Almost everything we know about Edmund Spenser comes from his own writings. We know only what he tells us. When we first encounter him (in the Immerito/Harvey letters published in 1579) he is concealed behind his "Immerito" mask. Moreover, Harvey refers, in these letters, to Immerito's "vowed and long experimented secrecie." In view of this, and the lack of historical data, it is odd scholars have never considered the idea that "Edmund Spenser" might also be a mask. State papers record a Spenser in the service of Leicester. This Spenser has been accepted as Edmund Spenser, author of the Spenser works. But this Spenser almost immediately after our first record of him (in 1580) accompanies Lord Grey de Wilton, to Ireland as a secretary, and remains there until shortly before his death in 1598. This is very suspicious. Spenser's absence from the London scene is most convenient. The Spenser works do not appear until Spenser is safely tucked away in a remote area of Ireland. And interestingly enough the very area in Ireland that Spenser had gone to is the area the author of the works that appear under the Spenser name is least familiar with. Parker Woodward says: