Some Noble Sisters

by Edmund Lee

Your loving Brother,

Philip Sidney."

If the work was roughly completed by Philip, the duty remained for his sister, with loving melancholy, to revise and prepare it for the press after his death.

It appears to have been, also, at this time that Sidney and his sister commenced their joint work of translating the Psalms into English verse, to which it will be necessary to refer later.

Before alluding to the other literary labours of the Countess of Pembroke, reference may be made to the few remaining years of the life of her brother. Towards the close of the year we find him again at Court, and sitting in Parliament for his native county. Although holding the office of Cup Bearer to the Queen, he does not seem to have received any distinct marks of the Royal favour for some years. In fact, his family was neglected, and especially so his father, who had become impoverished through his disinterested devotion to the Crown. In the early part of 1583, however, Philip received from Her Majesty the honour of knighthood, together with benefits of a more substantial character. About the same time he married the daughter of the distinguished statesman, Sir Francis Walsingham.

It was about two years later, when Sir Philip was yet only in the flower of his manhood and the height of his fame, that he received the appointment which led to his early death. The President of the Netherlands, having applied to the English Queen for help against the Duke of Alva, she sent an expedition under the Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip being appointed General of the Horses and Governor of Flushing. Thither he repaired in the month of November, 1585, leaving his young and devoted wife (who had only shortly before given birth to a daughter) in England. In his character as a soldier, Sir Philip was as conscientious and brave as he was distinguished as a scholar and diplomatist; but he was not therein so happy. Entering with marked zeal and energy upon his duties, he conducted the campaign with considerable success in spite of many difficulties.

The year 1586 proved to be one of successive sorrows to the Countess of Pembroke. Her earliest affections had never waned. Blessed with such parents and brothers as she was, life without them could never be the same to her; and the rapidity with which the strokes of bereavement followed each other gave no room for Time's healing power to intervene. The first shock was sustained in the month of May by the death of her father. But three months later her mother finished her brave, devoted, and self-sacrificing life. However opinions may have differed as to her husband, no word seems to have been spoken or written of Lady Mary but in terms of the highest praise. "Born," says a competent authority, "of the noblest blood, surviving ambitious relatives who reached at royalty and perished, losing health and beauty in the service of an exacting Queen, suffering poverty at Court, supporting husband and children through all trials with wise counsel and sweet hopeful temper, she emerges with pale lustre from all the actors of that time to represent the perfect wife and mother in a lady of unpretending, but heroic, dignity."[1] This is the mother whom we find mirrored in her illustrious daughter.

This double bereavement, whilst her brother was still at Flushing, could not fail to have fallen heavily on the Countess. But this was not all. The close bonds which bound together brother and sister, not only in the most loving sympathy, but in interests and pursuits they both loved best, were destined to be rudely broken. Within two months came tidings of the disastrous events attending the siege of Zutphen and the scene of generous chivalry, which from its solitary grandeur has become familiar history. It was on the 22nd September, when Sir Philip was endeavouring to stop a reinforcement of the enemy on the way to Zutphen, that he received a wound in the thigh which subsequently proved fatal. He had displayed great valour, having twice had his horse shot under him and a third time returned to the charge. Here occurred the incident that, so well known, cannot be too often repeated. As Sir Philip was being taken from the field, weak and exhausted through loss of blood, he wished some water to be brought to him. As he was, however, in the act of raising the precious flask to his lips, his attention was drawn to a dying soldier, whose gaze was fixed longingly upon it. To this poor soldier he instantly handed the coveted beverage, saying, "Thy necessity is greater than mine."

As all the world knows, Sidney's wound proved fatal. After much suffering, borne with exemplary fortitude and resignation, he died in the arms of his faithful wife, who had joined him some time before, on the 7th October, 1586, while still only in the thirty-third year of his age. So greatly was his loss felt that the whole country went into mourning for him. His remains were brought to England and interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. It is said that no gentleman appeared in any gay or gaudy dress, either in the City or at the Court, for many months.

The poets and scholars of that cultured period vied with each other in speaking in praise of the departed. As he was so entirely one in heart with his twin-souled sister, the more immediate subject of this sketch, one of these may be selected by way of illustration. Camden, writing of him, says: "Philip Sidney, the great glory of his family, the great hopes of mankind, the most lively pattern of virtue, and the darling of the world, nobly engaging the enemy at Zutphen in Guelderland, lost his life bravely and valiantly. This is that Sidney whom, as Providence seems to have sent into the world to give the present age a specimen of the ancients, so did it on a sudden recall him, and snatch him from us, as more worthy of heaven than of earth. Thus when virtue has come to perfection it presently leaves us, and the best things are seldom lasting. Rest, then, in peace, O Sidney! if I may be allowed this address. We will not celebrate thy memory with tears, but with admiration. Whatever we loved best in thee (as the best of authors speaks of the best governor of Britain), whatever we admire in thee continues and will continue in the memories of men, the revolutions of ages, and the annals of time. Many, as being inglorious and ignoble, are buried in oblivion; but Sidney shall live to all posterity. For, as the Greek poet has it, Virtue is beyond the reach of fate."