I might mention that Ruburt handled the situation with his father's mistress in a much more intelligent fashion than he would have, if it were not for the insight he has gained as a result of these sessions.
Many Victorians would have judged him as disgraceful and insanely radical and I'm wondering whether one of the reasons the poem did so well because so many respectable men at the time had mistresses.
By that time, Parnell's reputation had been destroyed. In 1890, the husband of Katherine O'Shea, his mistress, brought a divorce action based on Parnell's adultery with her.
Wyatt had a lifetime mistress, Elizabeth Darrell and he's also notoriously supposed to have been in love with King Henry VIII's second Queen, Anne Boleyn.