Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 53.djvu/400

 australi parte capellæ regis’). By a subscription raised at Cambridge in 1778 by the poet William Mason [q. v.], the tomb was repaired and the English inscription was recut with corrected dates. No trace then remained of the Latin distichs, and they are now absent from the tomb ( and Westminster Abbey, ii. 263–4; ‘Chapter Book,’ 13 April 1778, ap. Memorials, p. 253).

Aubrey states on the authority of Christopher Beeston, the old actor, that Spenser was ‘a little man, wore short hair, little bands, and little cuffs’ (Lives, iii. 542). Harvey bantered him on the fulness of his beard as a young man in 1579 (cf. Letter-book, p. 64). Four reputed portraits (in oils) are known. One belongs to the Earl of Kinnoull, at Dupplin Castle (half-length); another to the Earl of Carnarvon, at Bretby Park (three-quarter length); a third, a copy by Benjamin Wilson (presented by the poet Mason) from a now lost original belonging to George Onslow, is at Pembroke College, Cambridge; and a fourth, ascribed to the Florentine Alessandro Allori (Bronzino), is the property of the Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould. An engraving from Lord Kinnoull's picture, by C. Warren, was published in 1822, and one from Lord Carnarvon's picture (formerly Lord Chesterfield's), by Cook, in 1777. Mr. Baring-Gould's picture was engraved by W. J. Alais in 1880 for Mr. Grosart's edition of Spenser (vol. ii.) A contemporary miniature, belonging to Lord Fitzhardinge, was also engraved by Alais Vertue issued an engraving in 1727, and it has often been reproduced. Another print, by Fougeron, represents the poet seated.

Spenser's widow Elizabeth (Boyle) remarried in 1603 one Richard or Roger Seckerstone, by whom she had a son Richard. On Seckerstone's death she married a third husband, Captain Robert Tynt. The poet's sister Sarah, wife of John Travers, was buried with her husband in the chancel of St. Finbarr's Church, Cork. Their son Robert Travers erected a marble tomb over his parents' grave and received permission from the dean and chapter to be buried beneath it. No trace of it survives (, i. 423–6).

Spenser had three sons and a daughter. His heir, Sylvanus (1595?–1638), married a Roman catholic, Ellen, eldest daughter of David Nagle or Nangle of Monaning, co. Cork, who died at Dublin, 14 Nov. 1637; by her Sylvanus had two sons—Edmund, who died young and unmarried, and William, born about 1634. The latter succeeded to Kilcolman, but incurred the penalty of transplantation into Connaught as an ‘English papist’ during the Commonwealth; his lands were assigned, 20 May 1654, to Captain Peter Courthope and his troop of the Earl of Orrery's late regiment. William Spenser solicited Cromwell for a dispensation from transplantation and the restoration of his estate, alleging that ‘since his coming to years of discretion he had utterly renounced the popish religion.’ His petition was favourably received by Cromwell out of regard for the good services to the Commonwealth of the poet, his grandfather; but it was only after the Restoration apparently that he recovered possession of Kilcolman. On 31 July 1678 he further obtained a grant of lands in counties Galway and Roscommon to the extent of nearly two thousand acres, including the town of Balinasloe, where an existing house is shown as his residence. (This property was sold on 26 Feb. 1716 to Frederick Trench, ancestor of the Earl of Clancarty.) William proved a warm adherent of William of Orange, and for his loyalty received a grant of the forfeited estate of his cousin Hugoline, including the lands of Rinny, in 1697. He survived till about 1720, and left a son Nathaniel and a daughter Susannah. Nathaniel died in 1734, leaving three sons and one daughter. The eldest son Edmund, styled ‘of Kilcolman,’ had a daughter Rosamond, who married one James Burne. Their daughter, likewise called Rosamond, married Captain Richard Tiddeman, whose grandson, the Rev. Edmund Spenser Tiddeman, rector of West Hanningfield, is the present head of the family. Kilcolman Castle is now an ivied ruin.

The poet's second son, Lawrence, was styled of Bandon; his will was proved in 1654.

The poet's third son, Peregrine, married Dorothy Maurice, on which occasion his brother, Sylvanus, made over to him part of his estate, viz. the lands of Rinny, near Kilcolman. He died before 1656, leaving a son Hugoline, who, taking sides with James II against William, was attainted and outlawed on 11 June 1691, and his property bestowed on his cousin William.

The poet's only daughter, Catherine, is conjectured to have married one William Wiseman of Bandon (information kindly supplied by Robert Dunlop, esq.; Gent. Mag. 1842 ii. 138–143, 1855 ii. 605–9;, vol. i. app. M. pp. 555–71).

Spenser's main achievement, ‘The Faerie Queene’—the only great poem that had been written in England since Chaucer died—was in design a moral treatise. According to Bryskett's report of the account that the poet gave of his scheme to Bryskett's guests about