sidney' in the Dictionary of
National Biography; Alexander Judson, The Life of Edmund Spenser; William Barker,
'Merchant Taylors' School', in A. C. Hamilton, ed., The Spenser Encyclopedia; Willy
Maley, A Spenser Chronology


A Chronology

1552? 	Spenser born, probably to a London family of modest means

1561 	Merchant Taylors' School founded, September. Spenser was probably among the first 
pupils, along with Thomas Kyd, Lancelot Andrewes, and Thomas Lodge

1569 	Spenser matriculates as a sizar^ at Pembroke Hall, May

Jan van der Noot's A theatre for Worldlings, including poems translated from Spenser from
French sources, published in London by Henry Bynneman

1573 	Spenser graduates B.A. from Pembroke, eleventh in a list of one hundred and twenty
students

1576 	Spenser receives M.A., sixty-sixth in a list of seventy

1578 	Spenser serving as secretary to John Young, Bishop of Rochester, in Kent

1579 	Spenser back in London, in the employment of the Earl of Leicester

The Shepheardes Calender entered into the Stationers' Register, December

1580 	Spenser-Harvey correspondence entered into the Stationers' Register, June

Spenser appointed secretary to Arthur, fourteenth Lord Grey de Wilton, upon his departure
from England to become Lord Deputy of Ireland

Grey defeated by O'Byrne at Glenmalure, August

Spenser accompanies Grey on a military expedition to encounter Papal forces at Smerwick

Fort surrenders and 600 captives executed, 9 November. Spenser returns thereafter with Grey
to Dublin, arriving by the end of the year

1581 	Spenser appointed clerk of the Faculties in the Court of Chancery, March

Spenser and Lodowick Bryskett with Grey during negotiations with Turlogh Lynagh O'Neill at
the Blackwater. Spenser subsequently accompanies Grey on an expedition against Baltinglas
and Feagh McHugh

1582 	Lodowick Bryskett later records, in A Discourse of Ciuill Life, that Spenser was
present at a gathering of friends at Bryskett's cottage outside Dublin. Spenser allegedly
asked those present-including Sir Robert Dillon, Warham St. Leger, Thomas Norris, and
Christopher Carleill-to excuse him from Bryskett's request that he treat them to a
discourse on moral philosophy

Sir John Desmond killed and his head sent to Dublin for display, January

Spenser leases New Abbey, County Kildare, August

Grey recalled, Spenser discharged from secretaryship, end of August

1583 	Bryskett receives patent for the Clerkship of Munster. Spenser serves as his deputy

Earl of Desmond killed near Tralee, November

1586 	Articles for the Munser Undertakers drawn up and confirmed by the Queen, June. Most
of the land initially put under the disposition of Sir Walter Ralegh

1587 	Spenser in attendance, as Bryskett's deputy, at meetings of the Munster Council

1588 	Spanish Armada wrecked in a storm off the Irish coast, February

Spenser occupies Kilcolman, perhaps as early as September

1589 	Official confirmation of Spenser's right to Kilcolman and its 3,028 acres, May

The Faerie Queene entered into the Stationers' Register, December

1590 	Spenser writes his 'Letter of the Authors, to Sir Walter Ralegh', January

Spenser obtains royal grant of Kilcolman in fee farm, October

The Faerie Queene, Books I-III, published in London

Complaints entered into Stationers' Register

1591 	Spenser granted a life pension of £50 per annnum by Elizabeth, February

Spenser completes Colin clouts come home againe while at Kilcolman, December

1592 	Publication of Daphnaïda in London, January

Cuthbert Burbie publishes the pseudo-Platonic dialogue Axiochus, the translation of which
is attributed to 'Edw: Spenser'

1593 	Death of Arthur, Lord Grey de Wilton

1594 	Spenser serving as Queen's Justice for County Cork

Spenser marries Elizabeth Boyle, June 11th

Amoretti and Epithalamion entered in Stationers' Register, November

1595 	Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone, proclaimed a traitor

Publication of Amoretti and Epithalamion, Colin clouts come home againe, and Astrophel

1596 	Books IV-VI of The Faerie Queene entered in the Stationers' Register, January

Earl of Essex raids Spanish fleet at Cadiz and sacks the city, June

Fowre Hymnes dedicated from the court at Greenwich

Publication of the first six books of The Faerie Queene, Fowre Hymnes, Prothalamion

1597 	Spenser acquires Renny in south Cork, on behalf of his son Peregrine

Spenser probably completes A vewe of the present state of Irelande sometime this year

1598 	A vewe of the present state of Irelande entered in Stationers' Register, April,
'to be prynted when he do bringe other authoritie'. The authority is presumably not
brought, as the treatise is not published until 1633, in Dublin

Royal forces routed by the Earl of Tyrone at the Yellow Ford, August

Spenser designated Sheriff of Cork, September

Kilcolman sacked, October. Spenser and his family flee to the city of Cork

Spenser leaves Cork for London, carrying messages from Sir THomas Norris to the Privy
Council

1599 	Spenser dies at Westminster, 13th January

Spenser buried in Westminster Abbey, 16th January. Funeral expenses are paid by the Earl
of Essex


*Entire Section taken from Source: http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenser/biography.htm
Thank you Willy Maley and R. Bear.
Click here to read my, somewhat less informative biography.


^sizar: OED -  In the University of Cambridge, and at Trinity College, Dublin, an
undergraduate member admitted under this designation and receiving an allowance from
the college to enable him to study.
  The name probably indicates that the person so admitted received his ‘sizes’ free.
Formerly the sizar performed certain duties now discharged by college servants.