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This revisionary biographical study documents that Spenser was the protégé of a circle of churchmen who expected him to take holy orders, but between 1574, when he left Pembroke College, and 1579, when he published the Shepheardes Calender, he decided against a career in the church. At Pembroke College and in London, Spenser watched the Elizabethan establishment crack down on independent thinking. The sequestration of Edmund Grindal was a watershed event in his early life, as was his encounter with Philip Sidney, the dedicatee of to the Shepheardes Calender. Once Spenser exchanged the role of shepherd-priest for that of shepherd-poet, he understood that his role was not just to celebrate the victories of Protestant England over the Spanish empire, immortalize in verse the virtues of Gloriana’s knights, but also to ‘fashion a noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline’. The received biography of the early Spenser emphasizes Gabriel Harvey, who is reported to have been Spenser’s tutor. Brink shows that Harvey could not have been Spenser’s tutor and argues that Harvey published Familiar Letters (1580) to promote his ambition to be named University Orator at Cambridge. Brink shows that Spenser had already received preferment. His life is contextualized by comparisons with contemporaries including Philip Sidney, Lodowick Bryskett, Shakespeare, and Sir Walter Ralegh. Brink’s provocative study, based upon a critical re-evaluation of manuscript and printed sources, emphasizes Philip Sidney over Harvey and shows that Spenser’s appointment as secretary to Lord Grey was a preferment celebrated even years later by Camden.
Nowell, in addition to being Spenser's benefactor, was the brother of Alexander Nowell, author of Nowell's Catechism and Dean of St Paul's. One of the entries mentioning grants to Spenser from the ‘Nowell Account Book’ is in Alexander Nowell's hand. Spenser was the protégé of a circle of clergymen who included Alexander Nowell; Thomas Watts, Archdeacon of Middlesex; Edmund Grindal, then Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury. It is
see,9 an episcopal chaplaincy was an important route to a royal chaplaincy: Samuel Purchas (chaplain to John King of London) and John Buckeridge (chaplain to Archbishop Whitgift) are two examples. The use of chaplains as a reliable inner circle of administrators and preachers is particularly clear in the case of London, a compact diocese whose bishop did not have to travel to attend Parliament or court. The bishopric of London was a position for the ambitious: there were twelve bishops of London between Edmund Grindal and William Juxon (i.e., between 1570 and 1633
matriculated, was central to Reformation history. Of the men with close ties to Pembroke who played major roles in contemporary church politics, the most prominent was Edmund Grindal (1519?–1583; appointed Archbishop of Canterbury 1575 and served until 1583). He appears in Spenser's early literary work Shepheardes Calender (1579) under the anagram Algrind and as representative of the view that the clergy should be held to a higher standard
accompany Lord Grey to Ireland should be informed by a full understanding of the politics of this religious context. After Matthew Parker's death in 1575, he was succeeded by Edmund Grindal, who was named Archbishop of Canterbury and confirmed on 15 February 1576. Spenser is likely to have been personally acquainted with Grindal, not only because he was a legend at Pembroke College but also because Grindal had served on examination boards for
closer examination. 30 This fear of arbitrary episcopal decree would be warranted by the time of the introduction of Whitgift's 1584 Canons, which defended the practice of excommunication by one man alone as legitimate, despite his predecessor Edmund Grindal's attempts to remove this practice as a papal corruption. 31 Whitgift permitted any archbishop, bishop, dean, archdeacon, or prebendary to pronounce the church censure on their own authority, due to their ‘being in
been interpreted as championing Elizabeth's succession to Mary by comparing the younger sibling to Jacob, blessed by God and destined for greatness, and Esau as the reprobate Catholic Mary. Queen Elizabeth was fond of children's drama, and among the most notable is the Westminster boys’ Sapienta Solominus , which hardly conceals the parallel between the queen and King Solomon, who approves a request from the Queen of Sheba to provide education for girls as well as boys. Edmund Grindal, we noted earlier, hosted its production. Godly Queen Hester , printed in 1561
patrons were the clergymen who, like Alexander Nowell and Edmund Grindal, held examinations for London schoolboys in regularly scheduled visitations. These ecclesiastical authorities took a keen interest in grammar schools and used their visitations to examine pupils, assess the quality of instruction, and identify gifted pupils, such as Edmund Spenser. Surviving records illustrate both the examination process and the potential for establishing
could be said that events were coming to a moment of crisis in the months of the 1578 progress, if that were not the normal state of Dutch affairs), and also towards Scotland; the problem of both recusant and non-recusant Catholicism; religious affairs more generally (overshadowed in 1578 by the continued suspension and disgrace of Archbishop Edmund Grindal); what to do with and about Mary Queen of Scots; and the perennial operatic question of a royal marriage, now building up to the last act, the affair of ‘Monsieur’, as the duc d’Alençon and Anjou was known. On all
matter, to be reformed by November.’ William Cecil, 1st Baron Burleigh, ‘Memorial Concerning Dr. John Dee’s Opinion on the Reformation of the Calendar’, British Library, London, MS Lansd. No. 39, Art 14, Orig. 24 Edmund Grindal, Archbishop of Canterbury, Letter to Queen Elizabeth, 6 March 1583, British