¹ In The Works of Edmund Spenser. A Variorum Edition. The Faerie Queene. Book Five (Baltimore, 1936). My quotations from the poem are taken from this edition.

² E.g., Artemidorus; The Iudgement, Or Exposition of Dreames, trans. R. Wood (London, 1606), p. 1.

³ See Ovid, Amores i.viii.74; Propertius, ii.33; iv.v.34; Tibullus, i.iii.23–32, and cf. A. C. Hamilton, The Structure of Allegory in The Faerie Queene (Oxford, 1961), pp. 179–180, and Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven, 1958), pp. 124–125.

⁴ A. B. Gough accepts the inconsistency of the two attributions: The Faerie Queene. Book Five (Oxford, 1918), p. 247. C. G. Osgood denies the inconsistency, but his explanation does not attempt to relate clemency, equity, etc., to the dream or to Britomart's conduct: see F.Q. V. Var., p. 218.

⁵ A. C. Hamilton's recent reading (op. cit., pp. 177–189) of the slaying of Radigund as Britomart's annihilation of her own pride in a mutual shedding of ‘maistrie’ between Artegall and herself can never be more than a partial explanation of the episode.

⁶ Spenser's Faerie Queene (London, 1758) ii, 622: cited in F.Q. V. Var., pp. 214–223 and 299–303.

⁷ Geoffrey of Monmouth, Brut y Brenhinedd. Cotton Cleopatra Version (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), ed. and tr. by John Jay Parry, pp. 16–17. The texts available to Spenser are assembled in Carrie A. Harper's The Sources of the British Chronicle History in Spenser's Faerie Queene (Philadelphia, 1910); cf. F.Q. II. Var., pp. 451–453. See also C. B. Millican, Spenser and the Table Round (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), p. 38 ff.

⁸ See A. B. Gough, pp. 246–247 and H. S. V. Jones, A Spenser Handbook (New York, 1947), pp. 261–263.

⁹ Christopher St. German, Two Dialogues in English, Between A Doctour of Divinity, And A Student in the Laws of England. (Newly Revised and Re-Printed), (London, 1673), pp. 3–4. The first English translation from the Latin was completed in 1531, and every decade up to the Civil War produced at least one new edition. Cf. F.Q. v, Intro. st. x.

¹⁰ Diodorus, Library of History, i, 14 ff., in Works, tr. C. H. Oldfather et al. (London, 1933-), i, 47 ff. Cf. A. A. Sawtelle, Sources of Spenser's Classical Mythology (New York, 1896), p. 69; Edwin Greenlaw, “Some Old Religious Cults in Spenser,” SP, xx (1923), 239–240; H. G. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (Princeton, 1932), pp. 73–74; C. G. Osgood, in F.Q. V. Var., p. 216.

¹¹ Isis avenged her husband when Osyris was slain by his brother Typhon. In a faintly similar way Elizabeth survived the plots contrived on her cousin's behalf and punished her and the plotters with death. Perhaps Isis' slaying of Typhon and his seventy-two accomplices also suggested the “heapes of slaughtered carcases” raised by the avenging Talus: see F.Q., v. viii. 36; cf. Diodorus, i. 21. See also Plutarch, “De Iside et Osiride,” 13 ff., in Works, tr. F. C. Babbitt (London, 1927-), v, 35–49.

¹² The Bibliotheca Historica of Diodorus Siculus translated by John Skelton, ed. by F. M. Salter and H. L. R. Edwards (London, 1956), p. 23. This was in MS in Spenser's day but gives one a better idea of how Poggio Bracciolini's Latin edition was read in the sixteenth century than does C. H. Oldfather's modern translation from the Greek. It appears to have escaped notice that the last book of Apuleius's Metamorphoses also associates Isis and Equity. In the procession of the Goddess which Lucius is ordered to join one of the priests carries a deformed left hand as a symbol of Equity (Aequitatis ... indicium): Adlington's slightly garbled translation reads: “The fourth shewed out a token of equitie by his left hand, which was deformed in every place, signifying thereby more equitie then by the right hand”: The Golden Ass of Apuleius Translated out of Latin by William Adlington Anno 1566, intro. by Charles Whibley (London, 1893), pp. 236–237, and cf. C. G. Osgood, F.Q. V. Var., p. 216.

¹³ Camden reminds us that Parliament is the supreme law-court of the nation: Britannia, tr. and ed. 1695 (London), clxxxiii.

¹⁴ See H. S. V. Jones A Spenser Handbook, pp. 256–258.

¹⁵ E. H. T. Snell, The Principles of Equity, ed. by R. E. Megarry and P. V. Baker, 24th ed. (London, 1954), pp. 3–8.

¹⁶ Christopher St. German, Dialogues, p. 53. Cf. Camden's explanation of the purpose of the Chancellor's court: “that he might judge according to the rules of right and equity, and moderate the rigour of exact justice, which is often downright injustice and oppression.” Camden's Britannia, Newly Translated into English (London, 1695), clxxxviii.

¹⁷ Dialogues, p. 53.

¹⁸ W. S. Holdsworth, A History of English Law (London, 1924), iv, 280.

¹⁹ F. M. Padelford, in F.Q. V. Var., pp. 276–280.

²⁰ Holdsworth, v, 229.

²¹ William Camden, The History of ... Princess Elizabeth, rev. ed. (London, 1675), pp. 350 and 352.

²² Ibid., p. 364.

²³ Ibid., pp. 375, 376.

²⁴ Cit. in J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth and her Parliaments. 1559–1581 (London, 1953), p. 259.

²⁵ The Journals of all the Parliaments during the Reign of Queen Elizabeth ... Collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London, 1682), p. 208.

²⁶ D'Ewes, p. 210.

²⁷ Camden, Elizabeth, p. 376.

²⁸ The appeal seems indeed to have been the only way “equity” could be invoked in the circumstances. Mary's special trial had meant that she would be denied further rights of appeal. Her situation somewhat resembled that of a victim of the statute Henry IV. 4. c. 22, which prevented the re-examination of any judgement of one of the King's Courts. St. German's Doctor of Divinity argued: “It is enacted that Judgement given by the King's Courts shall not be examined in the Chancery, Parliament, nor elsewhere: by which Statute it appeareth that if any Judgement be given in the King's Courts against an Equity or against any matter of Conscience, that there can be had no remedy by that Equity, for the Judgement cannot be reformed without examination, and the examination is by the said Statute prohibited: wherefore it seemeth that the said Statute is against Conscience.” The statute was a well-known stumbling block, and the Civil lawyer in St. German believed that it placed the responsibility for equity on the individual conscience of the prosecuting party. It appears to be implicitly as just such a matter of conscience that Elizabeth requests Parliament to consider the court's verdict, thus both overruling Henry IV. 4. c. 22 and using the only available machinery of equity outside her own final decision: Dialogues, i, Ch. xviii, p. 60.

²⁹ D'Ewes, p. 375.

³⁰ D'Ewes, pp. 400–401.

³¹ Raphael Holinshed, Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (London, 1807–08), iv, 939.

³² Replying to the Commons' deputation, Elizabeth strongly denied having called Parliament merely “Pro forma, to the intent to make a show of clemencie ...” (ibid., iv, 938).

³³ J. E. Neale, Queen Elizabeth and her Parliaments. 1584–1601 (London, 1957), p. 132.

³⁴ R. B. McKerrow, The Works of Thomas Nashe (Oxford, rev. ed. 1958), iv, 168. For Spenser's Clerkship, see A. C. Judson, The Life of Edmund Spenser (Baltimore, 1945), pp. 95–96. Raymond Jenkins argues that Spenser could only have performed the duties of this office from 1582 to 1584: “Spenser and the Clerkship in Munster,” in PMLA, xlvii (March 1932), 109–121.

³⁵ Neale, p. 128.

³⁶ F.Q., ii.iv.37 ff.; and see Philo M. Buck, “On the Political Allegory in ‘The Faerie Queene’,” in Nebraska Studies. xi (1911), 159–192.

³⁷ H. G. Lotspeich, Classical Mythology in the Poetry of Edmund Spenser (Princeton, 1932), pp. 73–74.

³⁸ Cf. Edwin Honig, Dark Conceit. The Making of Allegory (London, 1960), pp. 69–70.

³⁹ After discussing equity in Nichomachean Ethics x, in xi Aristotle raises the question “Is it possible or not for a man to commit injustice against himself?” For Spenser this question had become “Can Queen Elizabeth be doing an injustice to herself?” On Seneca's ‘barbarity’ and ‘pity’ see H. S. V. Jones, A Spenser Handbook, pp. 256–258.

⁴⁰ J. E. Neale, Elizabeth I and her Parliaments, 1559–1581 (London, 1953), p. 277.

⁴¹ Ibid., p. 279, and cf. D'Ewes, p. 211.

⁴² J. E. Neale, The Elizabethan House of Commons (London, 1949), p. 350. Symbolic Welsh dragons are not rare in the century. One of the biggest was the float of the Red Dragon used at Anne Boleyn's coronation pageant: see Francis Grose and Thomas Astle, The Antiquarian Repertory (London, 1807), ii, 233 and 272.

⁴³ “Nature and Grace in The Faerie Queene,” in ELH, xvi (1949), 202, n. 12. Girolamo Ruscelli has an interesting discussion of the serpent as an ambivalent symbol in Le Imprese Illustri, 3rd ed. (Venetia, 1580), p. 96. But iconographical definition of Fidelia's chalice may be taken beyond Upton's note (F.Q. I. Var. p. 285). Although the chalice seems not to have been much used as a symbol of Faith by the Western Fathers (see Migne, Patrologiae C.C. Series Latina, T. 219, Index xlvi, 126, 131, 165, 214, 223, 228) medieval art brought the two together, and Faith was to be seen with a chalice at Exeter and Salisbury among other places (see Louis Réau, Iconographie de l'art chrétien. Tome Première. Intro. Genérale, Paris, 1955, pp. 178, 187, and cf. Album de Villard de Honnecourt, ed. H. O., Bibl. Nat. Dept. MS., Paris, s.d., pl. viii, Ecclesia). The iconography of the serpent in classical art is too complicated to be undertaken here (see s.v. in Roscher and Daremberg-Saglio, and cf. Apuleius, Golden Asse, tr. Adlington, ed. Whibley, Bk. xi, 47, p. 233). But the chalice, or rather cup, with a serpent issuing from it was from about the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries the distinguishing symbol of St. John the Evangelist in the cycles of the Apostles and in pictures of his legend. It represented John's act of faith in drinking a cup of poison when challenged by the high-priest of Diana at Ephesus who offered to believe in John's God if John survived. John made the sign of the cross over the cup and drank it without taking harm. Illustrations of the legend showed a serpent or little winged dragon issuing from the cup to symbolize the force of the poison leaving it as though exorcised. The story appears in Jacobus de Voragina's Legenda aurea where Spenser may have read it in Latin or in Caxton's English translation. A nearly identical story about St. George's drinking a cup of poison, also in the Legenda, may have fixed the detail in his mind, although the cup and serpent were not iconographical attributes of St. George (see Réau, op. cit., Tome III, Iconographie des saints (Paris, 1958), i, 133–135, 197, 200–201, ii, 712, 717–718). The motif is represented very beautifully in a picture of St. John by Piero di Cosimo formerly in the collection of Rush H. Kress (repr. in George W. Ferguson, Signs and Symbols in Christian Art (New York, 1954), fig. 74; cf. also p. 292), and appeared frequently in early Horae (cf. Hugh W. Davies, Catalogue of a Collection of Early French Books in the Library of C. Fairfax Murray, 2nd ed., London, 1961, i, 289, 319). Spenser's image (i.x.13) can be connected with this tradition by the fact that the serpent inspires horror, and that Fidelia seems to clasp the New Testament “signd and seald with blood” as a reassurance against it. St. John's legend probably grew out of Matthew xx.20–24 and especially Mark xvi.14–18, where those who believe “shall drive away serpents, and if they drinke any deadly thing, it shall in no wise hurt them” (Bishops Bible [1568], ed. 1602, in The New Testament Octapla, ed. Luther A. Weigle [New York, 1962], p. 301). To Red-Crosse the symbol is a reminder of the victory over Error won through faith (i.i.18.3) and an assurance of his impending conquest of the “old Dragon.”

⁴⁴ Brut y Brenhinedd, pp. 124–138.

⁴⁵ Rupert Taylor, The Political Prophecy in England (New York, 1911), pp. 105–107. The Galfridian prophecy proper, with its beasts and precise political reference, has not been adequately distinguished (e.g., NQ, ccv, 331–333) from pieces like the Fool's prophecy in Lear (iii.ii.81–96) whose purpose is comedy and satire. The Fool's prophecy (with others like it) is really an elaborate version of the topos concerning adynata, cast in the form of prophecy and with Merlin's name attached in parody of authenticity: see E. C. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages, tr. W. R. Trask, Bollingen Ser. xxxvi (New York, 1953), pp. 94–98.

⁴⁶ F.Q. iii.iii.25–49. The Galfridian symbols are concentrated in the last four stanzas.

⁴⁷ Brut y Brenhinedd, p. 30. Spenser's crocodile, however, does not breathe flames but swallows them. Although Irish equivalents of such prophecies existed, it would be difficult to establish Spenser's acquaintance with them: see J. S. P. Tatlock, The Legendary History of Britain (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1950), pp. 409–412. Possibly the story of Olympia's mating with the serpent (Jove) to give birth to Alexander was also in Spenser's mind when composing the dream: see Plutarch, Lives, “Alexander,” ii–iii.

⁴⁸ Taylor, p. 106, and David Jardine, Criminal Trials (London, 1847), i, 175.

⁴⁹ Sig. Iii-Kki. Taylor (op. cit. pp. 125–127) read only the second edition of 1620 and missed this discussion.

⁵⁰ Sig. Kki.

⁵¹ Camden, Elizabeth, p. 427.

⁵² It seems just possible that Spenser's lion alludes to King James VI whose accession to the English throne was to be regarded as the fulfilment of several of the prophecies in The Whole prophecie of Scotland, England, and some part of France and Denmark, prophesied bee meruellous Merling, Beid, Bertlington, Thomas Rymour. ... (Edinburgh, 1603); see James A. Murray, Introduction to The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, in E.E.T.S., Orig. Series, 61 (London, 1875), pp. xxx–xli, 48–51 (11. 109–110), and Taylor, op. cit., pp. 73–78, 113–114.

⁵³ Camden, Britannia, col. 315. Stow, however, assigns the temple to Jupiter, and argues that there was once “dayly sacrifice of beastes” there; see A Survey of London by John Stow, ed. C. L. Kingsford (Oxford, 1908), i, 333.

⁵⁴ Camden, Britannia, col. 317.

⁵⁵ Also located in the Great Hall at Westminster and in the chambers around it were the principal courts of law, including the courts of equity: John Stow, A Survey of London (London, 1603), p. 471, and Camden, Britannia, col. 320.

⁵⁶ See J. T. Smith and J. S. Hawkins, Antiquities of Westminster. The Old Palace (Now the House of Commons) c ... (London, 1807), pp. 151–164 and M. Hastings, Parliament House (London, 1950), pp. 13 (plate), 65–67, 82. At some time between 1547 and 1624 the appearance of the Chamber altered considerably but major structural changes such as the wooden wainscotting and new ceiling were not made, I believe, under Elizabeth. In March 1603 some minor work on seating was ordered but larger tasks were not undertaken until 26 March 1621: see the Journals of the House of Commons. From November 8th, 1547 ... to March 2d, 1628. ... (London, 1803), pp. 572–573. Mr. D. Holland of the House of Commons Library kindly supplied these references. See also The History of the King's Works, Vol. i, The Middle Ages, ed. H. M. Colvin, R. Allen Brown, and A. J. Taylor (London, 1963), 523, and plates 24, 25, 32, and Plans, iii.

⁵⁷ Stow's Survey, ed. Kingsford, ii, 121, 379.

⁵⁸ Spenser's statue has little in common with the ancient representations of Isis and may be of his own invention (cf. Apuleius, Golden Asse, xi, 47). He omits the characteristic lotus, sistrum, asp, and the knot over the breast. Of the many images recorded by W. Drexler only one type (found in two nearly identical amulets) bears any resemblance to Spenser's statue; this shows Isis standing with an Egyptian sceptre in one hand and a snake in the other, a crocodile under her feet, and on the reverse, among other details, an ibis holding the Scales: see s.v. Isis, in Ausführliches Lexicon der Grieschischen und Römischen Mythologie, hsg. von W. H. Roscher (Leipzig, 1890–94), cols. 544–545.

⁵⁹ Kingsford, ii, 379. Although there is little reason to believe Spenser knew of it, the Early Church had found no difficulty in assimilating Isis into the B.V.M.: see Roscher, s.v. Isis, cols. 428–432. For Elizabeth and the Virgin, see John Buxton, Elizabethan Taste (London, 1963), pp. 9, 50–51.

⁶⁰ Calendar of State Papers. Venetian. 1581–1591, ed Horatio Brown (London, 1894), p. 226. The incident is not reported in the specially prepared public statements recorded by Camden: however, cf. his Elizabeth, ed. 1675, p. 365.

⁶¹ F.Q. V. Var., p. 216.

⁶² Cf. F.Q. v.vii.27, and Upton's note, F.Q. V. Var., p. 217.

⁶³ See the frontispiece in D'Ewes, Journals, and cf. C. Cunnington, Handbook of English Costume in the Sixteenth Century (London, 1954), p. 137.

⁶⁴ D'Ewes, pp. 282–283.

⁶⁵ F.Q. V. Var., pp. 211–212.

⁶⁶ Ibid., p. 211. I have come across a wisp of evidence that may help to confirm Gough's identification of Dolon. Dolon's dwelling is “Not farre away, but little wide by West.” George Puttenham, illustrating his “Surnamer,” cites an example which may reflect popular usage: “as he that would say: not king Philip of Spaine, but the Westerne king, because his dominion lieth the furdest West of any Christen prince ... or the Queene of England, The maiden Queene ... or as we said in one of our Partheniades, the Bryton mayde”: The Arte of English Poesie (London, 1589), in English Reprints, ed. E. Arber (London, 1869), p. 192. Stephen Batman similarly refers to Philip II (as the husband of Mary Tudor) as Hesperus in The Trauayled Pilgrime (London, 1569), sig. Lij, l. 20.

⁶⁷ F.Q. V. Var., pp. 210–211.

⁶⁸ Camden, Elizabeth, pp. 377–379; Cal. of Stale Papers. Domestic. 1581–90 (London, 1865), pp. 379–381 (Nos. 4, 6, 7, 10, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23); Cal. of State Papers. Venetian. 1581–1591 (London, 1894), pp. 243–245, 248–249, 252, 256, 258–259, 266, 277; Cal. of State Papers. Spanish. 1587–1603, pp. 13–15, 17–19; J. A. Froude, History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada (London, 1870), xii, 316–320; and DNB, s.v. William Stafford.

⁶⁹ The editor has not made quite clear the documents' distinction between the ordinary and the special French ambassadors. The latter, Pomponne de Bellièvre, was not responsible for the plot: Cal. S. P. Dom. 1581–1590, pp. 379–381.

⁷⁰ Camden, Elizabeth, pp. 377–378.

⁷¹ Col. S. P. Dom. 1581–1590, p. 380 (15), (10).

⁷² Camden, p. 378.

⁷³ Cal. S. P. Span. 1587–1603, p. 14.

⁷⁴ Camden, p. 378.

⁷⁶ Cal. S. P. Ven. 1581–1591, pp. 259–260. It is just arguable that Spenser's two knights, brothers of the dead Guizor, are a reminiscence of the two French ambassadors involved in Stafford's plot. Both were notable supporters of the Guises: Camden described L'Aubespine as “a man wholly devoted to the Guisian faction” (Elizabeth, p. 377), and Elizabeth is reported to have stated publicly “that the Ambassador was a man of evil nature and dangerous and for this reason unfit for his post” and to have written a letter “which declares that L'Aubespine is a creature of the Guises.” The other Ambassador involved, Pomponne de Bellièvre, was in England on a special mission to represent Henri III's pleas for the life of Mary Stuart, sent, it was said, at the express instigation of the Guises (Cal. S. P. Ven. 1581–1591, pp. 259–260, 220). Bellièvre's allegiance to the Guises became notorious in 1588 when, entrusted with ordering the Duke of Guise not to enter Paris, his ambiguous message and official dilatoriness occasioned the Day of Barricades. For this diplomatic failure Henri III banished him the same year. Still, no such drastic fate overtook the French ambassadors as overtook Spenser's knights. Spenser probably left his two knights shadowy and nameless from a disinclination to be too closely rivetted to history.