David:
One reason that Grey figures so prominently in Spenser's work belatedly is
the same reason that Spenser is still praising Leicester in Prothalamion...
his patronage network is simply riddled with dead ends. Essex is clearly
not a substitute for Leicester in that late poem. It seems that Spenser's
connections with Ralegh made that avenue untenable. The 1596 Faerie Queene
also reveals a Spenser stinging from Burghley's disapproval, and the scorn
handed back to the Lord Treasurer in return suggests another indirect
motive of his defense of Grey. Burghley may have been only the Queen's
instrument in Grey's recall from Ireland in 1582, but Grey is on record
that Burghley was "against" him at this time, and Spenser was penning a
large part of this correspondence. In later years Grey and Burghley were
cooperative and cordial, but Spenser's connections with Grey were long over
by that time. He likely resented Burghley's influence in Grey's downfall.
Bruce Danner
> [Original Message]
> From: Reid Robert L. <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: 12/12/2007 11:39:06 AM
> Subject: Re: Spenser & Grey
>
> Wonderful discussion list. My Christmas-&-Season-of-Lights thanks to
> those who raise such helpful queries and to those who answer them.
> R.Reid
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of THOMAS HERRON
> Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 6:19 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Spenser & Grey
>
> 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
> >
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
