Open Secrets: The Verbal-Visual Satire of the Anjou Match in Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender

In 1579 Queen Elizabeth appeared about to marry the Roman Catholic duc d’Anjou, the French king’s brother and heir apparent. Recalling the St. Bartholomew’s Massacre of 1572 in Paris, many English Protestants feared this match, and Spenser’s Shepheardes Calender (1579) satirizes it to stoke resistance. Although the twelve eclogues are illustrated, previous accounts of this satire address only its verbal aspects and focus on “Februarye,” “Aprill,” and “November.” But the picture for “Maye” presents the spurious triumph of a mock-royal couple juxtaposed with a fable of disastrous carelessness while heraldically relating them to the English monarchy. This eclogue climaxes the anti-Anjou satire both visually and verbally and pointedly interacts with the picture and poem for “Aprill” wherein Elizabeth triumphs as England’s virgin queen. As these two eclogues constitute a mutually definitive pair, so consideration of each should be informed by its counterpart. To fulfill the felt responsibilities of his poetic vocation amid acute political and religious challenges, yet elude reprisals, Spenser artfully exploited illustrated poetry’s greater potential for indirect expression, as in emblematics. Yet his intervention was still hazardous as well as potentially rewarding.