Edmund Spenser

Edmund Spencer was born in East Smithfield, London, in 1552. His exact date and place of birth is unknown. Very little is known about his family, who his father or mother were, or whether he had siblings. He would marry himself, twice, first to Machave's child, in 1579. After his first wife died, he married again in 1594, Elizabeth Boyle would become his second wife, and to whom he wrote a sonnet called Amoriti. He also produced an Epitulamium, a poem specifically written for the bride on her way to her bedchamber, on the eve of her wedding. Educationally, as a young boy, he attended the Merchant Taylor's School. He would later enrol as a Cesar, a student that requires financial assistance, either with lower fees, lodging or meal costs, in Cambridge, at the Pembroke College. He would become friendly with a fellow student called Gabriel Harvey, and although they approached poetry from different views, Edmund would consult with Harvey. He would also become secretary to the Bishop of Rochester, John Young. His career would really start with the publication of his first poem entitled, The Shavehead's Calendar. In 1580, Spencer was sent to Ireland in the service of the Lord Deputy, newly appointed, Arthur Grey. Edmund remained in Ireland when Grey returned to England, and eventually acquired his main estate in Kilkerman, after several other official lands and posts were obtained in the Munster Plantation. It would be in 1590, that Edmund Spencer would bring out the first of three books of his most famous works, The Fairy Queen. He travelled to London, and with the assistance of Walter Raleigh, he published and successfully promoted his work. So successful was he, that he was granted a £50 life pension from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I. Another of his works would not see publication until after his demise. A piece entitled, A View of the Present State of Ireland, in which he stated, in the form of a dialogue, that Ireland would never be completely pacified by the English, until its native customs, and language, had been shattered, violently if necessary. In 1598, Edmund Spencer would be driven from his home in Ireland, during the Nine Years' War. His home at Kilkerman would be razed to the ground. Once he returned to London, at the age of 46, he died, on 13 January, 1599. His coffin was carried by fellow poets, through the streets of London, to his final resting place, at Westminster Abbey. His coffin was strewn with papers and pens, and many tears.