"Good Queen Bess," as she has been miscalled, cared little for blunt honesty. She was a vain and selfish woman, fond of flattery and capricious in the extreme. She liked the soft speeches and fulsome compliments of such men as the Earl of Leicester far better than she liked the simple sincerity of the honest Sir Henry. Then, too, the queen was avaricious. The condition of Ireland was of less moment to her than the condition of her exchequer; and she was continually at odds with Sir Henry because he spent more money than she thought necessary on the unfortunate people whom she had sent him to rule.
But though the queen had little love for Philip Sidney's father, she was all too partial to his brilliant uncle. The most conspicuous figure at Elizabeth's court for many years was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Leicester was own brother to Lady Sidney, but he had few of that lady's noble qualities. He was a courtier of the most ignoble type, being a man who ever sought his own advancement by flattery and cajolery—always ready to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift might follow fawning." For many years Leicester was the avowed lover of the virgin queen, and there was some talk of a secret marriage having been contracted between them, though there was probably no truth in the rumor.
This much is certain, however—the queen favored Leicester in every possible way, showering honor after honor upon him, and giving him great riches.
When young Philip Sidney was not yet seventeen years of age, a dread plague broke out in England and, reaching Oxford University, where he was studying, necessitated the closing of that institution. Philip's education was thus cut short before he had obtained his college degree, but not before he had become one of the most scholarly men of the day.
Shortly after the closing of the university, he was summoned to court to be in attendance on her majesty, and to take a place among the gay company with which she was surrounded. This was considered a marked advancement for him, and, at once, all thought that the queen would specially honor him on account of his being nephew to the prime favorite, Leicester.
The queen did favor Sidney—in her own capricious, selfish way—and he shortly became the youngest darling of the court. He was only seventeen when he took his place among Elizabeth's courtiers, but he was well grown, and was exceedingly talented and handsome.
The power to win stanch and loving friends was inborn in him, and when he left the quiet halls of Oxford for the frivolous court of Queen Elizabeth, there was more than one heart that was anxious for him. The Irish Sea lay between him and his sober, upright father; while the voluptuous and insincere Earl of Leicester was to be his patron, and all the hollow, glittering, pleasure-loving men and women of the court were to be his daily companions. No wonder his friends watched the young courtier's career with anxiety! But time soon showed how truly the young Philip was stanch old Sir Henry's son. As was natural, Sidney loved the brilliant Leicester, and failed to see his uncle's vices as plainly as he might have seen another man's, but he did not make those vices his own. It was natural, too, that he should feel a youthful enjoyment in the gayety and glitter about him, but he somehow kept himself unstained by what lay beneath.
There were two influences at work in the youth which, together, saved him from the follies about him: first, and greater, the nobleness of character which was his by heredity; and, second, the high ideals formed in his boyhood.
Sidney had dreamed of a truth unsullied, of a manhood devoted to high and noble deeds, of a faith that was stronger than death. He waked to find himself, in satin and gold lace, dawdling about a vain and licentious court.
Fortunately for the ambitious youth, a change now took place in his affairs which enabled him to see something of the world, and to pursue his studies further. Before he had been a year at court, he was sent to Paris in the train of the Earl of Lincoln, whose mission it was to arrange a marriage between the English queen and the Duke d'Alençon, brother to King Charles IX. of France.