12 Philo M. Buck, Jr. 



According to Upton, Guyon is Robert Devereaux, Earl of 

 Essex, and Ruddymane alludes to the rebellion of the O'Neills of 

 Ireland, whose badge was the bloody hand. The Palmer who 

 accompanied Guyon he finds to be Whitgift, afterward the Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury, who was tutor of Essex. Essex was bred 

 among the Puritans, and was himself a Puritan ; and according 

 to Sir H. Watton, " his countenance was demure and temperate." 

 '' The Earl of Essex was master of the horse to Queen Elizabeth: 

 and great care is taken to let us know very particularly concerning 

 Sir Guyon's 'lofty stede with golden sell'."-- Later in Book III, 

 Canto i, Guyon dares to match himself with Britomart, Eliza- 

 beth, and is overthrown, and Upton pertinently asks, " And has 

 not the poet with the finest art managed a very dangerous and 

 secret piece of history?" 



This all seems ver}'' good, but will not bear close scrutiny. In 

 the first place, Essex was Leicester's son-in-law, and this relation 

 between Guyon and Arthur is hardly borne out by the story. 

 Guyon appears rather to be much older than Arthur. Again 

 young Essex was not in Ireland fighting the O'Neills until long 

 after the poem was published in 1589. His father, Walter,-^ the 

 elder Earl of Essex, was there, and lost his life from exposure on 

 the battlefield and from the defeats he suffered. Eurther, no 

 account is taken by Upton of Acrasia, the chief character, next 

 to Guyon, in the poem. Finally it is distinctly stated in Canto i, 

 St. 6, that Guyon 



"... knighthood took of good Sir Huon's hand, 

 When with King Oberon he came to Faery land." 



In Book II, Canto x, St. 75, we learn that Oberon was Henry 

 VIII. The younger Earl of Essex was not born during the reign 

 of Henry VIII, and the elder was but a boy when Henry \TII 

 died. This seems to settle the Essex theory. 



To me Guyon represents Thomas Radcliffe, Earl of Sussex. 

 He was, at least during the first years of Queen Elizabeth's 

 reign, a great favorite, perhaps ranking next to Robert Dudley, 



^John Upton's Faerie Queene, ed. 1758. 



^The character of the elder Earl of Essex is in keeping with the char- 

 acter of Guyon. See Holinshed, Chronicles, 1587, p. 1265. 



170 



