With Spurs of Gold: Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds

by Frances Nimmo Greene; Dolly Williams Kirk

It is interesting to know that in his colonization schemes Sidney was intimately associated with such men as Martin Frobisher, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Sir Francis Drake.

His connection with Sir Francis Drake came near involving him in serious trouble, but ultimately ended by procuring him the commission he had so long desired. Tired of a life of inactivity, anxious to foil the Spanish in the New World, and sick to death of the busy idleness of the court, Sidney at length determined to go with Drake to a new world and a new career. Accordingly, he made ready, and actually went as far as Plymouth, where he was to take ship, when he was overtaken by a messenger bearing "grace in one hand and thunder in the other," and the queen's command that he return to court.

The grace was that he was to have his long-desired commission in the Netherlands, if he would but return. Her Majesty had evidently learned that she would have to compromise with her spirited subject.

Sidney did return, and received the commission promised. The queen signed a patent making him governor of Flushing and Rammekins in the Netherlands. Leicester she made commander-in-chief of the forces she had at last agreed to send to the aid of the oppressed Dutch.

Sidney was not one-and-thirty years of age when he received his appointment. He went into the project with all the fire of his youth and chivalry. At last he was free from court fetters; at last he could play a man's part in life. All the dreams of his boyhood now waked again. No mimic warfare of joust and tournament for him now! With naked sword he was to face the enemies of a weak and oppressed people.

When Sidney landed at Flushing, he had yet to learn that war demands more courage than is needed in merely facing the foe—the courage to endure delays, hardships, injustice, and all the cruel accompaniments of a campaign. He learned his lesson well and shortly, for when he was weighed in the balance, he was not found wanting in a single quality that belongs to the hero.

Flushing, which had been assigned to English control, was at the mouth of the Scheldt River, and on the opposite bank stood the Castle of Rammekins. These were important points, as they commanded the entrance from the sea. The people of the town hailed Sidney as a deliverer and protector, for they were worn with the long struggle against the Spanish, and were wellnigh disheartened. The defences of the place were in wretched condition, and the town itself in a most unhealthy state, so Sir Philip set to work at once to put the place in a more sanitary condition and to strengthen its fortifications.

Shortly after Sidney had begun to get ready for real war, his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, arrived in the Netherlands with the main body of the troops sent by her Majesty, and made a spectacular tour through several leading cities. He took up his position at the Hague, where he immediately began to live in almost royal state, spending the funds sent from England, wasting the resources of the people he had ostensibly come to help, and making no move against the Spanish, who were daily gaining ground.

If Sidney had hoped that, in changing her mind about assisting the Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth had changed some of her personal characteristics too, he was very quickly undeceived. The supply of men and money sent by her Majesty was entirely inadequate to existing necessities; and having shipped her small quota of troops, the queen apparently washed her hands of them.

With his superior officer, Leicester, wasting time and the resources of the troops, in dissipation, and the queen careless of their straits, Sidney was reduced almost to despair. Yet if he had come to hope little, he worked as if the whole responsibility of the cause rested on his shoulders. He not only put the places of his own command in as good condition as was possible, but he went from one city to another, assisting and advising. He made journey after journey to the Hague to rouse Leicester to a more active policy, and at one time went even into Germany to implore help for the wretched country. All this time he was writing to Leicester, to the queen, to her advisers, the most passionate letters. He set forth the condition of affairs in language that stripped truth of all dissembling, and implored her Majesty and her officers to let him do the work for which he had been sent. Like the king of the forest in the narrow confines of a cage, Sidney's fierce soul raged against the orders that kept his sword idle while the Spanish were wasting the land. There is not a more pathetically tragic figure in history than that of the heroic Sidney in the power of the unworthy Queen of England and of the doubly unworthy Earl of Leicester.