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The Mutability Cantos and the Succession

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Mary K. Woodworth
Mary K. Woodworth*
Affiliation:
Bryn Mawr College
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Extract

Possibly none of the “dark conceits” woven into the fabric of Spenser's allegory appear so impenetrable to modern eyes as the topical allusions. They were obscure in the sixteenth century, but served in consequence to catch immediate attention and interest. Today, when clues are difficult to recognize, when modern readers lack the easy familiarity with everyday events and personalities which Spenser took for granted in his public, much of the topical meaning of the Faerie Queene has been lost. Occasionally, however, some of the allusions are recognized and the range of meaning in the poem is thereby extended. It has been observed recently that the Mutability cantos may refer to the problem of the succession. If a fairly convincing case could be made for this suggestion, it would be possible to appreciate anew how Spenser delighted his readers by adroit reference to topics forbidden in open debate. The following discussion is offered not as proof, but rather as a suggestion with enough likelihood to call for consideration.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 59 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1944 , pp. 985 - 1002
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1944

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References

1 The Works of Edmund Spenser, a variorum edition, vi (Baltimore, 1938), p. 299.

2 vii. vi. 8.

3 vii. vi. 10 ff.

4 vii. vi. 26.

5 A Conference about the Next Succession, by R. Dolman (Robert Parsons), (1594), had been smuggled into England after publication abroad. There were several replies to it, among them, P. Wentworth's Treatise … Concerning the Person of the True and Lawfull Successor (1598) and Sir J. Harington's Tract on the Succession to the Crown (MS. dated 1602, first published 1880).

6 His last imprisonment was 1593–97. Cf. J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth, 316–318.

7 Cf. genealogical table.

8 Winwood, Ralph. Memorials (London, 1725), i, 3.

9 Tract on the Succession to the Crown, p. 38.

10 Her father died in 1576, her mother in 1582, and her grandmother, the countess of Lennox, in 1578.

11 Bess of Hardwick, 1518–1608, was married four times: first, at the age of fourteen, to Robert Barlow; in 1549 to Sir William Cavendish; next, to Sir William St. Loe; finally, in 1567–68 to George Talbot, the earl of Shrewsbury. She was celebrated for her wit and beauty, for her shrewdness in contracting wealthy marriages both for herself and her children, and for her enterprise in building great houses such as Chatsworth, Worksop, and Hardwick.

12 Referred to Cal. Stale Papers, Domestic, 1581–1590, p. 53.

13 A. Labanoff, Lettres, Instructions, et Memoires de Marie Stuart (1844), v, 2 May, 1578.

14 Ibid., v, 21 March, 1584.

15 Mendoza reported in 1582 that Leicester “was on the look-out to marry his son to Arabella Stuart.” Cal. State Papers, Spanish, 1580–86, p. 426.

16 Hist. MSS. Com., 3rd report (1872), p. 42.

17 Quoted by B. C. Hardy, Arabella Stuart (1913), p. 1.

18 Edinburgh Review, clxxxiv, 483 ff.

19 Gilbert, son of the earl who died 1890.

20 Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1591–94, p. 342.

21 Ibid., passim.

22 ii, 70.

23 Hist. MSS. Com., Salisbury Papers, xiv, 17–18.

24 There are three principal accounts of the 1602 plot: Hist. MSS. Com., Salisbury Papers, xii, 583 ff.; Edinburgh Rev., cxxxxiv, 483–513; E. T. Bradley, Life of the Lady Arabella Stuart (1889).

25 Hist. MSS. Com., Salisbury Papers, xii, 583.

26 Ibid., 595.

27 Ibid., 605.

28 Hist. MSS. Com., Salisbury Papers, xiv, 252.

29 Hist. MSS. Com., Salisbury Papers, xii, 624.

30 Ibid., 682.

31 Ibid., 691.

32 Ibid., 692.

33 Ibid., 693.

34 Cai. State Papers, Venetian, 1592–1603, p. 562. Cf. pp. 552–569.

35 The Complete Peerage (1926), vi, 505.

36 Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1595–97, pp. 236–252. E. P. Cheney, History of England, ii, 30–32.

37 Ibid., and Cal. State Papers, Dom. Add., 1580–1625, pp. 407–410. Cf. also letter of Beauchamp to his wife from prison, Brit. Mus., Lansdowne MS. 109:43.

38 Cal. State Papers, Dom., 1595–97, p. 446.

39 Harington, op. cit., 43.

40 vii. vi. 26.

41 vii. vi. 27.

42 vii. vi. 11–12.

43 vii. vi. 13.

44 vii. vi. 21.

45 vii. vi. 23.

46 vii. vi. 24.

47 vii. vi. 29.

48 vii. vi. 32.

49 Report of Barnes, Cal. State Papers, Dom., Add., 1580–1625, p. 269.

50 vii. vi. 33.

51 vii. vi. 36.

52 At Hatfield House there is a portrait of Elizabeth as Diana.

53 A letter addressed to the Queen by Henry Howard contains a passage in which this connection is made. “I meddle not with hidden mysteries of your politic estate, because I know to whom those secrets appertain, and besides the poets make report what became of Acteon for pursuing the cry of his whole kennel into the arbors of Diana's grove, and of Pan for peeping privily into the temple of the Muses.

“To begin with it which seemed very strange I may well remember, though my years at that time were not very ripe, nor apt to judge, in what deep debts you found the crown entangled when your highness as next lawful and undoubted heir to the queen your sister of honorable memorie in despight of all the libellers that not long before attempted to forstall your title, and to discredit your demand, were advanced to the government.” Brit. Mus., Lansdowne MS. 813, 9d.

E. C. Wilson in England's Eliza (1939) devotes a chapter to Elizabeth as Diana. He suggests that, whenever the Queen was represented as Diana, médiéval ideology was blended with pagan myth so that Elizabeth was exalted as the virgin queen. In the passage quoted above, however, the pagan myth is dominant.

54 Cf. the ballad, An excellent and most pleasant new sonnet, shewing how the goddess Diana transform'd Acteon into the shape of a hart. Brit. Mus., Bagford Ballads, C. 40. m. 10, fol. 9.

55 Bess of Hardwick had built her magnificent hall on regal scale and decorated it elaborately with the motif of the hart. See Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, xvi, 1 ff.; xxv, 148 ff. Archaeologia, lxiv, 347 ff.

The symbol of the hart appears everywhere throughout the house, most significantly, perhaps, in the famous plaster frieze of the presence chamber, where it was hoped Queen Elizabeth would one day hold her court. The frieze represents hunting scenes in the forest. Diana and her maidens stand apart. They are near a spring and are surrounded by many kinds of animals; some, the traditional beasts from classical stories, others, the animals common to England. And on a rocky eminence apart from the other animals a single stag is elevated.

56 vii. vii. 56.

57 vii. vii. 57.

58 vii. vii. 59.

59 Peter Wentworth. A Treatise containing M. Wentworths ivdgment concerning the person of the true and lawfull successor to these Realmes of England and Ireland (1598), p. 82.