THREE FRIENDS

The gentlewomen in attendance on the Queen had a sorry time of it during Philip Sidney's absence from the Court.

She was irritable and dissatisfied with herself and everyone besides. Fearing lest the French Ambassador should not be received with due pomp in London, and sending for Lord Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester again and again to amend the marriage contract which was to be discussed with the Duke of Anjou's delegates.

Secret misgivings were doubtless the reason of the Queen's uneasy mood, and she vented her ill-humour upon her tire-women, boxing their ears if they failed to please her in the erection of her head-gear, or did not arrange the stiff folds of her gold-embroidered brocade over the hoop, to her entire satisfaction.

Messengers were despatched several times during the process of the Queen's toilette on this May morning to inquire if Mr Philip Sidney had returned from Penshurst.

'Not returned yet!' she exclaimed, 'nor Fulke Greville with him. What keeps them against my will? I will make 'em both rue their conduct.'

'Methinks, Madam,' one of the ladies ventured to say, 'Mr Philip Sidney is wholly given up to the effort he is making that the coming tourney may be as brilliant as the occasion demands, and that keeps him away from Court.'

'A likely matter! You are a little fool, and had best hold your tongue if you can say nought more to the purpose.'

'I know Mr Sidney spares no pains to the end he has in view, Madam, and he desires to get finer horses for his retinue.'

'You think you are in his confidence, then,' the Queen said, angrily. 'You are a greater fool than I thought you. I warrant you think Philip Sidney is in love with you—you are in love with him, as the whole pack of you are, I doubt not, and so much the worse for you.'

Then the Queen having, by this sally, brought the hot tears to the lady's eyes, recovered her composure and her temper, and proceeded to take her morning draught of spiced wine, with sweet biscuits, and then resorted to the Council chamber, where all matters of the State were brought before her by her ministers. Here Elizabeth was the really wise and able monarch, who earnestly desired the good of her people; here her counsellors were often fairly amazed at her far-seeing intelligence and her wide culture. No contrast could be greater than between the middle-aged Maiden Queen pluming her feathers to win the hearts of her courtiers, and listening with satisfaction to the broadest flattery with which they could approach her, and the sovereign of a nation in times which must ever stand out in the history of England as the most remarkable the country has ever known, gravely deliberating with such men as Lord Burleigh and Sir Francis Walsingham on the affairs of State at home and abroad.

Elizabeth had scarcely seated herself in her chair, and was about to summon Sir Francis Walsingham, when one of the pages-in-waiting came in, and, bending his knee, said,—

'Mr Philip Sidney craves an audience with your Highness.'

Philip was only waiting in the ante-chamber to be announced, and, being secure of his welcome, had followed the page into the Queen's presence, and, before Elizabeth had time to speak, he was on his knees before her, kissing the hand she held out to him.

'Nay, Philip, I scarce know whether I will receive you—a truant should be whipped as a punishment—but, mayhap, this will do as well for the nonce,' and the Queen stroked Philip Sidney on both cheeks, saying, 'The gem of my Court, how has it fared with him?'

'As well as with any man while absent from you, fair Queen. Gems,' he added playfully, 'do not shine in the dark, they need the sun to call forth their brightness, and you are my sun; apart from you, how can I shine?'

'A pretty conceit,' Elizabeth said. 'But tell me, Philip, are things put in train for the due observance of such an event as the coming of the delegates from France? It is a momentous occasion to all concerned.'

'It is, indeed, Madam,' Philip Sidney said, 'and I pray it may result in happiness for you and this kingdom.'

'Nay, now, Philip, are you going back to what you dared to say of disapproval of this marriage three years ago? I would fain hope not, for your own sake.'

'Madam, I then, in all humility, delivered to you my sentiments. You were not pleased to hear them, and I was so miserable as to offend you.'

'Yes, and,' using her favourite oath 'you will again offend me if you revive the old protest, so have a care. We exercise our royal prerogative in the matter of marriage, and I purpose to wed with the Duke of Anjou, come what may.'

'I know it, Madam, and, as your faithful subject, I am doing my utmost to make the coming jousts worthy of your approval and worthy of the occasion. The Fortress of Beauty is erected, and the mound raised, and I would fain hope that you will be pleased to honour the victors with a smile.'

'And with something more valuable; but tell me, Philip, how does it fare with my Lady Rich? Rumour is busy, and there are tale-bearers, who have neither clean hearts nor clean tongues. Sure you can pick and choose amongst many ladies dying for your favour; sure your Queen may lay claim to your devotion. Why waste your sighs on the wife of Lord Rich?'

Immediately Philip Sidney's manner changed. Not even from the Queen could he bear to have this sore wound touched. He rose from his half-kneeling, half-sitting position at the Queen's feet, and said in a grave voice,—

'I await your commands, Madam, which I shall hold sacred to my latest breath, but pardon me if I beseech your Highness to refrain from the mention of one whom I have lost by my own blind folly, and so made shipwreck.'

'Tut, tut, Philip; this is vain talking for my fine scholar and statesman. Shipwreck, forsooth! Nay, your craft shall sail with flying colours yet. But I hear the voices of Burleigh and Leicester in the ante-chamber! Your good uncle is like to die of jealousy; if he finds I am closeted with you he will come to the Council in an ill temper, and rouse the lion in me. So, farewell till the evening, when I command your presence at the banquet.'

'Madam, there is yet one word I would say. It is upon my good father's affairs.'

'What now? Henry Sidney is always complaining—no money, no favour! As to the money, he has spent a goodly sum in Ireland, and yet cries out for more, and would fain go thither again, and take you with him, to squander more coin.'

'I have no desire, Madam, either for him to go to Ireland or for myself to accompany him. But I pray you to consider how small a pittance he receives as Lord President of Wales. It is ever a struggle for my mother to maintain the dignity of your representative there. She is wearing out her life in a vain effort, and you, Madam, surely know that her nature is noble, and that she seeks only to promote the welfare of others.'

'Ay! Mary Sidney is well enough. We will think over the matter. Command her to come to Court for this Whitsuntide, there is a chamber at her service. Now, I must to business. Stay if it suits you; you have more wits than all the rest of us put together. Yes, that is Leicester's step and voice.'

Philip knew better than to remain without express invitation to do so from his uncle, the Earl of Leicester. It was, perhaps, only natural that the elder man should be jealous of the younger, who had, when scarcely four-and-twenty, already gained a reputation for statesmanship at home and abroad. Brilliant as Leicester was, he was secretly conscious that there were heights which he had failed to reach, and that his nephew, Philip Sidney, had won a place in the favour of his sovereign, which even the honest protest he had made against this marriage with the Duke of Anjou had failed to destroy; a high place also in the esteem of the world by the purity of his life and the nobleness of a nature which commended itself alike to gentle and simple; while he had the reputation of a true knight and brave soldier, pure, and without reproach, as well as a scholar versed in the literature of other countries, and foremost himself amongst the scholars and poets of the day.

Philip Sidney left the presence-chamber by another door as his uncle and Lord Burleigh entered it, and went to his own apartments, where he expected to meet some friends, and discuss with them topics more interesting and profitable than the intrigues of the Court and the Queen's matrimonial projects.

Edmund Spenser's dedication to the Shepherd's Calendar is well known, and there can be no doubt that he owed much to Sidney's discriminating patronage.

That dedication was no empty compliment to win favour, and the friendship between Edmund Spenser and Philip Sidney gathered strength with time. They had often walked together under the trees at Penshurst, and a sort of club had been established, of which the members were Gabriel Harvey, Edward Dyer, Fulke Greville and others, intended for the formation of a new school of poetry. Philip Sidney was the president, and Spenser, the youngest and most enthusiastic member, while Gabriel Harvey, who was the oldest, was most strict in enforcing the rules laid down, and ready with counsel and encouragement.

The result of all the deliberations of this club were very curious, and the attempt made to force the English tongue into hexameters and iambics signally failed.

Philip Sidney and Spenser were the first to discover that the hexameter could never take its place in English verse, and they had to endure some opposition and even raillery from Gabriel Harvey, who was especially annoyed at Edmund Spenser's desertion; and had bid him farewell till God or some good angel put him in a better mind.

This literary club had broken up three years before this time, but Edmund Spenser and Sir Fulke Greville still corresponded or met at intervals with Sidney to compare their literary efforts and criticise them freely, Spenser's always being pronounced, as doubtless they were, far above the others in beauty of style and poetical conception.

By Philip Sidney's influence Spenser had been sent to Ireland as secretary to Lord Grey of Wilton, whose recall was now considered certain. Sir Henry Sidney would have been willing to return as Deputy with his son under him; but, having been badly supported in the past, he stipulated that the Queen should reward his long service by a peerage and a grant of money or lands as a public mark of her confidence.

Philip found Sir Fulke Greville in his room, and with him Edward Dyer, who had come to discuss a letter from Edmund Spenser, which he wished his friends to hear.

'He fears he shall lose his place if Lord Grey be recalled, and beseeches me,' Philip said, 'to do my best that he should remain secretary to whomsoever the Queen may appoint.'

'And that will be an easy matter, methinks,' Dyer said, 'if the rumour is true that your good father is again to be appointed Deputy of Ireland, with you for his helper.'

'Contradict that rumour, good Ned,' Philip said. 'There is but the barest chance of the Queen's reinstating my father, and if, indeed, it happened so, I should not accept the post under him. I will write to our friend Spenser and bid him take courage. His friends will not desert him. But I have here a stanza or two of the Fairie Queene, for which Edmund begs me to seek your approval or condemnation.'

'It will be the first,' Fulke Greville said, 'as he very well knows, and it will not surprise me to find our good friend Harvey at last giving him his meed of praise, albeit he was so rash as to say that hexameters in English are either like a lame gosling that draweth one leg after, or like a lame dog that holdeth one leg up.'

Fulke Greville laughed, saying,—

'A very apt simile; at least, for any attempt I was bold enow to make; but read on, Philip. I see a whole page of Edmund's somewhat cramped writing.'

'It is but a fragment,' Philip said, 'but Edmund makes a note below that he had in his mind a fair morning, when we walked together at Penshurst, and that the sounds and sights he here describes in verse are wafted to him from that time.'

'Why do you sigh as you say that, Philip? Come, man, let us have no melancholy remembrances, when all ought to be bright and gay.'

'The past time has ever somewhat of sadness as we live in it again. Have you never heard, Fulke, of the hope deferred that maketh a sick heart, nor of the hunger of the soul for the tree of life, which is to be ever denied?'

'I am in no mood for such melancholy,' was the answer. 'Let us hear what Spenser saith of that time of which you speak. I'll warrant we shall find it hard to pick out faults in what he writes therein.

Then Philip read,—

We may well think that these stanzas, which form a part of the 12th canto of the Second Book of the Faerie Queene have seldom been read to a more appreciative audience, nor by a more musical voice. After a moment's silence, Edward Dyer said,—

'I find nought to complain of in all these lines. They flow like the stream rippling adown from the mountain side—a stream as pure as the fountain whence it springs.'

'Ay,' Fulke Greville said; 'that is true. Methinks the hypercritic might say there should not be two words of the same spelling and sound and meaning, to make the rhyme, as in the lines ending with meet.'

'A truce to such comment, Fulke,' Philip said. 'Rhyme is not of necessity poetry, nor poetry rhyme. There be many true poets who never strung a rhyme, and rhymers who know nought of poetry.'

'But, hearken; Edmund has wrote more verses on the further side of this sheet. I will e'en read them, if it pleases you to hear.'

Fulke Greville made a gesture of assent, and Philip Sidney read, with a depth of pathos in his voice which thrilled the listeners,—

These last verses were received in silence. There was no remark made on them, and no criticism.

Probably both Sidney's friends felt that they referred to what was too sacred to be touched by a careless hand; and, indeed, there was no one, even amongst Philip's dearest friends, except his sister Mary, the Countess of Pembroke, who ever approached the subject of his love for Stella—that rose which Philip had not gathered when within his reach, and which was now drooping under an influence more merciless than that of age—the baneful influence of a most unhappy marriage.

The Queen had that very morning spoken out with a pitiless bluntness, which had made Philip unusually thoughtful. The very words the Queen had used haunted him—'tale-bearers, who had neither clean hearts nor clean tongue.'

Edward Dyer, according to the custom of the friends when they met, read some verses he had lately composed, and Fulke Greville followed.

Then Philip Sidney was called upon to contribute a sonnet or stanza.

If he never reached the highest standard of poetry, and, even in his best stanzas of Stella and Astrophel, rivalled the sweet flow of Edmund Spenser's verse, he had the gift of making his verses vividly express what was uppermost in his mind at the moment, as many of the Stella and Astrophel poems abundantly testify.

In early youth Philip Sidney had been influenced by a distinguished convert to the Reformed Faith, Hubert Languet, whom he met at Frankfort. Between this man of fifty-four and the boy of eighteen, who had gone abroad for thoughtful travel and diligent study, a strong—even a romantic—friendship had sprung up, and the letters which have been preserved show how unwavering Hubert Languet was in his devotion to the young Englishman, whose fine and noble qualities he had been quick to discover.

About this time Philip was anxious as to the health of his old friend. His letters had been less frequent, and the last he had received during the present year, had seemed to tell of failing powers of body, though the mind was as vigorous as ever.

Thus, the two verses which Philip now read from his Arcadia had reference to his old and dearly-loved counsellor and friend, and were inspired by the lifelong gratitude he felt for him. They are clothed, as was the two frequent custom of the time, in pastoral images; but Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer listened spellbound as the words were uttered, in musical tones, with a strength of feeling underlying them, which gave every line a deep significance.

'There is naught to complain of in those verses, Philip,' Fulke Greville said. 'He must be a sharp censor, indeed, who could find fault with them. We must do our best to bring good old Gabriel Harvey back to join our Areopagus, as Edmund Spenser is bold enough to call it.'

'Have you heard aught of the friend in whose praise the verses were indited?' Edward Dyer asked.

'Nay, as I said, I have had but one letter from Languet for many months. As soon as this tourney is over I must get leave to make a journey to Holland to assure myself of his condition.'

'The Queen will rebel against your absence, Philip. You are in higher favour than ever, methinks; nor do I grudge you the honour, as, I fear, some I could name grudge it.'

Philip rose quickly, as if unwilling to enter into the subject, and, gathering together their papers, the three friends broke up their meeting and separated till the evening.

Anyone who had seen Philip Sidney as he threw himself on a settle when Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer had left him, and had watched the profound sadness of his face as he gave himself up to meditation on the sorrow which oppressed him, would have found it difficult to imagine how the graceful courtier, who that evening after the banquet at Whitehall led the Queen, as a mark of especial favour, through the mazes of the dance, could ever have so completely thrown off the melancholy mood for one of gaiety and apparent joyousness. How many looked at him with envy when the Queen gave him her hand in the dance then much in fashion called the 'Brawl!' This dance had been lately introduced, and the Queen delighted in it, as it gave her the opportunity of distinguishing the reigning favourite with an especial mark of her favour.

This evening the ring was formed of ladies and gentlemen chosen by Elizabeth, who gorgeously attired, her hoop and stiff brocade making a wide circle in the centre of the ring, called upon Philip Sidney to stand there with her.

The Queen then, giving her hand to Philip, pirouetted with him to the sound of the music, and, stopping before the gentleman she singled out for her favour, kissed him on the left cheek, while Philip, bending on his knee, performed the same ceremony with the lady who had been the partner of the gentleman before whom the Queen had stopped. By the rules of the dance, the couple who stood in the centre of the ring now changed places with those who had been saluted, but this did not suit the Queen's mind this evening.

She always delighted to display her dancing powers before her admiring courtiers, exciting, as she believed, the jealousy of the ladies, who could not have the same opportunity of showing their graceful movements in the 'Brawl.'

The Queen selected Lord Leicester and Christopher Hatton and Fulke Greville and several other gentlemen, and curtseyed and tripped like a girl of sixteen instead of a mature lady of forty-nine.

Elizabeth's caprice made her pass over again and again several courtiers who were burning with ill-concealed anger as they saw Leicester and his nephew chosen again and again, while they were passed over.

At last the Queen was tired, and ordered the music to cease. She was led by Leicester to the raised dais at the end of the withdrawing-room where the dancing took place, and then, at her command, Philip Sidney sang to the mandoline some laudatory verses which he had composed in her honour.

The Queen contrived to keep him near her for most of the evening, but he escaped now and then to circulate amongst the ladies of the Court and to answer questions about the coming tournament.

In one of the alcoves formed by the deep bay of one of the windows Philip found his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, who was purposely waiting there to see him alone, if possible.

'I have been waiting for you, Philip,' she said, 'to ask who will arrange the position my gentlewomen will occupy at the tourney. I have several eager to see the show, more eager, methinks, than their mistress, amongst them the little country maiden, Lucy Forrester, whom you know of.'

'I will give what orders I can to those who control such matters. But, my sweet sister, you look graver than your wont.'

'Do I, Philip? Perhaps there is a reason; I would I could feel happy in the assurance that you have freed yourself from the bonds which I know in your better moments you feel irksome. You will have no real peace of mind till you have freed yourself, and that I know well.'

'I am in no mood for reproaches to-night, Mary,' Philip said, with more heat than he often showed when speaking to his dearly-loved sister. 'Let me have respite till this tournament is over at least.' And as he spoke, his eyes were following Lady Rich as she moved through the mazes of a Saraband—a stately Spanish dance introduced to the English Court when Philip was the consort of poor Queen Mary.

'I might now be in the coveted position of Charles Blount in yonder dance,' Philip said. 'I refrained from claiming my right to take it, and came hither to you instead.'

'Your right! Nay, Philip, you have no right. Dear brother, does it never seem to you that you do her whom you love harm by persisting in that very love which is—yes, Philip, I must say it—unlawful? See, now, I am struck with the change in her since I beheld her last. The modesty which charmed me in Penelope Devereux seems vanished. Even now I hear her laugh, hollow and unreal, as she coquettes and lays herself out for the admiring notice of the gentlemen who are watching her movements. Yes, Philip, nothing but harm can come of persisting in this unhappy passion.'

'Harm to her! Nay, I would die sooner than that harm should befall her through me. I pray you, Mary, let us speak of other matters.' But though he did begin to discuss the affairs of his father, and to beg Lady Pembroke to advise his mother to be wary in what she urged when the Queen gave her an interview, it was evident to his sister that his thoughts were in the direction of his eyes, and that she could not hope to get from him the wise advice as to her father's embarrassments which she had expected.

But the gently exercised influence of his pure and high-minded sister had its effect, and long after the sounds of revelry had died away, and the quiet of night had fallen upon the palace, there was one who could not sleep.

Philip Sidney was restlessly pacing to and fro in the confined space of the chamber allotted to him at Whitehall, and this sonnet, one of the most beautiful which he ever wrote, will express better than any other words what effect his sister's counsel had upon him.

The clouds were soon to break and the light shine upon the way in that 'small course' which yet lay before him.

We who can look onward to the few years yet left to Philip Sidney, and can even now lament that they were so few, know how his aspirations were abundantly fulfilled, and that Love Eternal did indeed maintain its life in his noble and true heart.