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It is very unlikely, however, that two women named Rose should have come so intimately into Florio's life, and probable, when all the evidence is considered, that Rose Spicer, the "dear wife Rose" mentioned in his will, was the "Rosalinde" of his youth, whom, it appears, he had seduced, and with whom he had evidently lived in concubinage in the intervening years; making tardy amends by marriage in 1617, only eight years before his death. His marriage to Rose Spicer was evidently brought about by the admonitions of his friend Theophilus Field, Bishop of Llandaff, under whose influence Florio became religious in his declining years.

In Florio's will, in which he bequeaths nearly all of his small property to his "beloved wife Rose," he regrets that he "cannot give or leave her more in requital of her tender love, loving care, painful diligence, and continual labour to me in all my fortunes and many sicknesses, than whom never had husband a more loving wife, painful nurse, and comfortable consort." The words I have italicised indicate conjugal relations covering a much longer period than the eight years between his formal marriage in 1617 and his death in 1625. The term "all my fortunes" certainly implies a connection between them antedating Florio's sixty-fourth year.

We may infer that the Bishop of Llandaff and Florio's pastor, Dr. Cluet, whom he appointed overseers and executors of his will, held Florio in light esteem, as "for certain reasons" they renounced its execution. The Earl of Pembroke, to whom he bequeathed his books, apparently neglected to avail himself of the legacy, and probably for the same reasons. An examination of Florio's characteristic will—in the Appendix—will suggest the nature of these reasons.

Mr. Halpin's inference that Florio as Menalcas had already married "Rosalinde" in 1596, when the last books of The Faerie Queen were published, is deduced from the idea that the originals for "Mirabella" and the "Carle and fool" of the The Faerie Queen are identical with those for "Rosalinde" and "Menalcas" of The Shepheards Calendar. While it is probable that Spenser had the same originals in mind in both cases, an analysis of his verses in The Faerie Queen shows that the "Carle and fool," who accompany Mirabella, represent two persons, i.e. "Disdaine" and "Scorne." In the following verses Mirabella speaks:

"In prime of youthly yeares, when first the flowre

Of beauty gan to bud, and bloosme delight,

And Nature me endu'd with plenteous dowre

Of all her gifts, that pleased each living sight,

I was belov'd of many a gentle Knight,

And sude and sought with all the service dew:

Full many a one for me deepe groand and sight,

And to the dore of death for sorrow drew,

Complayning out on me that would not on them rew.

But let them love that list, or live or die,

Me list not die for any lovers doole;

Ne list me leave my loved libertie

To pitty him that list to play the foole;

To love myselfe I learned had in schoole.

Thus I triumphed long in lovers paine.

And sitting carelesse on the scorners stoole,

Did laugh at those that did lament and plaine;

But all is now repayd with interest againe.

For loe! the winged God that woundeth harts

Causde me be called to accompt therefore;

And for revengement of those wrongfull smarts,

Which I to others did inflict afore,

Addeem'd me to endure this penaunce sore;

That in this wise, and this unmeete array,

With these two lewd companions, and no more,

Disdaine and Scorne, I through the world should stray."

Assuming "Mirabella" and "Rosalinde" to indicate the same woman, i.e. Rose Spicer, whom Florio married in 1617, but with whom he had been living in concubinage for about eighteen years when the last three books of The Faerie Queen were published, Mirabella's penance of being forced to "stray through the world" accompanied by "Disdaine" and "Scorne," would match her plight as Florio's mistress, but would not apply to her as his wife.

The Rosalinde indicated by Spenser was undoubtedly a north of England girl, while Samuel Daniel belonged