fortress on the river Issel. This place was important because it opened the
way to Zutphen, and if Zutphen were once taken, the English and Dutch would
command the river. Doesburg was gained, and Zutphen soon after surrounded;
Leicester guarding it by water, and Sir Philip Sidney, Count Louis of
Nassau, and Sir John Norris, guarding it by land.
News was brought to the English camp that a large supply of food was at a
place called Deventer, not far off, and Leicester was resolved that it
should not be brought into the town, whilst the garrison were equally
resolved to receive it. On the morning of the 22nd of September, Sidney
advanced to the walls of Zutphen with only 200 men. Before he set out he
was clad in complete armour, but meeting the marshal of the camp only
lightly armed, he took off some of the armour that covered his legs. There
was a mist at the time he set out, but when he had galloped quite close to
the town, it dispersed, and he found a thousand of the enemy in readiness
to receive him. The fight soon began, his horse was killed under him, and
he mounted another. The battle was furious, and the Spaniards, although
they were five times as many as the English, were totally routed. In the
last charge, Sir Philip was wounded severely in the thigh; his horse, being
very mettlesome, rushed furiously from the battle-field, and carried him a
mile and a half, wounded and bleeding, to the spot where Leicester stood.
When he lay in his anguish on the field, a bottle of water was brought to
him that he might quench his thirst; but seeing a soldier near him, wounded
like himself, look wistfully at it, he ordered it to be carried to him,
saying, "This man's necessity is greater than mine."
His friends and his soldiers were overcome with grief when his state became
known; at the sight of his sufferings they almost forgot the glory of his
triumph; Yet amidst all his pain, he never ceased declaring that as long as
he lived his life was the queen's, and not his own, and that his friends
ought not to be discouraged. They laid him gently in his uncle's barge;
slowly it glided down the river to Arnheim, in Gelderland, and whilst he
lay patiently in it, he was heard to express the hope that his wound was
not mortal, and that he might yet have time to become holier before he
died.
Day after day he lay in great pain, but talking kindly the while to the
friends who grouped lovingly around him, and tended by his wife,
Walsingham's daughter, who had hastened to Arnheim as soon as she heard
tidings of his disaster. When he felt he could only live a little time
longer, he made his confession of Christian faith, and settled his earthly
affairs, remembering in his will all those whom he had loved. He took a
tender farewell of his brother Robert, telling him "to love his memory and
cherish his friends, and to govern his own will by the word of his
Creator." And then having called for music, while sweet strains filled the
chamber, silent with coming death, the spirit passed from this world.
His remains were brought to England, and interred in the great church of
St. Paul, which eighty years later was destroyed by the fire of London.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:" such were the words inscribed
on his coffin; and the perfectness of his character, and the regard in
which men held him, cannot be better expressed than in the language of the
old chronicle which says, "As his life was most worthie, so his end was
most godlie. The love men bore him, left fame behind him; his friendlie
courtesie to many procured him good-will of all."[28]
The Poles after the death of their king, Stephen Balori, would have
conferred the crown on Sir Philip Sidney, because he was so justly renowned
for his humane and upright spirit, but he thought that his first duty was
to his sovereign, and the idea was renounced.
FOOTNOTES:
[26] The Earl of Leicester, the Court favourite of Queen Elizabeth, was
brother to Lady Mary Sidney.
[27] See "British Biography."
[28] Holinshed.
_J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON._