Editing Edmund Spenser (section)

==''A View of the Present State of Irelande''==
{{main|A View of the Present State of Irelande}}
In his work ''[[A View of the Present State of Irelande]]'' (1596), Spenser discussed future plans to [[Tudor conquest of Ireland|establish control over Ireland]], the most recent Irish uprising, led by [[Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone|Hugh O'Neill]] having demonstrated the futility of previous efforts. The work is partly a defence of [[Arthur Grey, 14th Baron Grey de Wilton|Lord Arthur Grey de Wilton]], who was appointed [[Lord Deputy of Ireland]] in 1580, and who greatly influenced Spenser's thinking on Ireland.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A View of the Present State of Ireland: Summary, Analysis and Questions |url=http://core.ecu.edu/umc/Munster/teaching-View.html |website=East Carolina University}}</ref>

The goal of the piece was to show that Ireland was in great need of reform. Spenser believed that "Ireland is a diseased portion of the State, it must first be cured and reformed, before it could be in a position to appreciate the good sound laws and blessings of the nation".<ref>Henley 178</ref> In ''A View of the Present State of Ireland'', Spenser categorises the "evils" of the Irish people into three prominent categories: laws, customs and religion. According to Spenser, these three elements worked together in creating the supposedly "disruptive and degraded people" who inhabited the country.<ref name="ucc.ie">{{cite web |url=https://celt.ucc.ie//published/E500000-001/ |title=A View of the present State of Ireland |first=Edmund |last=Spenser |year=1596 |website=The Corpus of Electronic Texts |access-date=30 May 2020}}</ref> One example given in the work is the Irish law system termed "[[Early Irish law|Brehon law]]", which at the time trumped the established law as dictated by [[the Crown]]. The Brehon system had its own court and methods of punishing infractions committed. Spenser viewed this system as a backward custom which contributed to the "degradation" of the Irish people. A particular legal punishment viewed with distaste by Spenser was the Brehon method of dealing with [[murder]], which was to impose an ''[[éraic]]'' (fine) on the murderer's family.<ref name="Wake1878">{{cite book|author=Charles Staniland Wake|title=The Evolution of Morality|url=https://archive.org/details/evolutionmorali00wakegoog|year=1878|publisher=Trübner & Company|pages=[https://archive.org/details/evolutionmorali00wakegoog/page/n381 363]–}}</ref> From Spenser's viewpoint, the appropriate punishment for murder was [[capital punishment]]. Spenser also warned of the dangers that allowing the education of children in the [[Irish language]] would bring: "Soe that the speach being Irish, the hart must needes be Irishe; for out of the aboundance of the hart, the tonge speaketh".<ref name="ucc.ie"/>

He pressed for a [[scorched earth]] policy in Ireland, noting its effectiveness in the [[Second Desmond Rebellion]]:

<blockquote>"'Out of everye corner of the woode and glenns they came creepinge forth upon theire handes, for theire legges could not beare them; they looked Anatomies [of] death, they spake like ghostes, crying out of theire graves; they did eate of the carrions, happye wheare they could find them, yea, and one another soone after, in soe much as the verye carcasses they spared not to scrape out of theire graves; and if they found a plott of water-cresses or shamrockes, theyr they flocked as to a feast… in a shorte space there were none almost left, and a most populous and plentyfull countrye suddenly lefte voyde of man or beast: yett sure in all that warr, there perished not manye by the sworde, but all by the extreamytie of famine ... they themselves had wrought.'"<ref name="ucc.ie"/></blockquote>