SIDNEY, ALGERNON (c.1622 S3). An English Revolutionary statesman. After receiving a care ful education he accompanied his father, the sec ond Earl of Leicester. on embassies to Denmark and France. His first military service was against the rebels of Ireland in 1641 while his father was Lord Lieutenant there. In the Civil War he fought for Parliament. The year 1647 saw him lieutenant-general of the Horse in Ire land, and the next year he became Governor of Dover, a position which he held for more than two years. In 1645 Cardiff had returned him to the Long Parliament, and three years afterwards he was appointed a commissioner for the trial of Charles I. He absented himself from the sessions of the court, however, because, as he explains, he wished to keep himself "clean from having any hand in this business." His objection to the trial of the King was that the House of Lords had not assented to it. But it is said that he afterwards spoke of the execution as "the justest and bravest action that was ever done in England or any where else." In principle a severe republican, he resented the concentration of power in Crom well. When the restored Parliament met in 1659 Sidney was again nominated to the Council of State. and dispatched to Denmark on a political mission. After the Restoration he lived precari ously on the Continent, flitting about from place to prace. Received with great honor into the high est society of Rome, he desired to pass the re mainder of his life there: but as political ene mies sought his life, he dared not remain long in one place. All came to regard him as the ablest of the English exiles, and the King's friends feared his great influence; hut in 1677 Charles II. pardoned him, and he returned to his native
country.
Holding persistently to his old principles, how ever, he favored the Duke of Alonmonth as suc cessor to Charles II. in place of the Duke of York. To accomplish his object lie solicited the aid of the French monarch, who is known to have sup plied him with money through Barilion. the French Ambassador to England. His designs were suspected, and when the Rye House Plot was discovered in June, 1683, the opportunity was seized to be rid of a man felt to be danger ous. With his friend, Lord Russell, and others lie was arrested and committed to the Tower. His trial for high treason began November 21st before the brutal Jeffreys, who on the merest mockery of evidence found him guilty and con demned him to death. The execution took place December 7th on Tower IliII. His heroic firm ne.i, in death awakened the sympathy and the indignation of the public, which, in recognition of his devotion to principle, has ever since re vered him as a patriot hero and martyr. In the history and theory of government Sidney was more deeply learned than any other man of his time. His Discourses Concerning Government were published in London in 1693, and his entire works appeared in 1772.
Consult: Arraignment, Trial and Condemna tion, of Algernon Sidney, etc. (London, 1684) ; Ewald, Life and Times of Algernon Sidney (Lon don, 1873). •