What evidence is there from the text that marks Spenser's The Faerie Queene as political allegory?

George Armstrong Wauchope, Ph.D. of South Carolina College
explains in his introductory remarks to Book I of Spenser's text in Gutenberg Project
that Book II is an allegory about "man's relationship to himself." He further points out
that in early time periods, a poet's sovereign ruler was an integral part of that theme
of man's relationship to man. It is in the opening lines of "The Legend of Sir Gvyon
(Gwyn)" preceding the first Canto of Book II that primary textual evidence for a
political allegory is found in that the Faerie Queene is expressly tied to the
allegorical presence of the political head of England, Queen Elizabeth.. [Remember also,
as Wauchope similarly points out, that poets in earlier eras were dependent upon the
financial patronage of royalty and nobility in order to have leisure to pursue their
masterpieces. Spenser was particularly in need of royal patronage since he did not come
from an independently wealthy family and earned his way through his schooling on what
may be called work-scholarships.]

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Right well I wote most mighty
Soueraine,
That all this famous antique history,
Of some
th'aboundance of an idle braine
Will iudged be, and painted
forgery,
Rather then matter of iust memory,
Sith none, that
breatheth liuing aire, does know,
Where is that happy land of
Faery,
Which I so much do vaunt, yet no where show,
But vouch
antiquities, which no body can know.

But let that man with better
sence aduize,
That of the world least part to vs is red:
And dayly
how through hardy enterprize,
Many great Regions are
discouered,
Which to late age were neuer mentioned.
Who euer heard
of th'Indian Peru?
Or who in venturous vessell measured
The Amazon
huge riuer now found trew?
Or fruitfullest Virginia who did euer
vew?

These two stanzas open
Book II of The Faerie Queene. The first line is addressed to "most
mighty Soueraine (Sovereign)." If that were all the textual evidence there was here to
connect the allegory to a political theme by a connection to the Sovereign, it might
conceivably be argued that the address was to a fantasy Queene who was part of the whole
fantasy Spenser was meticulously building. However, this view cannot hold up once you
read as far as lines 12 and 13 of the excerpt. These begin a passage that definitively
identifies the "Soueraine" of the opening line and enumerates some political enterprises
undertaken by the Faerie Queene. These lines read:

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And dayly how through hardy
enterprize,
Many great Regions are discouered,
....

Spenser is here
referring to Queen Elizabeth's "enterprize" in exploring and conquering many distant
lands in the navigational outflux that began discovering a whole world after Columbus
opened the possibilities. There remains no doubt that Queen Elizabeth's political
enterprise is precisely what Spenser refers to when the next lines reveal allusion to
Peru, the Amazon River, and Virginia. As a result of Spenser's specific mention of
things directly attributable to the reign of Queen Elizabeth, all textual doubt is
removed that Spenser is addressing anyone but the Queen whom he hopes to gain as a
friend and a patron. In so doing Spenser has established an unquestionable political
element to his allegory.