Spenser with Norris at parliamentary proceedings in Dublin. Spenser seems to express personal interest in the legislation discussed here in the View. (Judson, 116)
Spenser travels with Grey to the Ulster Blackwater, where Spenser is moved to write a description of eastern Ulster in the View: "a most beautiful and sweet country as any is under heaven." (Judson, 99-100)
Spenser and Grey are sheltered by Thomas Butler, tenth earl of Ormonde, at his castle in Kilkenny. "In a dedicatory sonnet to Ormonde published with the FQ, Spenser praises the earl's 'braue mansione' as a veritable oasis of learning and refinement in a beautiful yet barbarous land, and speaks of the generosity and 'true honour' of its master." (Judson, 89-90)
Lord Grey receives the sword of state and takes the oath of office. Spenser likely recalls this ceremony in the FQ when Artegall receives Chrysaor, "the sword of adamant and gold whose terrible strokes nothing on earth could resist." (Judson, 89)
“Biography.” Spenser Online, http://www.english.cam.ac.uk/spenseronline/scholarly-resources/biography/. Accessed March 2018. Hadfield, Andrew. Edmund Spenser: A Life. Oxford UP, 2012. Judson, Alexander C. The Life of Edmund Spenser. Edited by Greenlaw, E., Osgood, C.G., Padelford, F.M., Heffner, R.Oxford UP, 1945. Maley, Willy. A Spenser Chronology. MacMillian, 1994. Spenser, Edmund. Selected Letters and Other Papers. Edited by Christopher Burlinson and Andrew Zurcher, Oxford UP, 2009.
Spenser is buried in Westminster Abbey, with an inscription reading; “Here lyes, expecting the second comminge of our Saviour Christ Jesus, the body of Edmond Spenser, the Prince of Poets in his tyme, whose divine spirit needs noe other witnesse than the workes which he left behind him.” (Maley, 80) The second earl of Essex pays for Spenser’s funeral.
Spenser dies in London. (Burlinson and Zurcher, 234; Judson, 202) “Ben Jonson told Drummond ‘that the Irish having robbed Spenser’s good and burnt his house and a little child new born, he and his wife escaped, and after[wards] he died for lack of break in King Street.’” (Maley, 80) Hadfield speculates that Spenser may have died from illness, disease, and/or trauma brought on from the loss of his estate, or simply old age. (391)
Spenser is paid £8 for delivering Norris’s letters, which indicates that “Ben Jonson’s claim that Spenser died ‘for lack of bread’ is unfounded.” (PRO E. 351/543, f. 40r; Maley, 76; Hadfield, 386, 391)
Spenser in England at Whitehall, where he delivers Norris’s letters detailing the state of affairs in Ireland. (Judson, 201) Hadfield says Spenser “may well have attended the court in session at Whitehall…but he probably completed his business before this point, given the gravity of the situation in Munster.” (391)
Spenser made Sheriff of Cork, though he may not have been aware of his appointment until his later trip to England since he was a refugee. (Judson, 200)