ABSTRACT
Much blatant anachronism infects discussions of The Faerie Queene, especially of Book II 'Contayning the Legend of Sir Guyon or of Temperaunce'. A more historically accurate grasp of the intellectual power and poetic magnitude of Spenser's poem emerges from the major premise in Richard Hooker's magisterial Lawes of Ecclesiastical Polity. Published in 1593 Hooker's treatise elucidates the great hierarchy of law, ascending from the 'positive laws' of individual earthly rulers to 'the Law which angels in heaven obey', finding therein a concord of heaven and earth that he believes to be aptly manifest in the Anglican state: 'There is not any man of the Church of England but the same is a member of the Commonwealth, nor any man a member of the Commonwealth which is not also of the Church of England'. 'Due arrangement' is prominent in Spenser's plan for The Faerie Queene: 'to fashion a gentleman or noble person in vertuous and gentle discipline'.
