Amoretti

On the evidence of The Fairie Queene, Spenser has long been recognized as a master of hovering
puns and allusions. However, in the Amoretti he deployed this skill further by immortalizing the name
of his bride to be, Elizabeth Boyle, by devices of word play.

They got married on 11 June 1594. She was his second wife.

Elizabeth was probably the daughter of Stephen Boyle of Braddens, Northamptonshire, England, and
his wife Joan. Elizabeth is supposed to have accompanied her brother Alexander Boyle when he
migrated to Ireland, and held land under his kinsman the Great Earl. Elizabeth was estimated to be
young, perhaps no more than 18, when she married Edmund, putting her as born around 1576.

Edmund and Elizabeth are believed to have had one child, Peregrine. During an Irish uprising around
1598, they were burned out of their Kilcolman Castle. Some sources say that one of his children died
in the fire. The family fled to Cork. Edmund went to England, and died there.

After Edmund died around 1599, Elizabeth married Roger Secklestone (or Seckerstone) in 1603.[1][4]
She and her new husband claimed the family estate; this was challenged (successfully) by Edmund's
eldest son Sylvanus by a prior wife.

Elizabeth and Roger had one child, Richard Secklestone.

Her second husband Roger died before 1606, as she is then identified as a widow - the "Corporate
Records of Youghal contain indenture, dated 3 May 1606, between Sir Richard Boyle of Youghal and
Eliz. Boyle als Seckerstone of Kilcoran, widow."

Elizabeth subsequently married Captain (later Sir) Robert Tynte on 3 Mar 1612. They had at least two
children.

It is very likely that those sonnets were a wedding gift from him to his new wife – Elizabeth.

His sovereign Queen, his mother and his future wife shared the same name, Elizabeth. In Spenser’s
mind the name was, a “glorious name”. Further, his “love”, Elizabeth Boyle, was also specifically
described as possessed of “glory excellent". That this “sovereign” and “glorious” symbolism was
transferred to Elizabeth Boyle of the Amoretti is clear from a string of other references to her in
“sovereign” and“glorious” terms as follows:

 The sovereign beauty which I do admire, (III)

 The glorious portrait of that Angel’s face, (XVII)
 Then I would deck her head with glorious bays (XXIX)
 The glorious image of the maker’s beauty,my sovereign saint, the Idol of my thought, (LXI)
 Where when that sovereign beauty it doth spyresembling heaven’s glory in her light: (LXXII)
 your glorious name in golden monument. (LXXXII)
1. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/SPSv23p309?journalCode=sps
2. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Boyle-564
3. Rev. C.B. Gibson, The History of the County and City of Cork, Vol. I, Thomas C. Newby
(London), 1861, p.303.
4. Fred Blick, ”Spenser’s Amoretti and Elizabeth Boyle”
Elizabeth died on 23 Aug 1622