The Elizabethan poet Sir Edmund Spenser

On January 13, 1599 the poet Edmund Spenser died in London. Spenser, who was famous for his poem “The Faerie Queen” that celebrated the Elizabethan era and for frequent poetic subjects of love and beauty, had a less beautiful side. He served in Ireland and was said to have been present at the massacre of Italian and Spanish soldiers who had surrendered to the English following the Siege of Smerwick in 1580. Sir Walter Raleigh, who led the beheadings, was later charged with the crime when he fell out of favor with Queen Elizabeth. For that and other charges Raleigh himself was beheaded in 1618.

An 1860s illustration imagining the beheading of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1618.

Later, in 1596, Spenser later wrote a controversial treatise on English rule in Ireland that called for the eradication of all Irish laws, customs and the Irish language to pacify the island and forestall further Irish rebellions. Spenser called for a scorched earth policy to deprive “carrion-eating” rebels of sustenance and their ability to live off the land. The tract was never published in Spenser’s lifetime.

It was ultimately printed in 1633 by Anglo-Irish historian James Ware. In 1936 British writer C.S. Lewis, who was born and spent his early boyhood in Northern Ireland, harshly criticized the poet, writing that Spenser was corrupted by the “wickedness” of the Elizabeth policy in Ireland.

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