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of " merry Loudon " as his " most kindly nurse," that " to him 

 gave his Hfe's first native som'ce," and adds — 



" Though from another place I take my name, 

 A house of ancient fame." 



This couplet has hy some commentators been considered to 

 mean that Spenser was a direct descendant of a " house of ancient 

 fame," and that his name was derived from the " place " which 

 was the ancient seat of that famous house. A little thought 

 may satisfy us that this is not the right reading. Spenser took a 

 poet's liberty with words, and for his convenience in versifying 

 stated something which was not fact or even sense. His name 

 could not be derived both from a place and from a family ; but 

 " house of ancient fame " must here apply to a family, not a place. 

 The surname "Spenser" is not a place-name, but denotes an 

 office, and in its undipped original form was " Dispensator," a 

 steward. " De Spenser" is absurd, because the prefix " de " 

 suggests locality. On the panel you read " Spenser de Hurst- 

 wood," not " De Spenser de Hurstwood." Dismiss then the idea 

 that Spenser in writing "from another /)/ace I take my name" 

 referred to any place whatever. His name was that of a " house 

 of ancient fame " — a race of old renown. What house ? Spencers 

 of Alihorp, some say. Not so. Whatever they may be now, 

 BOO years since that family was certainly not " of ancient fame." 

 John Spencer of Althorp, who was knighted, was the first of his 

 branch of any importance. Even he is spoken of by an old 

 writer as an obscure upstart, who by scheming got his daughters 

 wedded to men of title. Spenser, I hold, was not thinking of a 

 set of Spencers who a couple of generations earlier were but small 

 gentry in Warwickshire, but of the great old baronial house of 

 the Despensers who flourished centuries before, one of the last of 

 whom was Hugh Despenser the younger, the erstwhile powerful 

 favourite of Edward the Second. The great Despensers of the 

 Edwardian age were connected with Yorkshire, and, to say the 

 least, the Hurstwood Spensers, obscure as they are, were as 

 likely to have come of that stock as the Wormleighton and 

 Althorp Spencers. Mr. Longstaff thinks, as I do, that the quoted 

 lines probably "allude to a supposed descent from the Despensers." 

 The first of the " Le Spensers " settled at Hurstwood was very 

 likely a retainer of the De Lacys of Pontefract and Clitheroe, who 

 received from his lord the Hurstwood freehold as the reward of his 

 good service, and, if so, heisrobably came out of Yorkshire. Final- 

 ly, let me adduce something which may go far to clinch this part 

 of the argument. The Spencers of Althorp claimed descent from 

 the Barons Despensers. The Poet Spenser alleged that he took 

 his name fi-om that ancient house of fame. The arms of Spenser 

 of Hurstwood were those of Spencer of Althorp with an heraldic 

 difference. The other fact I have to add is that the arms of the 



