SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.
Sir Philip Sidney was born at Penshurst in Kent, in the year 1554. His father, Sir Henry Sidney, was one of the best men that ever lived, and governed Ireland for some time with extreme justice and prudence. His mother was Mary, daughter of the Duke of Northumberland, who was beheaded for maintaining the cause of Lady Jane Grey. She had the sorrow of seeing her brother Lord Guildford Dudley also led to the scaffold; and after these terrible events lived much in retirement, devoting herself to the care and education of her sons Philip and Robert, and her daughter Mary, afterwards Countess of Pembroke.
Under the guidance of such parents, the children at Penshurst grew up in the closest bonds of family love. The grand old house they lived in was an abode worthy of a noble race. It had been given by Edward the Sixth to Sir William Sidney, the grandfather of Sir Philip. The park was famed for its beeches, chestnut trees, and oaks of stately growth; one of the latter, known by the name of "Sidney's Oak," remains standing to this day. Rich pasture lands lay around, the streams abounded with fish, the gardens and orchards with flowers and fruit. Here wandered Sir Philip with his beloved sister, his young brother Robert, who succeeded to his uncle's earldom of Leicester,[26] with the chivalrous Raleigh, the poet Spenser, the play-writer Ben Jonson, and all the good, brave, and clever men of that age.
From his earliest childhood he was so sweet-tempered and intelligent that his father lovingly called him "the light of this family." He was very fond of study, and went first to school at Shrewsbury, where we find he delighted his father greatly, when he was twelve years old, by writing him a letter in Latin, and another in French. At the age of fifteen he went to Christchurch, Oxford, where he appears to have studied with much diligence during the short period of his college life.
In the year 1571 an embassy was sent to the Court of Charles the Ninth of France, in order to treat for a marriage between the king's youngest brother, Henry Duke of Alençon, and Queen Elizabeth. The queen had already shown signs of regard for young Sidney, whom in after years she called "the brightest jewel in her crown," and she allowed him to go abroad with the mission, for the purpose of acquiring a perfect knowledge of foreign languages.
Sir Philip was in Paris on the fatal day of Saint Bartholomew, but was safe in the house of his friend Walsingham, then English minister at the French Court, whilst the unhappy Protestants were being cruelly massacred everywhere around him.
He afterwards travelled through Germany to Vienna, where he made himself perfect in every martial exercise, going thence to study science at Venice, to visit the poet Tasso at Padua, and lastly to Rome.
And whilst he was storing his mind with knowledge, and learning all accomplishments worthy of a true knight, he tried to lead a holy life, and, as far as it was in his power, to keep himself blameless in the sight of God and man; so that when he returned to England at the age of twenty, other men far older than himself looked up to him with respect, and he was considered the brightest ornament of the English Court.