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Spenser’s dedicatory sonnet addressed to the Earl of Ormond has become an important touchstone in studies of The Faerie Queene’s relationship with its Irish context. In his A View of the Present State of Ireland, Spenser indicates that Ormond and Spenser’s patron, Lord Grey, were political enemies, but he also seems to indicate that a reconciliation occurred between the two. Speculating on a working relationship between Ormond and Spenser, Christopher Highley has argued that the sonnet to Ormond was intended by Spenser to “exploit” Ormond’s “reputation as a patron of bards.” However, I offer evidence that Spenser’s attitude toward Ormond in the View is more antagonistic than is usually thought. I also argue that this antagonism complicates the immediately positive elements of the dedicatory sonnet—they can be read as a cover for an attack upon Ormond’s Gaelicized households at Kilkenny and Carrick in The Faerie Queene’s House of Pride episode. The attack is signaled in the episode chiefly by Spenser’s reference to the House of Pride’s “many Bardes” (I.iv.3.6).

From England's point of view, Ireland was in a general state of disorder-the authority of crown government did not extend much beyond Dublin and its localities-and Irish government remained reliant on the sword to hold Ireland in a basic level of obedience. Since the 1530s/40s, however, Irish government had also looked more towards negotiated agreements and English law to regulate the behaviour of Ireland's lords and affect the island's longer-term reform.3 Irish historians tell us that with Henry Sidney's arrival in Ireland such a conciliatory policy came to an end, and an increasingly coercive practice followed. [...]whilst Ciaran Brady and James Murray in their recent article, \"Sir Henry Sidney and the Reformation in Ireland\" (2006), have looked to reassess the position of religious reformation in Henry Sidney's wider programme of government, noting \"an odd dichotomy that has long persisted between the way in which political historians and historians of religion have viewed the course of sixteenth century Irish history,\"15 the reformed Protestant view of the nature of man remains unaddressed. Because they interpret religious reformation as an exercise in institutional reform, they ignore the efforts Sidney took to make available God's word. \"43 It is clear then that Protestant evangelical efforts remained alive in the 1560s/70s; and for Canny this indicates that there was a possibility an Irish Reformation might have succeeded had the Irish church been provided with sufficient resources.44 Canny set out his argument in response to Bradshaw's suggestion that the failure of an Irish Reformation had become somewhat inevitable after Elizabethan Protestants, in line with a darker view of man, had simply given up on evangelism-something this article challenges.45 A report written on the actions taken by the court of faculties in Ireland, at the end of Sidney's second deputyship in 1578, indicates that Irish government was making every effort to find qualified preachers to staff the Irish church.46 It is also important to note that the Counter-Reformation in Ireland was beginning to gain momentum at the grass-roots level, and that Irishmen trained at the centres of Counter-Reformation in Europe had begun to return.47 Protestant evangelical efforts at this stage, however, still out-stripped the counter-reformation response. First of all, that her majesty would write sharp letters to the archbishops and bishops of that province to deal more carefully in their several charges than hitherto they have done in setting forth of God's word within their several dioceses.

The disastrous peace negotiations between John of Lancaster and the Northern rebels in 2 Henry IV show how the political and moral stakes of truth and trust play out, not only between Prince Hal, the king-to-be, and his unruly companions but also among other subjects both loyal and rebellious. Off-stage, similar tensions can be discerned between English officials and Irish rebels during the Nine Years War (1594–1603). In fact, a remarkably well-documented instance of such a case can be traced to the same year that 2 Henry IV seems to have been first staged. The 1597 truce negotiation between Hugh O’Neill, leader of the Irish confederates, and English crown representatives can shed light on Lancaster’s shocking betrayal of the Northern rebels in Shakespeare’s play. The exchange between crown representatives and rebel leaders, both in early modern Ireland and in 2 Henry IV, exposes the limitations of delegated authority and undercuts assumptions of trust and honour between king and subjects in truce negotiations.

The View of the Present State of Ireland, a work traditionally attributed to the poet Edmund Spenser, purports to defend the reputation of Arthur, Lord Grey of Wilton, lord deputy of Ireland from 1580 to 1582. Because Spenser was Grey's secretary during his tenure in Ireland, generations of historians have accepted the View as an accurate characterization of the lord deputy and his handling of the battle of Smerwick on November 11, 1580. Specifically, the View contends that Grey's treatment of the Smerwick captives earned him censure throughout England and eventually precipitated his recall from Ireland in disgrace. However, read in the light of contemporary accounts and the state papers, the View's assessment of Grey seems to be inaccurate and incompatible with the experience and insight of Edmund Spenser. In fact, the View may be the source, rather than response, to rumors regarding Lord Grey.

Lord (Ralph Francis Alnwick) Grey of Naunton, the last official representative of the Queen of England in Northern Ireland, died on Sunday in Naunton, Gloucestershire. He was 89. From 1968 to 1973, Lord Grey was Governor of Northern Ireland, the British province. After that the post was abolished and Britain appointed a Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, based in London. Although Lord Grey's responsibilities were largely ceremonial, they included a few important duties like formally appointing the Prime Minister and reviewing legislation.