Upon the restoration of the Long Parliament, 7th May 1659, Sidney again took his seat, and was placed on the council of state. He showed himself in this office especially anxious that the military power should be duly subordinated to the civil. On 5th June he was appointed one of three commissioners to mediate for a peace between Denmark supported by Holland and Sweden. He was probably intended to watch the conduct of Montague, who was in command of the Baltic squadron. Of his character we have an interesting notice from Whitelocke, who refused to accompany him on the ground of his “overruling temper and height.” Upon the conclusion of the treaty he went to Stockholm as plenipotentiary; and in both capacities he behaved with resolution and address. When the restoration of Charles II. took place Sidney left Sweden, 28th June 1660, bringing with him from the king of Sweden a rich present in testimony of the estimation in which he was held. Sidney went first to Copenhagen, and then, being doubtful of his reception by the English court, settled at Hamburg. From there he wrote a celebrated letter vindicating his conduct, which will be found in the Somers Tracts. He shortly afterwards left Hamburg, and passed through Germany by way of Venice to Rome. His stay there, however, was embittered by misunderstandings with his father and consequent straits for money. Five shillings a day, he says, served him and two men very well for meat, drink, and firing. He devoted himself to the study of books, birds, and trees, and speaks of his natural delight in solitude being largely increased. In 1663 he left Italy, passed through Switzerland, where he visited Ludlow, and came to Brussels in September, where his portrait was painted by Van Egmondt; it is now at Penshurst. He had thoughts of joining the imperial service, and offered to transport from England a body of the old Commonwealth men; but this was refused by the English court. It is stated that the enmity against him was so great that now, as on other occasions, attempts were made to assassinate him. On the breaking out of the Dutch war Sidney, who was at The Hague, urged an invasion of England, and shortly afterwards went to Paris, where he offered to raise a rebellion in England on receipt of 100,000 crowns. Unable, however, to come to terms with the French Government, he once more went into retirement in 1666,—this time to the south of France. In August 1670 he was again in Paris, and Arlington proposed that he should receive a pension from Louis; Charles II. agreed, but insisted that Sidney should return to Languedoc. In illustration of his austere principles it is related that, Louis having taken a fancy to a horse belonging to him and insisting on possessing it, Sidney shot the animal, which, he said, “was born a free creature, had served a free man, and should not be mastered by a king of slaves.” His father was now very ill, and after much difficulty Sidney obtained leave to come to England in the autumn of 1677. Lord Leicester died in November; and legal business connected with other portions of the succession detained Sidney from returning to France as he had intended. He soon became involved in political intrigue, joining, in general, the country party, and holding close communication with Barillon, the French ambassador. In the beginning of 1679 he stood for Guildford, and was warmly supported by William Penn, with whom he had long been intimate, and to whom he afforded assistance in drawing up the constitution of Pennsylvania. He was defeated by court influence, and his petition to the House, complaining of an undue return, never came to a decision. His Letters to Henry Sarnie, written at this period, are of great interest. He was in Paris, apparently only for a short while, in November 1679. Into the prosecution of the Popish Plot Sidney threw himself warmly, and was among those who looked to Monmouth, rather than to

Orange, to take the place of James in the succession, though he afterwards disclaimed all interest in such a question. He now stood for Bramber (Sussex), again with Penn’s support, and a double return was made. He is reported on 10th August 1679 as being elected for Amersham (Buckingham) with Sir Roger Hill. When parliament met, however, in October 1680, his election was declared void. But now, under the idea that an alliance between Charles and Orange would be more hostile to English liberty than would the progress of the French arms, he acted with Barillon in influencing members of parliament in this sense, and is twice mentioned as receiving the sum of 500 guineas from the ambassador. Of this there is no actual proof, and it is quite possible that Barillon entered sums in his accounts with Louis which he never paid away. In any case it is to be remembered that Sidney is not charged with receiving money for advocating opinions which he did not enthusiastically hold.

Upon the dissolution of the last of Charles’s parliaments the king issued a justificatory declaration. This was at once answered by a paper entitled A Just and Modest Vindication, &c., the first sketch of which is imputed to Sidney. It was then, too, that his most celebrated production, the Discourses concerning Government, was concluded, in which he upholds the doctrine of the mutual compact and traverses the High Tory positions from end to end. In especial he vindicates the propriety of resistance to kingly oppression or misrule, upholds the existence of an hereditary nobility interested in their country’s good as the firmest barrier against such oppression, and maintains the authority of parliaments. In each point the English constitution, which he ardently admires, is, he says, suffering: the prerogatives of the crown are disproportionately great; the peerage has been degraded by new creations; and parliaments are slighted.

For a long while Sidney kept himself aloof from the duke of Monmouth, to whom he was introduced by Lord Howard. After the death of Shaftesbury, however, in November 1682, he entered into the conferences held between Monmouth, Russell, Essex, Hampden, and others. That treasonable talk went on seems certain, but it is probable that matters went no further. The watchfulness of the court was, however, aroused, and on the discovery of the Rye House Plot, Sidney, who had always been regarded in a vague way as dangerous, was arrested while at dinner on 26th June 1683. His papers were carried off, and he was sent at once to the Tower on a charge of high treason. For a considerable while no evidence could be found on which to establish a charge. Jeffreys, however, was made lord chief-justice in September; a jury was packed; and, after consultations between the judge and the crown lawyers, Sidney was brought to listen to the indictment on 7th November. The trial, which began on 21st November, was conducted with a shameless absence of equity: Sidney was refused a copy of the indictment, in direct violation of law, and—more shameful still—he was refused the assistance of counsel. Hearsay evidence and the testimony of the perjured informer Lord Howard, whom Sidney had been instrumental in introducing to his friends, were first produced. This being insufficient, partial extracts from papers found in Sidney’s study, and supposed only to be in his handwriting, in which the lawfulness of resistance to oppression was upheld, were next relied on. He was indicted for “conspiring and compassing the death of the king.” Sidney conducted his case throughout with great skill; he pointed especially to the fact that Lord Howard, whose character he easily tore to shreds, was the only witness against him as to treason, whereas the law required two, that the treason was not accurately defined, that no proof had been given that the papers produced were his, and that, even if that were proved, these papers were in no way connected with the charge. Against the determination to secure a conviction, however, his courage, eloquence, coolness, and skill were of no avail, and the verdict of “guilty” was given. On 25th November Sidney presented a petition to the king, praying for an audience, which, however, under the influence of James and Jeffreys, Charles refused. On the 26th he was brought up for judgment, and again insisted on the illegality of his conviction. Upon hearing his sentence he gave vent to his feelings in a few noble and beautiful words. Jeffreys having suggested that his mind was disordered, he held out his hand and bade the chief-justice feel how calm and steady his pulse was. By the advice of his friends he presented a second petition, offering, if released, to leave the kingdom at once and for ever. The supposed necessity, however, of checking the hopes of Monmouth’s partisans, caused the king to be inexorable. The last days of Sidney’s life were spent in drawing up his Apology and in discourse with Independent ministers. He was beheaded on the morning of 7th December 1683. His remains were buried at Penshurst. (o. a.)

SIDNEY, Sir Philip (1554-1586), although killed at the early age of thirty-two, was one of the most conspicuous figures at the court of Elizabeth, was known to the leading statesmen of Europe as a soldier and statesman of the highest promise, took a permanent place in history and legend as a romantic hero, and in literature is distinguished as the author of the first important body of English sonnets and a writer whose works mark a distinct advance in English prose. He was born at Penshurst in Kent on 29th November 1554. His father was Sir Henry Sidney, famous in his time as an administrator of Ireland, his mother a Dudley, sister of Elizabeth’s favourite, the earl of Leicester, and daughter of the earl of Northumberland executed for high treason in the reign of Mary. Thus Sidney was of notable kindred on both sides—

“Others, because of both sides I do take My blood from them who did excel in this,

Think Nature me a man-at-arms did make.”

He received his scholastic education at Shrewsbury school and at Christ Church, Oxford. He was entered at Shrewsbury on the same day with his lifelong friend and biographer Fulke Greville, afterwards Lord Brooke. In 1572 he set out with three years’ leave of absence to complete his education by Continental travel; he was in Paris at the house of the English ambassador on the night of the massacre of St Bartholomew, and went thence to Frankfort, Vienna, and the chief cities of Italy. During these travels he associated with scholars and statesmen, making an earnest study of European politics, winning golden opinions for his youthful gravity and sagacity. From that time Hubert Languet, the Reformer, whom he met at Frankfort, maintained a constant correspondence with him. On his return he was introduced at court, won the favour of Elizabeth, who considered him “one of the jewels of her crown,” and, in proof of the versatility which made him one of the wonders of his age, wrote a masque, The Lady of the May, for Leicester’s great reception of the queen at Kenilworth, and distinguished himself in the tournament upon the same occasion. In 1577, at the age of twenty-two, being sent as ambassador in great state to congratulate and sound Rudolph II., the new emperor of Germany, he met William the Silent, who pronounced him one of the ripest statesmen in Europe. He returned in the following year, and from that time till the expedition to the Netherlands, in which he lost his life, he had no public employment, but lived partly at court, partly at his country seat at

Penshurst in Kent. In 1583 he married the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, who after his death became countess of Essex. His most memorable interference in state affairs was a bold letter of remonstrance to Elizabeth against her suspected policy of marrying the duke of Anjou. The queen’s anger at his boldness drove him for a time into retirement. He was a strong advocate of intervention on the Protestant side, and in 1585 accompanied Leicester in his expedition to the Netherlands, and was appointed governor of Flushing, one of the towns held by the queen as security. The historical truth of the famous incident at the battle of Zutphen (22d September 1586), when the wounded hero passed a cup of water to a dying soldier, has been questioned; but it is matter of fact that he owed his death to an impulse of romantic generosity. The lord marshal happening to enter the field of Zutphen without greaves, Sidney cast off his also, to put his life in the same peril, and thus exposed himself to the fatal shot. His death took place fifteen days later, on 7th October 1586, at Arnheim.

No poet’s death was ever so lamented by poets as Sidney’s. Pastoral elegy was in fashion, and all the numerous poets and rhymesters of the time from Spenser to Davison hastened to lay their tribute of verse on the bier of this the darling of all the shepherds—

“With whom all joy and jolly merriment Is also deaded and in dolour drent.’’

That there was much more than the worship of his rank and his bright eager personality in this is shown by the lasting reputation of what he wrote during the two years of retirement, 1580-81, which he seems to have given mainly to literature. The truth is that Sidney transferred his own strong, radiant, graceful, and lovable character to his writings with a freshness and fidelity such as few finished artists have achieved, so that he really and literally lives in them to charm for ever. None of his writings were published during his lifetime, and the dates of composition are uncertain. But it would seem that Sidney’s first attempt at verse was a metrical version of the Psalms, written in conjunction with his sister, the countess of Pembroke,—“Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother.’ 1 The worth of these paraphrases, which have all Sidney’s qualities of sincerity, directness, and sweetness of rhythm, has recently been recognized by Mr Ruskin, who has edited them under the title of Rock Honeycomb in the second volume of his Bibliotheca Pastorum (1877). Sidney’s famous prose romance, The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, the “vain amatorious poem” with which Charles I. solaced his imprisonment, was also begun in 1580. It was published in 1590, and kept its popularity as long as that kind of high-flown sentiment and intricate adventure found readers. The buoyancy and freshness of Sidney’s style give a certain air of reality even to the artificial scenes of the Arcadia, and many pretty songs are interspersed through the work. Sidney’s greatest poetic achievement, however, was the series of sonnets entitled Astrophel and Stella, the first important body of sonnets in the English language. The sonnets, 110 in number, are a chronicle of the poet’s love for Penelope Devereux, sister of the earl of Essex, afterwards Lady Rich. He first met the lady when she was a child of twelve at one of the stages in Elizabeth’s progress to Kenilworth in 1575. A match was apparently arranged between them by their families, but upon Leicester’s disgrace it was broken off and Penelope was given to Lord Rich. Sidney seems then to have discovered that he was in love with her. Whether the passion was real or feigned for artistic purposes is of little consequence, although the reality of it has been hotly maintained; he writes as if it were real, and the verisimilitude of the story recorded in the sonnets, which express his varying moods towards her throughout the incidents of subsequent intercourse and the distractions of his public life, adds greatly to their interest. Very few of the sonnets will bear separation from the context, though there is hardly one that does not contain some sweet ingenuity of fancy or casual felicity of phrase. Some of them were special favourites with Charles Lamb. Sidney’s other work during this busy literary passage in his short life, the Apologie for Poetrie, has also established itself as a classic.

The best of the sonnets are selected by Mrs Ward in Ward’s English Poets; Mr Main also makes a good selection in his Treasury of English Sonnets. The sonnets were probably written in 1581; they were not published till 1591, when they formed the first in a brilliant series of volumes of sonnet literature (see “Elizabethan Sonneteers,” in Minto’s Characteristics of English Poets ) . The Apologie is included in Arber's reprints.