ABSTRACT
Spenser was heir to a long tradition of humanist thought on the subject of the character and responsibilities of the Christian prince, a tradition which regarded the true prince as an imperial figure with a divine mission to restore the Christian religion to its primitive state. The concept of the prince, as it was promulgated by such Tudor moralists as Starkey and Elyot, owes much to the Oxford humanist movement, and to Erasmus in particular. Spenser's intention, after all, was not to write a theological treatise, but to praise his prince by presenting her with an ideal of human conduct while at the same time celebrating the Protestant cause of which she was champion. Indeed it would be strange if a Renaissance prince, educated by one of the great humanist pedagogues of the age, were to deny altogether the power of right reason to co-operate with grace in the work of sanctification.
