SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP (1554-1586), English poet, states man and soldier, eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and his wife Mary Dudley, was born at Penshurst on Nov. 3o, 1554. On Oct. 17, 1564, he was entered at Shrewsbury school, close to Ludlow Castle, his father's official residence as lord president of Wales. His life-long friend and first biographer, Fulke Greville, entered the school on the same day. In 1568 he went up to Christ Church, Oxford, where he formed friendships with Richard Hakluyt and William Camden. In 1572 Sidney received the Queen's leave to travel and learn foreign languages.
Travels.—He went first of all in the earl of Lincoln's suite to Paris, where he witnessed the St. Bartholomew massacre. From Paris he went to Frankfort-on-the-Main (1573), where he lodged with the printer Andrew Wechel, with whom also Herbert Languet was staying. Sidney had from his earliest youth an unwonted maturity of manner, which, combined with charm, gained him the confidence of men of affairs. In France he was in close connection with the Huguenot leaders, and Languet, an ardent Protestant, went on with him to Vienna. In October Sidney left for Italy; his letters to Languet afford considerable insight into the develop ment of his character and ideas. Sidney stayed some time in Venice, and sat to Paolo Veronese for a portrait. In July 1574 he was seriously ill, and on his recovery returned to Vienna. He visited Poland with Languet, where he is said to have been offered the vacant crown, and then stayed at Vienna in a vaguely diplo matic capacity. He wrote a letter on the state of affairs to Burgh ley in Dec. 1574. The count moved to Prague in 1575, and from there he was summoned home.
At Court.—He found his sister Mary at court, and a patron in his uncle, Leicester. On one of the Queen's progresses he met Penelope Devereux, daughter of the Earl of Essex, then a child of fourteen, who was later the "Stella" of his sonnets. Essex died the next year, and seems to have desired a match between Sidney and Penelope. A letter of 1576 even mentions a "treaty" between them. But nothing was done. In the spring of 1577 Sidney was sent to congratulate the new Elector Palatine and Emperor, and to promote generally the Protestant cause. He met Don John of Austria at Louvain, and went on to Heidelberg and Prague. He
proposed a Protestant league and Church conference, and in a speech to the Emperor advocated a general league against Rome and Spain. On his way back he visited William of Orange. On his return home he paid the first of many visits to his sister Mary, who had married the Earl of Pembroke, at Wilton. Sidney now made it his business to defend his father's interests at Court, par ticularly from Lord Ormond, who was doing his best to prejudice the Queen against him. He drew up a detailed defence of his father's Irish government for presentation to the Queen. A rough draft of four sections is preserved in the British Museum (Cot ton MS., Titus B., xii., 557), which, even in its fragmentary state, justifies the estimate of it formed by Edward Waterhouse (Sidney Papers). At this time Sidney was beginning to be a figure in the world of letters; Spenser, whom he met in 1578, dedicated the Shepherdes Calendar to him the next year. He was a member of the Areopagus Society, which sought to introduce classical metres in English verse, and he wrote the Masque with which Leicester entertained the Queen at Wanstead in 1578, The Lady of the May. But Leicester's disgrace partially involved Sidney, and after a quarrel with Oxford, probably over the pro posed Anjou marriage of the Queen, followed by more active op position to the proposal in 158o (Sidney Papers p. 287). Sidney had to leave the Court and returned to Wilton. • Stella.—Here Sidney began the Arcadia for his sister's amuse ment ; not long afterwards he was allowed to return to Court. About this time must be placed the Astrophel and Stella sonnets. The date is not the only obscure point about them. His Apologie for Poetrie appeared about i581 and he was knighted in 1583. That autumn he married Frances, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham. He still desired active service, took a keen interest in the enter prises of Frobisher, Hakluyt and Raleigh, and was especially en thusiastic for the Protestant cause against Spain. He advocated a direct attack on Spain, and was himself preparing to sail with Drake in 1585 when the Queen recalled him. At last he was given a command in the Netherlands, as governor of Flushing.