Hi David -- I can see from across the hall that you're not in your office,
so I'll state here that a good starting point is the chapter on Grey and FQ
I in Richard McCabe's book, *Spenser's Monstrous Regiment*, as well as the
article by Zurcher and Burlinson in *The Library* on Spenser and Grey's
relationship in the early Dublin years.  I'm eager to hear what they might
say here.  Willy Maley also has much to contribute in his monograph on Sp
and the role of the Lord Deputy, and suggests (with others) that Sp's Arthur
is partly modeled on Arthur, Lord Grey.  This raises interesting
possibilities for FQ.

To whit, politically speaking:

Grey is to Sp and the New English what Reagan is to the Republicans today:
a mystified hard-line reformer of the corrupted commonwealth by which to
judge present reformers, at the very time (late 1580s and early 1590s) when
the Queen had let the powers of martial law lapse, thanks to pressure from
the more moderate earl of Ormond, other Old English lords, and their
sometime-ally Burleigh, and to the detriment of localized New English
planter power.  [On Sp's View as a product of these martial law debates, see
historian David Edwards' article in Hiram Morgan (ed), *Political Ideology
in Early Modern Ireland, 1541-1641* (Four Courts Press 1999)]

Simultaneously, in real terms, just as Reagan put many of the current
middle-aged Republicans on the bench and/or in bureaucratic positions of
power, Grey was the patron who directly gave Sp benefits in Ireland, some of
which were lasting and ongoing (including his rental property in Dublin, a
result of the 1580 Baltinglass rebellion there; it was bestowed upon Sp by
Grey, just as other properties were upon other favorites of Grey, to some
controversy).  Spenser's involvement in Dublin did not end in 1582:  he
addresses letters from Dublin in 1584 and dates his sonnet to Harvey from
there 1586.  How long did he hold the Dublin property?

Also, as your quotation suggests, the way to advertise yourself to future
employers as being loyal is to pronounce publicly one's fervent loyalty to
past employers:  ergo, Sp after his years as G's secretary would remain
involved in the Irish civil service in the 1580s and 90s... If you accept
Irenius' account of the Smerwick massacre as Sp's own, then Sp is
advertising that he went through thick and thin with Grey, including war ("I
was in the Greatest Generation that beat the Antichrist!"), and so deserves
what he got subsequently at Grey's hands.  Indeed Sp was nominated Sheriff
of Cork in 1598:  presto!  a job that would presumably have given him
authority of martial law over the locals and in favor of the New English
planters had he taken it (giving him use of Artegall's sword and flail).
From one POV, Sp getting this job meant that the Republican/New English wing
of the Elizabethan court won out and his continued advocacy of Grey and
Grey's methods did him no harm.

Artistically speaking (which is invariably intertwined with the political):

Sp in the Ded Sonnets calls Grey the "patrone of my Muses pupillage", and so
his art is always an extension in whatever inspirational or causal way of
the sunny source --his Maecenas-- who first planted him in Ireland and gave
him one key purpose (as I see it) of writing FQ in the first place:  don't
forget too that Grey is praised by Bryskett in savior-like terms in the
Discourse of Civil Life (pub 1606!  What does Bryskett have to gain by
praising Grey at this late date?  Has B got his eye on the Ulster
plantation?), wherein we first hear of Spenser's masterplan for the epic
(assuming Bryskett wrote the work from Dublin ca. 1580).  So not only SP is
keeping Grey's spirit alive in literature but Bryskett is keeping Grey's and
Sp's spirit alive together in literature.  A question to add to yours is
"what is the latest date that Grey is mentioned as avatar for Irish policy?"
 
In related terms, another Arthur, Prince Arthur, who can be read as a
reflection of Arthur, Lord Grey, as well as the "magnificke" second earl of
Essex, etc., is the virtuous, "magnificent" ideal or summation and in some
ways the divine inspiration behind and help for many of the successive
heroes in FQ.  By analogy (and/or allegory), the militant Protestant spirit
of Grey is the motor behind the virtuous effort of FQ and as long as the
poem continues, so will Grey's involvement in it: either as Arthur and/or as
Artegall (the "equal of Art"), in 1590 and 1596.

(NB:  why is Timias, aka Raleigh elsewhere, Arthur's squire in BK I?  Is it
b/c Raleigh first came over as a soldier of Grey to Ireland?  I would think
so, in part b/c James Bednarz argues for Timias as Raleigh during his Irish
service in Bk III; if in BK III, might not Timias figure as Raleigh in Bk I
as well?).

--Thomas "Ireland on my mind" Herron


On 12/8/07 10:33 AM, "David Wilson-Okamura" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> This morning I read something Chesterton's Father Brown stories which
> made me think of Spenser: "[The young man] was ambitious, and had no
> intention of continuing indefinitely to be private secretary to anybody.
> But he was also reasonable, and he knew that the best way of ceasing to
> be a secretary was to be a good secretary..."
> 
> The question I have been pondering for several months, and which this
> quotation brought back to me, is why does Lord Grey loom so large in our
> image of Spenser, when they were only together for two years (out of
> almost twenty that Spenser lived in Ireland)? The effect is similar to a
> perspective painting, where the object that is closest to us looks
> larger than the objects farther away, even when they are bigger.
> 
> Why does this happen? Why is Grey, even after a lapse of long years,
> still the object in Spenser's foreground? Surely by the 1590s he would
> have nearer concerns. Or does he? Is Spenser, like an old general, still
> fighting the last war? Or does the last war (meaning here, Grey's
> two-year term of office) provide Spenser with a paradigm for
> understanding the events of the early 1590s?
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Dr. David Wilson-Okamura    http://virgil.org          [log in to unmask]
> English Department          Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
> East Carolina University    Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------