Early Modern Literature in History General Editors: Cedric C. Brown, Professor of English and Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Reading; Andrew Hadfield, Professor of English, University of Sussex, Brighton Advisory Board: Sharon Achinstein, University of Oxford; Donna Hamilton, University of Maryland; Jean Howard, University of Columbia; John Kerrigan, University of Cambridge; Richard McCoy, CUNY; Cathy Shrank, University of Sheffield; Adam Smyth, University of London; Steven Zwicker, Washington University, St Louis. Within the period 1520–1740 this series discusses many kinds of writing, both within and outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theoretical perspectives, but they share a historical awareness and an interest in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive cultures. Titles include: John M. Adrian LOCAL NEGOTIATIONS OF ENGLISH NATIONHOOD, 1570–1680 Robyn Adams and Rosanna Cox DIPLOMACY AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Andrea Brady ENGLISH FUNERARY ELEGY IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Laws in Mourning Jocelyn Catty WRITING RAPE, WRITING WOMEN IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Unbridled Speech Patrick Cheney MARLOWE’S REPUBLICAN AUTHORSHIP Lucan, Liberty, and the Sublime David Coleman DRAMA AND THE SACRAMENTS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND Indelible Characters Katharine A. Craik READING SENSATIONS IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Bruce Danner EDMUND SPENSER’S WAR ON LORD BURGHLEY James Daybell (editor) EARLY MODERN WOMEN’S LETTER-WRITING, 1450–1700 James Daybell and Peter Hinds (editors) MATERIAL READINGS OF EARLY MODERN CULTURE Texts and Social Practices, 1580–1730 Matthew Dimmock and Andrew Hadfield (editors) THE RELIGIONS OF THE BOOK Christian Perceptions, 1400–1660 Tobias Döring PERFORMANCES OF MOURNING IN SHAKESPEAREAN THEATRE AND EARLY MODERN CULTURE Mary Floyd-Wilson and Garrett A. Sullivan Jr. (editors) ENVIRONMENT AND EMBODIMENT IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND Maria Franziska Fahey METAPHOR AND SHAKESPEAREAN DRAMA Unchaste Signification
Kenneth J.E. Graham and Philip D. Collington (editors) SHAKESPEARE AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE Teresa Grant and Barbara Ravelhofer ENGLISH HISTORICAL DRAMA, 1500–1660 Forms Outside the Canon Johanna Harris and Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (editors) THE INTELLECTUAL CULTURE OF PURITAN WOMEN, 1558–1680 Constance Jordan and Karen Cunningham (editors) THE LAW IN SHAKESPEARE Claire Jowitt (editor) PIRATES? THE POLITICS OF PLUNDER, 1550–1650 Gregory Kneidel RETHINKING THE TURN TO RELIGION IN EARLY MODERN ENGLISH LITERATURE Edel Lamb PERFORMING CHILDHOOD IN THE EARLY MODERN THEATRE The Children’s Playing Companies (1599–1613) Katherine R. Larson EARLY MODERN WOMEN IN CONVERSATION Jean-Christopher Mayer SHAKESPEARE’S HYBRID FAITH History, Religion and the Stage Scott L. Newstok QUOTING DEATH IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND The Poetics of Epitaphs Beyond the Tomb Jane Pettegree FOREIGN AND NATIVE ON THE ENGLISH STAGE, 1588–1611 Metaphor and National Identity Fred Schurink (editor) TUDOR TRANSLATION Adrian Streete (editor) EARLY MODERN DRAMA AND THE BIBLE Contexts and Readings, 1570–1625 Marion Wynne-Davies WOMEN WRITERS AND FAMILIAL DISCOURSE IN THE ENGLISH RENAISSANCE Relative Values The series Early Modern Literature in History is published in association with the Early Modern Research Centre at the University of Reading and The Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Sussex
Early Modern Literature in History Series Standing Order ISBN 978–0–333–71472–0 (Hardback) 978–0–333–80321–9 (Paperback) (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and the ISBN quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England
Edmund Spenser’s War on Lord Burghley Bruce Danner
© Bruce Danner 2011 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2011 978-0-230-29903-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2011 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN 978-1-349-33520-6 DOI 10.1057/9780230336674
ISBN 978-0-230-33667-4 (eBook)
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Danner, Bruce, 1967– Edmund Spenser’s War on Lord Burghley / Bruce Danner. p. cm. — (Early modern literature in history) Includes index. 1. Spenser, Edmund, 1552?–1599—Political and social views. 2. Burghley, William Cecil, Baron, 1520–1598. 3. Politics and literature—Great Britain—History—16th century. I. Tilte. II. Series. PR2367.P6D36 2011 821’.3—dc22 2011016889 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
For Deborah, Maggie, Percy, and Stella
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Contents
List of Illustrations
ix
Acknowledgements
x
Abbreviations
xiii
Introduction Spenser’s supposed attack on Burghley in 1579: correcting the record Cui bono? The elusive motive of Spenser’s attack on Burghley Reading ‘the rugged forhead’ The general intention and meaning
1 2 10 17 21
Part I The 1590 Faerie Queene and the Origins of ‘a mighty Peres displeasure’ 1 Lord Burghley and the Oxford Marriage ‘If it were not for his fyckle hed. . .’ ‘The poor solitary countess’ ‘No enemy I have can envy me this match’ 2 The Faerie Queene Dedicatory Sonnets and the Poetics of Misreading Spenser’s connection to Oxford: Thomas Watson Reading the dedicatory sonnets, Version I: Essex–Oxford Reading the dedicatory sonnets, Version II: Burghley–Oxford Misreading The Faerie Queene The silence of Anne Cecil
31 35 38 43 49 50 54 61 66 75
Part II The Complaints and ‘the man . . . of whom the Muse is scorned’ 3 The Ruines of Time and the Rhetoric of Contestation ‘Dardanias light, and Troyans faithfulst hope’ The Ruines’ elusive consistency: contemporary praise and modern criticism vii
85 88 95
viii Contents
The authenticity of contestation ‘A cunning Time-server’
102 116
4 Retrospective Fiction-Making and the ‘secrete’ of the 1591 Virgils Gnat Back to the future: reclaiming 1591 The poetics of backdating Feigning authenticity ‘The secrete of this riddle rare’ ‘The purporte of my evil plight’ And yet the end is gnat
121 121 126 131 134 143 149
5 Mother Hubberds Tale and the Ambivalent Withdrawal from Power The hermit of Theobalds Regnum Cecilianum ‘The Courtier needes must recompenced bee’ Two Elizabethan anachronisms
151 153 159 175 184
Part III After the Complaints 6 The Legacy of the Complaints and the Question of Slander Debating Mother Hubberds Tale: the paradox of slander Metalepsis and the reversibility of slander in the 1596 Faerie Queene
189 189 197
Afterword Reassessing Spenser: from Yeats to Greenblatt Conclusion
207 207 215
Notes
223
Index
258
List of Illustrations
1 ‘Mock Charter’, presented at the Theobalds Entertainment of Queen Elizabeth on 10 May 1591, reprinted with permission from the Elizabethan Club of Yale University 2 ‘Mock Charter’, detail, ‘Enioyning yoou too the enioyment of yoour own hoous’
ix
158 158
Acknowledgements
This book was conceived in the months leading to and following the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. I am grateful for the opportunity to thank the individuals and institutions that made it possible to continue working, writing, and living. Their kindness and generosity made it possible not just to survive the trauma of that experience, but to reshape my life and career for the better. Family and friends provided support (and spare rooms) to bear the brunt of the endless waiting and to cultivate time to read and compose the earliest ideas that led to this argument: David and Virginia Danner, Rena and Donald Lewis, Vera Lichty and John Kalama, and J. Dean Abbott. I am grateful to the English Department of Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY, for its warm and generous welcome to the north, and the opportunity to resume work in the classroom, especially Sarah Goodwin, Linda Simon, Phyllis Roth, Catherine Golden, Michael Marx, Murray Levith, Phil Boschoff, and Jeanne Eddy. Saratoga Springs proved to be a place of healing and renewal, not least for the generous help of Thomas Wilmott in securing us a beautiful home and for the counseling expertise of Selma Nemer. I am also grateful for the help of professional colleagues who have been steadfast in their support, and have given me opportunities to share my research in its formative stages. Gail Paster, David Lee Miller, and Michele Levy have been supportive throughout the years, and generous with their assistance during the most difficult times. Biljana Obradovic has sustained my connection to the life, culture, and scholarly world of New Orleans, and has been a source for everything from laughter, to gin and tonic, to spare clothes. I am grateful to the organizers and participants of the Spenser Sessions at the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, MI, for providing the most collegial of environments in which to present, talk, joke, and catch up on the work of fellow scholars. I owe Rachel Hile a debt of forbearance for organizing a session that I was subsequently unable to attend. I want to thank the x
Acknowledgements
xi
editors of Spenser Studies, Anne Prescott and Bill Oram, for their interest in my Virgils Gnat essay, and to members of the editorial board for their enthusiastic and thoughtful recommendations to my argument. Thanks to David Ramm and AMS Press for permission to reprint material from this article, ‘Retrospective Fiction-making and the “secrete” of the 1591 Virgil’s Gnat’, Spenser Studies: A Renaissance Poetry Annual 25 c 2010 AMS Press, Inc. All rights reserved. (2010): 215–46. Copyright Also sustaining have been the meetings of the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, especially the kind hospitality of Gary Gibbs, and the helpful comments of Carol Kaske. The South Central Modern Language Association and the Newberry Library, Chicago, IL, provided the opportunity for a summer research fellowship for a different project that nevertheless created a fertile environment for this work to be conceived and developed. There, I was able to share in impromptu, but immensely cordial gatherings with fellow Renaissance scholars Alan Hager and Jack Weiner. Most recently I have been blessed to live and work in the North Country of upstate New York, and to share in the creative work of students and colleagues at St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY. I especially wish to thank Sarah Gates, Patricia Alden, Robert Thacker, and Charlotte Ward for their support and collegiality during my time there. The staff and faculty of the English and Communication Department at SUNY Potsdam have been kind and valued neighbors, especially Richard Henry and Lisa Wilson. I have benefited immeasurably from the assistance and institutional holdings of the libraries of Tulane University, the University of South Carolina, the University of Alabama, Skidmore College, St. Lawrence University, and SUNY Potsdam. The Latin expertise of Dan Curley at Skidmore College proved invaluable at an early stage of my work, as has the meticulous proofreading of Deborah Lewis and the secretarial assistance of Laurie Graham at Skidmore and Ainslie Fagan at St. Lawrence. Don and Susan Mesibov have been bastions of local wisdom and good cheer, the best of neighbors. My sincere thanks to Andrew Hadfield, co-editor of the Early Modern Literature in History Series at Palgrave Macmillan, for his commentary and advice in making the project as focused and well-written as it could be. Thanks also to the Palgrave Macmillan production team, including Felicity Plester, Catherine Mitchell, and Jo North, who made the business of the project run so smoothly. I owe a debt of gratitude to my dear late friend Andrew Hannas, who introduced me to the work and life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, who figures so pivotally in the early chapters of this argument. Thanks also to the Elizabethan Club of Yale
xii Acknowledgements
University and its curator, Stephen Parks, for permission to print the beautifully preserved Mock Charter from the Theobalds Entertainment for Queen Elizabeth I, 10 May 1591. My greatest debt of gratitude is to my wife, Deborah, and to our beloved companions Maggie, Percy, and Stella, who patiently abided the long hours of labor over so many years, and made the moments in between richer than words can express.
Abbreviations
Primary texts FQ
Shorter Poems Variorum
YESP
Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, A. C. Hamilton, ed., text edited by Hiroshi Yamashita and Toshiyuki Suzuki (Harlow, UK: Pearson Education, 2001) Edmund Spenser, The Shorter Poems, Richard A. McCabe, ed. (London: Penguin, 1999) The Works of Edmund Spenser: A Variorum Edition, 11 vols., Edwin Greenlaw, Charles Grosvenor Osgood, Frederick Morgan Padelford, Ray Heffner, eds. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1932–57) Edmund Spenser, The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, William A. Oram, Einar Bjorvand, Ronald Bond, et al. eds. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989)
Secondary texts Adversary
Lord Burghley Materializing Space
Mr. Secretary Spenser Allusions
Alan H. Nelson, Monstrous Adversary: the Life of Edward de Vere 17th Earl of Oxford (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003) Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1961) James M. Sutton, Materializing Space at an Early Modern Prodigy House: The Cecils at Theobalds, 1564–1607 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2004) Conyers Read, Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955) William Wells, ed., Spenser Allusions: In the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1972) xiii
xiv Abbreviations
Spenser Encyclopedia Spenser’s Life
A. C. Hamilton, ed., Spenser Encyclopedia (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990) Judith Anderson, Donald Cheney and David A. Richardson, eds. Spenser’s Life and the Subject of Biography (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996)
Spenser’s works Am CCCHA Daph Epith MHT Proth RR RT SC TM VG
Amoretti Colin Clouts Come Home Againe Daphnaïda Epithalamion Prosopopoia, or Mother Hubberds Tale Prothalamion Ruines of Rome The Ruines of Time The Shepheardes Calender Teares of the Muses Virgils Gnat
Unless otherwise indicated, all references to The Faerie Queene are from Hamilton’s edition, cited parenthetically by title abbreviation, book, canto or proem, stanza, and line numbers (e.g. FQ 4.Pr.1.1–4). References to The Faerie Queene paratexts or editorial matter are cited parenthetically by title abbreviation and page number (e.g. FQ 714). All references to Spenser’s shorter poetry are from The Yale Edition of the Shorter Poems of Edmund Spenser, Oram, et al. eds., cited parenthetically by work abbreviation and line number (e.g. RT 190–6), except for passages from The Shepheardes Calender, which are cited by work abbreviation, month, and line number (e.g. SC, ‘October’, 37–48), and from Amoretti, which are cited by work abbreviation, sonnet number, and line number (e.g. Am 80. 1–8). References to the shorter poems’ paratexts or editorial matter are cited parenthetically by edition abbreviation and page number (e.g. YESP 230–1). For ease of identification, William Cecil is typically referred to by his later titles of Lord Burghley and Lord Treasurer, honors that he took on in 1571 and 1572, respectively. Robert Cecil, Burghley’s son, assistant, and the queen’s secretary after 1596, is typically referred to as ‘Cecil’. Chapter arguments and notes are self-contained, with a minimum of cross-referencing. All pre-1800 titles are published in London, unless otherwise indicated. All historical dates are in new style.
