reality of school-days and boyish struggles. But though he was called
away from the chivalric companionship of the knights of old, the
impression made upon his mind by their courage and fortitude and
devotion to duty ever after ran, like a thread of gold, through the warp
and woof of his character.
During the brief reign of Edward VI., Sir Henry Sidney had been
nicknamed "the only odd man and paragon of the court." The same stanch
virtues that made him "odd" in Edward's time rendered him a man apart at
the fawning, flattering, self-seeking court of Queen Elizabeth.
"Good Queen Bess," as she has been miscalled, cared little for blunt
honesty. She was a vain and selfish woman, fond of flattery and
capricious in the extreme. She liked the soft speeches and fulsome
compliments of such men as the Earl of Leicester far better than she
liked the simple sincerity of the honest Sir Henry. Then, too, the queen
was avaricious. The condition of Ireland was of less moment to her than
the condition of her exchequer; and she was continually at odds with Sir
Henry because he spent more money than she thought necessary on the
unfortunate people whom she had sent him to rule.
But though the queen had little love for Philip Sidney's father, she was
all too partial to his brilliant uncle. The most conspicuous figure at
Elizabeth's court for many years was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester.
Leicester was own brother to Lady Sidney, but he had few of that lady's
noble qualities. He was a courtier of the most ignoble type, being a man
who ever sought his own advancement by flattery and cajolery--always
ready to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift might
follow fawning." For many years Leicester was the avowed lover of the
virgin queen, and there was some talk of a secret marriage having been
contracted between them, though there was probably no truth in the
rumor.
This much is certain, however--the queen favored Leicester in every
possible way, showering honor after honor upon him, and giving him great
riches.
When young Philip Sidney was not yet seventeen years of age, a dread
plague broke out in England and, reaching Oxford University, where he
was studying, necessitated the closing of that institution. Philip's
education was thus cut short before he had obtained his college degree,
but not before he had become one of the most scholarly men of the day.
Shortly after the closing of the university, he was summoned to court to
be in attendance on her majesty, and to take a place among the gay
company with which she was surrounded. This was considered a marked
advancement for him, and, at once, all thought that the queen would
specially honor him on account of his being nephew to the prime
favorite, Leicester.
The queen did favor Sidney--in her own capricious, selfish way--and he
shortly became the youngest darling of the court. He was only seventeen
when he took his place among Elizabeth's courtiers, but he was well
grown, and was exceedingly talented and handsome.
The power to win stanch and loving friends was inborn in him, and when
he left the quiet halls of Oxford for the frivolous court of Queen
Elizabeth, there was more than one heart that was anxious for him. The
Irish Sea lay between him and his sober, upright father; while the
voluptuous and insincere Earl of Leicester was to be his patron, and all
the hollow, glittering, pleasure-loving men and women of the court were
to be his daily companions. No wonder his friends watched the young
courtier's career with anxiety! But time soon showed how truly the young
Philip was stanch old Sir Henry's son. As was natural, Sidney loved the
brilliant Leicester, and failed to see his uncle's vices as plainly as
he might have seen another man's, but he did not make those vices his
own. It was natural, too, that he should feel a youthful enjoyment in
the gayety and glitter about him, but he somehow kept himself unstained
by what lay beneath.
There were two influences at work in the youth which, together, saved
him from the follies about him: first, and greater, the nobleness of
character which was his by heredity; and, second, the high ideals formed
in his boyhood.
Sidney had dreamed of a truth unsullied, of a manhood devoted to high
and noble deeds, of a faith that was stronger than death. He waked to
find himself, in satin and gold lace, dawdling about a vain and
licentious court.
Fortunately for the ambitious youth, a change now took place in his
affairs which enabled him to see something of the world, and to pursue
his studies further. Before he had been a year at court, he was sent to
Paris in the train of the Earl of Lincoln, whose mission it was to
arrange a marriage between the English queen and the Duke d'Alencon,
brother to King Charles IX. of France.
A clause from Sidney's passport, issued in the queen's name, shows for
what purpose her young courtier was sent abroad: "Her truly and
well-beloved Philip Sidney, Esquire, licensed to go out of England into
parts beyond the seas, with three servants, four horses, and all other
requisites, and to remain the space of two years immediately following
his departure out of the realm, for his attaining the knowledge of
foreign languages."
For reasons of Church and State, Lincoln's mission to France failed, and
Sidney was left free to spend the time of his voluntary exile at his
own discretion. He wisely chose to remain abroad, and spent nearly three
years traveling in France, Germany, and Italy. But these three years
were not given up to sight-seeing and social enjoyment. Sidney devoted
his time to studying literature, science, music, foreign languages, and
the politics of the day.
For two great reasons this last subject was of most vital interest to
him: it was the time of a great religious upheaval throughout Europe,
and also the time of the ambitious aggressions of Spain under Philip II.
Sidney, an ardent adherent of the Church of England, conceived the idea
of championing his beloved faith, even as the knights of old had
championed theirs. Then, too, his whole heart was with his native
country in her rapid rise to a place of power among the nations of
earth, and he recognized Spain as an ever-present menace to her
advancement.
His sympathies were especially aroused for the condition of the harassed
Netherlands, to the complete subjugation of which Spain was then bending
her strongest efforts. Then it was that Sidney's chivalric spirit took
fire with hope,--the hope that his beloved England would rise and
deliver the oppressed, and that he, her son, would be allowed to be her
humble instrument in the great and glorious work.
All that was seething in his fertile brain he wrote from time to time to
England; and he kept her statesmen informed of the state of foreign
politics in a time when newspapers and telegraph lines had not been
dreamed of. All unconsciously, he was making a name for himself in
England; and when he returned, at the age of twenty-one, he found that
he had established for himself a reputation as politician, statesman,
and man of letters.
While abroad, Sidney had been associated with "many men of many minds."
He had learned to think and feel deeply on deep subjects, and had formed
definite ideals as to a man's proper part in life. He came back to his
native land with his young heart filled with hopes that were never to be
realized--at least, not in the way that he had conceived. It is true
that he was one of a brilliant circle of men who made the England of
Elizabeth's time great by the very greatness that was theirs; but the
England of Elizabeth's time was not the England of Sidney's hopes, and a
courtiership under the virgin queen was the vanity of vanities to his
heroic spirit. From that time on, life was a struggle to him--a
struggle to live nobly amid a court given over to pleasure; a struggle
to revive the spirit of chivalry among men who were already forgetting
the very name.
Shortly after Sidney's return from abroad, and while he was in high
favor at court, it pleased the queen to make a "royal progress" through
a portion of her realm. These "progresses" were journeys through certain
parts of the kingdom, broken by visits to favored nobles at their
magnificent castles or halls. On these tours, the queen was always
brilliantly attended by ladies and gentlemen of her court; and the
subjects whom she pleased to visit devised for her the most gorgeous and
sumptuous entertainment.
Sidney had the good or bad fortune to be in attendance on her Majesty
during this progress, for it was then that he first met and admired
little Penelope Devereux. It was while her Majesty and train were
stopping to visit the Earl of Essex at Chartley Castle that the meeting
between the two young people took place. Lady Penelope, daughter of the
Earl of Essex, was then only twelve years of age, but she was a maiden
well grown for her years, and extremely beautiful; so it is not to be
wondered at that Sidney--so old in worldly wisdom, but so young in
years--should have been fascinated by the little maid's grace and
beauty. The two frolicked and danced together at Chartley, and though
there were no vows of love exchanged between them then, that visit was
the beginning of a friendship which was to ripen into the passion of
Sidney's life. It was also the beginning of another friendship, and one
which proved far happier for Sidney. The Earl of Essex conceived a deep
love and admiration for him, and invited him often to Chartley, making
him--young though he was--his bosom friend.
Afterwards, when Essex incurred the deep displeasure of Queen Elizabeth,
Sidney was one of the few courtiers who dared to show him open
friendship,--thus tacitly condemning the action of the queen, who, in
truth, was at fault.
During his visits to Chartley Castle, Sidney became more and more in
love with the little Penelope; but when he declared his passion, she
held him off, like the coquette that she was, while she took pains to
spin the web of her fascination more hopelessly about him.
The earl, her father, was always in favor of a marriage between the two;
and at his death, which took place in Penelope's fourteenth year, he
said of Sidney:--
"Oh, that good gentleman! have me commended unto him. And tell him I
send him nothing, but I wish him well,--so well that if God do move
their hearts, I wish that he might match with my daughter. I call him
son--he is so wise, virtuous, and godly. If he go on in the course he
hath begun, he will be as famous and worthy a gentleman as ever England
bred."
Two years after Essex's death, his widow was secretly married to
Sidney's uncle, the Earl of Leicester. This made a sad change in Philip
Sidney's fortunes. As long as Leicester was unmarried and childless,
Philip Sidney, as his natural heir, was a man of great prospects and a
very desirable match; but Leicester, married, with the probability of
children to inherit his titles and wealth, left Sidney only a poor
commoner.
[Illustration: Sir Philip Sidney and Penelope Devereux]
With Sidney's prospects ruined by her own marriage, Penelope's mother
decided that her daughter should make a more ambitious match, and
betrothed her to the powerful and cruel Lord Rich. Too late, the little
maid realized the value of the love with which she had been playing.
When she could no longer look forward to a match with the noble young
Sidney, she waked to the knowledge that her whole heart was bound up
in him; and she protested, even at the altar, against the marriage into
which her mother was forcing her. "Being in the power of her friends,"
as the Earl of Devonshire afterwards wrote concerning her, "she was by
them married against her will unto one against whom she did protest at
the very solemnity and ever after."
His love for Penelope was the supreme passion of Sidney's life. His was
a heart too true to change. And as Orpheus gave to his harp his love for
the lost Eurydice and charmed all nature into silence, so Philip Sidney,
bereft of the woman he loved, poured out his soul in poems that still
touch every loving heart.
From politician and courtier, Sidney rose to be one of the most
distinguished poets of his day. He wrote many poems which are still
considered of high order, but his "Astrophel and Stella," which contains
the story of his love for the Lady Penelope, is his most popular work.
Though possessed of all the grace and elegance of an Elizabethan
courtier, as well as of a gentle and artistic temperament, Philip Sidney
was no weakling. Under the costly trappings of his court finery beat a
heart as bold and passionate as King Richard's own.
Throughout all his varied experiences, public and private, he did not
once relinquish his double hope of aiding the Netherlands and crippling
the overshadowing power of Spain. Still did he implore help for the
oppressed. Long did he carry in his heart a picture of the queen--whom
he adored in spite of her unworthiness--as the zealous and devoted
champion of a great cause. But Elizabeth was no zealot, nor could she be
made one. When Sidney at length realized that the queen could not be
induced to move in the cause of the Netherlands, he made up his mind to
go as a volunteer to the assistance of William, Prince of Orange, ruler
of that country.
The idea had to be abandoned, however, for a while; for Sir Henry
Sidney--still too honest to please the queen--was again having stormy
times with her Majesty, and appealed to his son to assist him in
bringing her to a right view of his Irish policy. Sidney espoused his
father's cause with his characteristic boldness. Shortly after his
arrival at court he was met face to face by the Earl of Ormond,--a
bitter enemy to his father, and the man who had traduced Sir Henry to
the queen. Ormond approached Sidney with a suave and condescending
greeting, but the young courtier only stared at him coldly for a
minute, then turned his back squarely on him. As Ormond was one of the
peers of the realm, and Philip Sidney but a plain commoner, this was a
most daring act. But this was not the limit of his daring. Incensed at
the injustice done his father, Sidney indited a most memorable letter to
the queen, which was at once a masterly defence of Sir Henry and a
trenchant attack on the queen's favorite, Ormond. Strange to say, Queen
Elizabeth seemed to be influenced by Sidney's plain and fearless
statements, for she sometime thereafter treated his father with more
consideration.
But a greater trouble than that in connection with his father's business
now stirred the passionate Sidney to the depths. The Duke d'Alencon, who
had become the Duke of Anjou, renewed his proposition of marriage to the
English queen. Sidney despised the private character of the duke, and he
had, besides, come to object to the proposed alliance for deep and
patriotic reasons; so he opposed the projected union with all the
fearless strength that was his.
As by far the greater number of Elizabeth's advisers approved of the
match, and the queen herself inclined to it, Sidney's position soon
made him unpopular with both queen and court. Another thing happened
about this time that rendered his relations at court exceedingly
strained. The Earl of Leicester's secret marriage with the widowed
Countess of Essex, a twelvemonth before, now came out in a storm of
gossip, and threw the jealous queen into a rage. Leicester was dismissed
from court; and Philip Sidney, as his nephew, though not actually exiled
from the queen's presence, received treatment at her hands that was far
more galling to his proud spirit than would have been dismissal.
Nothing could have been more humiliating to Sidney's highstrung and
sensitive temperament than to be kept dangling about a court where the
queen turned but cold glances upon him, and where her nobles were
permitted to slight him, after the usual manner of courtiers who "kick
whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs."
Philip Sidney was a most unusual courtier. He had more than once held
out a manly hand to one who had come under her Majesty's disfavor, but
whom he regarded as stanch and deserving; and he had not failed to
condemn where she smiled, if he felt that condemnation was deserved.
With his great patron dismissed from royal favor, and London full of gay
French and English courtiers who looked upon him as an enemy, Philip
Sidney stood almost alone. Yet was he in no whit daunted, nor did he
yield one hair's breadth of the high ground he had taken. His was that
finer courage that can dare the whole world for a principle and stand
alone upon the right.
As may be imagined, this independence of spirit was most distasteful to
the vain and fickle queen; but Sidney's grace and talents and personal
beauty rendered him a courtier with whom she was unwilling to dispense.
The queen had favored him for these lesser gifts, but the great heart of
the English people loved him for the chivalric spirit _she_ valued not,
and for the indomitable manliness that would not truckle--not even to
the queen.
During this period of her Majesty's displeasure toward him, Sidney was
often stung to the quick by petty slights from his fellow-courtiers, but
on one occasion the offender went too far. The brutal but powerful Earl
of Oxford--head of the party who favored the proposed marriage--had long
been a rival of Sidney's in the queen's favor, and there was no love
lost between them.
One day at Whitehall, as Philip Sidney and some of his friends were
engaged in a game of tennis, the Earl of Oxford entered the court,
uninvited, and demanded a part in the game. The presence of a number of
French courtiers as lookers-on and listeners led him to assume a tone
that was even more arrogant and offensive than was usual with him.
At first, Sidney took no notice of the intrusion; but the studied
rudeness becoming unbearable, he at length reproved the offender firmly.
At this, Oxford fell into a rage, and ended by ordering the players out
of the tennis-court. Sidney met the earl's haughty gaze with one of
proud defiance, and answered,--
"If your Lordship had been pleased to express the wish in courteous
terms, you would have been met with courtesy, and perchance might have
led out those who will not now be driven out with any scourge of fury."
"Puppy!" exclaimed the infuriated earl.
A coarse laugh went up from the spectators, and they immediately began
to crowd the tennis-court to see the end of the quarrel. This pleased
Oxford much, for he was seeking to make a fine show before them.
Sidney realized that he was surrounded by enemies; but the fact only
put him on his mettle, and he demanded, calmly,
"My Lord of Oxford, what is that which you called me?"
"A _puppy_," repeated the earl, and his followers laughed again.
"That is a _lie_!" answered Sidney, in tones that rang out clear and
sharp.
A bolt from the skies could not have taken his listeners more aback. The
spectators looked to see Oxford attack or challenge the slender young
courtier who had flung the lie in his teeth; and Sidney himself waited
in a fierce quiet for the answer which he, and all present, felt Oxford
was bound to make.
The answer did not come. Oxford contented himself with quarreling in a
loud voice; but those whom he was trying to impress were not deceived by
his bluster, and all present knew that he had proved himself a coward.
When Sidney saw that his opponent was not going to challenge him, he
made up his mind to throw down the gauntlet himself, for he was too
indignant to let the matter drop without a personal encounter.
"My Lord of Oxford," he said coolly, "this is a business that can be
settled better in a more private place." With that, he turned and
walked out of the court.
This, of course, was a challenge; and all the next day Sidney looked for
the message of acceptance which Oxford was bound, by the code of honor,
to send him. At length it became apparent that Oxford was trying to
avoid the duel. This, Sidney had no idea of allowing him to do; so he
sent a messenger to the earl, asking whether he should hear from him or
not, and adding--
"His Lordship's French companions can teach him, if he does not know,
what course he ought to take in this affair."
Thus goaded, Oxford sent an acceptance; but before the duel could take
place, the lords of the Privy Council forbade it, and besought the queen
to effect a reconciliation between the two.
The queen's way of reconciling them was to send for Sidney and scold him
roundly. She pointed out to him the difference between peers and
commoners and the respect that inferiors owed to superiors, then she
commanded him to apologize to the earl.
"That, your Majesty," he answered, steadily, "I _cannot_ do. No peer
has, by his rank, privilege to do wrong; and though the Earl of Oxford
be a great lord by virtue of his birth and your Majesty's favors, he is
no lord over Philip Sidney."
In spite of queen and court and Privy Council, Philip Sidney would not
retreat an inch from this position; and Oxford was compelled to take
refuge in her Majesty's order, to avoid fighting with the fiery young
courtier. Shortly afterwards, the earl sent a messenger--supposed to be
Sir Walter Raleigh--with the proposition to Sidney that their
disagreement cease. Thus was the coward peer compelled to humble himself
to the proud commoner.
Negotiations for the queen's marriage to Anjou progressed favorably for
a while, to the deep distress of Sidney. Actuated by his great distrust
of Anjou and his equally great dislike to any sort of alliance with
France, he at length addressed a letter to the queen, setting forth
without reserve his objections to her marriage. He warned her Majesty,
in the most unmistakable terms, of the worthlessness and viciousness of
her suitor, and ended with a passionate appeal to her not to enter into
an alliance which would so surely cripple the advancement of the English
Church. But Sidney's letter was not one of reproof and entreaty only.
All through its pages could be seen the romantic devotion of subject to
sovereign, and the chivalric respect of a man for the woman whom he
imagined to be possessed of all feminine virtues.
The "most excellent lady" to whom the letter was indited answered it by
flying into a rage and dismissing the writer from court.
This was scarcely punishment to Sidney. He hated the vanities of court
life with his whole heart, and when he was thus dismissed, he was as one
from whom heavy shackles had been struck. He spent the time of his exile
with his beloved sister, the Countess of Pembroke, and while at her
home, wrote some of his best poems.
The queen forgave Sidney, all too soon for him, for he had to be
persuaded, nay, almost forced back into her silken fetters. The Earl of
Leicester was already reinstated in her Majesty's good-will when Sidney
came back, with reluctant grace, to be again an ornament of her court.
But he was not an ornament merely. He was soon elected to Parliament,
and through his fearless and untiring zeal did much toward making
England great.
Sidney was now becoming more and more prominent as a literary man, and
was closely associated with Raleigh, Lyly, Hooker, Christopher Marlowe,
Sir Francis Bacon, and Edmund Spenser. He was also one of the first to
patronize a rising young actor and playwright by the name of Will
Shakespeare.
In 1583 Philip Sidney was knighted, and became "_Sir_ Philip Sidney,
knight, of Penshurst." This was, however, but a poor acknowledgment of
his virtues, his high attainments, and his services to the State. He was
appointed by the queen to several minor offices, but he was never given
what he merited at her hands--so much for being better and greater than
those who have the power to reward.
For some years Sidney's friends had been pressing him to marry, for they
felt that it would be an irrevocable loss to England for such a man to
die without sons to perpetuate his talents and sterling qualities. But
Sidney for a long time turned a deaf ear to their persuasions. He had
loved one woman passionately, and she had become the wife of another
man. Since that time he had paid devoted attention to none, though he
always held the gentler sex in deepest respect.