fall of 1598, there occurred a fearful uprising known as Tyrone's
Rebellion, in which the outraged peasants fiercely attacked the castle,
plundering and burning. Spenser and his family barely escaped with their
lives. According to one old tradition, an infant child was left behind in
the hurried flight and perished in the flames; but this has been shown to
be but one of the wild rumors repeated to exaggerate the horror of the
uprising. Long after Spenser's death, it was also rumored that the last six
books of the _Faerie Queene_ had been lost in the flight; but the story is
now utterly discredited.

Spenser once more arrived in London, but he was now in dire distress and
prostrated by the hardships which he had suffered. There on January 16,
1599, at a tavern in King Street, Westminster, the great poet died
broken-hearted and in poverty. Drummond of Hawthornden states that Ben
Jonson told him that Spenser "died for lack of bread in King Street, and
refused 20 pieces sent to him by my Lord of Essex, and said He was sorrie
he had no time to spend them." The story is probably a bit of exaggerated
gossip. He was buried close to the tomb of Chaucer in the Poets' Corner in
Westminster Abbey, his fellow-poets bearing the pall, and the Earl of Essex
defraying the expenses of the funeral. Referring to the death of Spenser's
great contemporary, Basse wrote:--

"Renownèd Spenser, lie a thought more nigh
To learnèd Chaucer, and rare Beaumont, lie
A little nearer Spenser, to make room
For Shakespeare in your threefold, fourfold tomb."

"Thus," says Mr. Stopford Brooke, appropriately, "London, 'his most kindly
nurse,' takes care also of his dust, and England keeps him in her love."