On this date in 1599 the poet Edmund Spenser died. 10 facts about him.
Edmund Spenser was born in East Smithfield, London, around the year 1552. His exact date of birth is not known. It’s not known for sure who his parents were, either, but he was probably the son of John Spenser, a journeyman clothmaker.
He was educated in London at the Merchant Taylors' School and then at Pembroke College, Cambridge.
He married twice. His first wife was called Machabyas Childe. Their wedding took place at a rather grand venue: St. Margaret’s Church, Westminster, which is now the church of the House of Commons. They had two children, Sylvanus and Katherine. By 1594, she’d died and he married Elizabeth Boyle, with whom he had a son called Peregrine.
He is related by marriage through his second wife, to Diana, Princess of Wales. It’s possible that, being called Spenser, he was related to her in his own right, too, but there’s no proof of this.
His first major work was called The Shepheardes Calender and was published in 1579. It consisted of twelve poems known as eclogues, each dedicated to a month of the year.
He’s best known, however, for a poem called The Faerie Queene, which is one of the longest poems in the English language. This is despite the fact he never finished it. The first three books were published in 1590, and the second set of three books was published in 1596. He intended it to consist of 12 volumes. It is an allegorical work, in praise of Queen Elizabeth I.
He probably wrote The Faerie Queene in Ireland. Spenser had gone to Ireland in service of Lord Deputy, Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton. When Lord Grey was recalled to England, Spenser stayed in Ireland, having acquired other official posts and land in Cork. His main estate was at Kilcolman, near Doneraile in North Cork. Legend has it that he sat under a nearby tree to write, and the tree became known as "Spenser's Oak". The tree survived until the 1960s when it was destroyed by Lightning.
In 1596 he wrote A View of the Present State of Irelande in which discussed plans to for England to establish control over Ireland and to violently crush any resistance. Needless to say, this didn’t go down too well, and his castle at Kilcolman was burned by Hugh O’Neill’s forces in October 1598. According to legend, Spenser escaped the fire through a cave, but one of his children died, although it’s more likely he’d already gone to Cork City long before O’Neill got there.
The word “blatant” was coined by Spenser. He invented a creature with hundreds of tongues, called “The Blatant Beast”. He might also be indirectly responsible for the phrase, “going for a song”. The story goes that Queen Elizabeth liked his poem The Faerie Queene so much that she paid him £100 for it. The Lord High Treasurer, Lord Burghley, allegedly commented, ‘What? All this for a song?’
Spenser died suddenly in 1599 at the age of just 46. Ben Jonson suggested he’d died of poverty ("for want of bread") but this is unlikely to be true because he had a life pension of £50 a year from the Queen. He was buried near Geoffrey Chaucer in what is now known as Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey. It’s said that many other poets of the time attended the funeral, including William Shakespeare, and that they threw quill pens and pieces of poetry into his grave. However, when his tomb was opened in the 1930s, no pens or poems were found.
Beta
(Combat Team Series #2)
Steff was abducted by an evil alien race, the Orbs, at fourteen. Used as a weapon for years, he eventually escapes, but his problems are just beginning. How does a man support himself when his only work experience is a paper round and using an Orb bio-integrated gun?
Warlord is an alien soldier who knows little but war. When the centuries-old conflict which ravaged his planet ends, he seeks out another world where his skills are still relevant. There are always wars on Earth, it seems. However, none of Earth's powerful armies want him.
Natalie has always wanted to visit England and sees a chance to do so while using her martial arts skills, but there are sacrifices she must make in order to fulfil her dream.
Maggie resorted to crime to fund her sister's medical care. She uses her genetic variant abilities to gain access to the rooms of wealthy hotel guests. The Ballards look like rich pickings, but they are not what they seem. When Maggie targets them, little does she know that she is walking into a trap.
Hotel owner Hamilton Lonsdale puts together a combat team to pit against those of other multi-millionaires. He recruits Warlord, Natalie, Maggie and Steff along with a trained gorilla, a probability-altering alien, a stockbroker whose work of art proved to be much more than he'd bargained for, a marketing officer who can create psionic forcefields, a teleporting member of the landed gentry, and a socially awkward fixer. This is Combat Team Beta.
Steff never talks about his time with the Orbs, until he finds a woman who lived through it, too. Steff believes he has finally found happiness, but it is destined to be short-lived. He is left with an unusual legacy which he and Team Beta struggle to comprehend; including why something out there seems determined to destroy it.
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