Sir Philip Sidney (Barnes & Noble Digital Library): Servant of God

By Anna M. Stoddart

Poet, soldier, lover, courtier: Sir Philip Sidney (1554-1586) was one of the Elizabethan age’s most colorful figures, immortalized in verse by Edmund Spenser as the epitome of English manhood. Intended for young people and the general reader, this 1894 biography offers his life story as an example of obedience to the will of God.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Barnes & Noble
• Release date: May 3, 2011
• ISBN: 9781411452442

Book preview

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Servant of God

ANNA M. STODDART

This 2011 edition published by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN: 978-1-4114-5244-2

PREFACE

IN offering the story of Sir Philip Sidney's life to the public, the writer wishes to acknowledge her great indebtedness to the researches made by Mr Fox Bourne, and to the fine scholarship of the late Mr Addington Symonds, and to explain that her object is in no way to compete with the worthier biographies written by these gentlemen. She desires only to present the man as he appears in a simple sequence of the episodes of his life, and to avoid as much as possible the historical and literary digressions, which, although essential to the more important works, are apt to divert the attention from their central figure. Her book is meant rather for the general reader than for the student; and if boys and girls in Sidney's England will learn from its pages that obedience to the will of God alone can mould a life into immortal example, she will reap a rich reward.

SO shines a good deed in a naughty world, wrote Shakspeare some ten years after Sidney's death, perhaps with a thought consecrated to the hero of Zutphen, whose self-denial in presence of another's need dazzled the imagination of his time. We do not know the measure of that influence, what worth it had to purify the crafty and self-seeking men who bared their heads in homage when they buried the jewel of the realm,—but we do know that it helped to make plain the purer law, and to add an imperishable precedent to the standard of noble living. Through three centuries the little candle has thrown its beams. Philip Sidney, nurtured in the traditions of feudal chivalry, his mind quick with the impulse of Christian chivalry, remains to us an exquisite type of the transition. His peers were bounded by imposing forms which prescribed their aims,—he, obedient to these so far as they were honest in the sight of all men, acknowledged them as but externals, and knew the ultimate voice to which his attentive spirit bowed. Few could hear it in those noisy times, when crooked diplomacy, the clash of arms, and cruelty were the outward and visible signs of what men called religion.

It is worth our while to study the records of such a man, although of these but a handful of faded pages is left to us. Dim where we would have them clear, illuminated with fancies where we would have them ungilded story, void where we would have them full, these pages tell us nonetheless of a life rare at any time, exquisite at the time of its occurrence. From their halting tale, from all that scholars have selected during years of research and of collation, we can fit into contour the figure of Sir Philip Sidney, and make him stand in high relief against the troubled background of his times, not flatten into scant significance upon its level.

A short walk takes us from Penshurst Station to his home, scarcely changed since he and Spenser rode down from Court to note how the Gateway Tower rose. The road invites us to loiter. Spanish chestnuts border it; behind them are laurels; beyond the bays is a further backing of tall larches. The banks climb to fences and are full of wild flowers,—summer growths this summer morning,—St John's wort, agrimony, dark-blue veronica, swelling stalks of angelica.

We reach the village and pass through the lych-gate into the churchyard. Philip Sidney must have gone in and out full often under the beam on which is carved: My flesh also shall rest in hope. The gate was there a century before his birth. The old guild-house rises beside it: they have joint memories, for they have weathered four centuries and a half together, and they stretch out their beams to each other and have reasoned themselves into one mind upon a world to which they scarcely belong. They were in their prime when Philip and his little sisters pattered by them and up the path to church. Now they are very old, and though we touch them and see them, we know that they are memories and not realities. Memories made tangible and visible linger here to keep immortal Philip's fame, to enshrine the echoes of his footsteps, to preserve the very look of things on which his young eyes rested. They have a trust to keep so precious that it cannot be bequeathed. Frail warders, whose antique loyalty outlives the braggart centuries and has no part in them, how strong is love that has embalmed your sacred charge!

From the churchyard we pass into the park and enter the President's court. It took its name from Philip's father, Lord President of the Welsh Marches, and it stretches between the west front of Penshurst Place and a dwarf stone wall which encloses it from the park. The President raised most of this low, embattled wing when he enlarged the house and built the gateway tower. The tower opens to the north front and bears its pedigree above the door. Pencester the place was called when Edward VI. gave it to Sir William Sidney, the President's father. The President himself was Edward's playmate in childhood, his schoolmate in boyhood, his comfort in his brief kinghood; in his ear he breathed his last wish for England, and in his arms he died. A few months before Edward died, he made this gift to the Sidneys; a year later Sir William Sidney died, and the boy-king's friend was lord of Penshurst. It had passed through many hands, knightly