THE PASSING OF PHILIP

'At Arnhem, in the month of October 1586; this to my dear sister, Lucy Forrester.' This was the endorsement of a letter from Mary Gifford, which was put into Lucy's hands on the day when a wave of sorrow swept over the country as the news was passed from mouth to mouth that Sir Philip Sidney was dead.

There had been so many alternations of hope and fear, and the official reports from the Earl of Leicester had been on the hopeful side, while those of Robert Sidney and other of his devoted friends and servants, had latterly been on the side of despair.

Now Mary Gifford had written for Lucy's information an account of what had passed in these five-and-twenty days, when Sir Philip lay in the house of Madame Gruithuissens, ministered to by her uncle, Master George Gifford.

The letter was begun on the seventeenth of October, and finished a few days later, and was as follows:—

'After the last news that I have sent you, dear sister, it will not be a surprise to you to learn that our watching is at an end. The brave heart ceased to beat at two of the clock on this seventeenth of October in the afternoon.

'It has been a wondrous scene for those who have been near at hand to see and hear all that has passed in the upper chamber of Madame Gruithuissens' house.

'I account it a privilege of which I am undeserving, that I was suffered, in ever so small a way, to do aught for his comfort by rendering help to Madame Gruithuissens in the making of messes to tempt the sick man to eat, and also by doing what lay in my power to console those who have been beside themselves with grief—his two brothers.

'What love they bore him! And how earnestly they desire to follow in his steps I cannot say.

'Mr Robert was knighted after the battle which has cost England so dear, and my uncle saith that when he went first to his brother's side with his honour fresh upon him, Sir Philip smiled brightly, and said playfully,—

'"Good Sir Robert, we must see to it that we treat you with due respect now," and then, turning to Mr Thomas, he said, "Nor shall your bravery be forgot, Thomas, as soon as I am at Court again. I will e'en commend my youngest brother to the Queen's Highness. So we will have three knights to bear our father's name."

'At this time Sir Philip believed he should live, and, indeed, so did most of those who from day to day watching his courage and never-failing patience; the surgeon saying those were so greatly in his favour to further his recovery. But from that morning when he himself discerned the signs of approaching death, he made himself ready for that great change. Nay, Lucy, methinks this readiness had been long before assured.

'My uncle returned again and again from the dying bed to weep, as he recounted to me and my boy the holy and beautiful words Sir Philip spake.

'Of himself, only humbly; of all he did and wrote, as nothing in God's sight. His prayers were such that my uncle has never heard the like, for they seemed to call down the presence of God in the very midst of them.

'He was troubled somewhat lest his mind should fail him through grievous wrack of pain of body, but that trouble was set at rest.

'To the very end his bright intelligence shone, even more and more, till, as we now believe, it is shining in the perfectness of the Kingdom of God.

'On Sunday evening last, he seemed to revive marvellously, and called for paper and pencil. Then, with a smile, he handed a note to his brother, Sir Robert, and bade him despatch it to Master John Wier, a famous physician at the Court of the Duke of Cleves.

'This note was wrote in Latin, and begged Master Wier to come, and come quick. But soon after he grew weaker, and my good uncle asking how he fared, he replied sorrowfully that he could not sleep, though he had besought God to grant him this boon. But when my uncle reminded him of One who, in unspeakable anguish, prayed, as it would seem to our poor blind eyes, in vain, for the bitter cup did not pass, said,—

'"Nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt!" he exclaimed.'

'"I am fully satisfied and resolved with this answer. No doubt it is even so."

'There were moments yet of sadness, and he reproached himself for cherishing vain hopes in sending for Master Wier, but my uncle comforted him so much that at length he pronounced these memorable words, "I would not change my joy for the empire of the world."

'I saw him from time to time as I brought to the chamber necessary things. Once or twice he waved his hand to me, and said, oh, words ne'er to be forgot,—

'"I rejoice you have your boy safe once more, Mistress Gifford. Be wary, and train him in the faith of God, and pray that he be kept from the trammels with which Papacy would enthral the soul."

'He showed great tenderness and care for Lady Frances, dreading lest she should be harmed by her constant attendance on him.

'Sweet and gentle lady! I have had the privilege of waiting on her from time to time, and of giving her what poor comfort lay in my power.

'After the settlement of his worldly affairs, Sir Philip asked to have the last ode he wrote chanted to him, but begged that all the stray leaves of the Arcadia should be gathered together and burned. He said that it was but vanity and the story of earthly loves, and he did not care to have it outlive him.

'My uncle was with him when he begged Sir Robert to leave him, for his grief could not be controlled. While the sufferer showed strength in suppressing sorrow, the strong man showed weakness in expressing it.

'Much more will be made known of these twenty-five days following the wound which caused our loss.

'For myself, I write these scanty and imperfect details for my own comfort, in knowing that they will be, in a sad sort, a comfort to you, dear sister, and, I might humbly hope, to your lady also.

'My uncle, praying by Sir Philip's side, after he had addressed his farewell to his brother, seeing him lie back on the pillow as if unconscious, said, "Sir, if you hear what I say, let us by some means know if you have inward joy and consolation of God."

'Immediately his hand, which had been thought powerless, was raised, and a clear token given to those who stood by that his understanding had not failed him.

'Once more, when asked the same question, he raised his hands with joined palms and fingers pointing upwards as in prayer—and so departed.

'I wrote so far, and now I have been with my boy watching the removal of all that is mortal of this great and noble one from Arnhem to Flushing, convoyed to the water's edge by twelve hundred English soldiers, trailing their swords and muskets in the dust, while solemn music played.

'The surgeons have embalmed the poor, worn body, and the Earl of Leicester has commanded that it be taken to England for burial.

'"Mother," my boy said, as he clasped my hand tightly in his, as the barge which bore the coffin away vanished in the mist hanging over the river, "mother, why doth God take hence a brave and noble knight, and leave so many who are evil and do evil instead of good?"

'How can I answer questions like to this? I could only say to my son, "There is no answer. Now we only see as in a mirror darkly; at length we shall see clearer in the Light of God, and His ways are ever just."

'Dear sister, it is strange to have the hunger of my heart satisfied by God's gift to me of my boy from the very gates of death, and yet to have that same heart oppressed with sorrow for those who are left to mourn for the brave and noble one who is passed out of our sight. Yet is that same heart full of thankfulness that I have recovered my child. It is not all satisfaction with him. Every day I have to pray that much that he has learned in the Jesuit school should be unlearned. Yet, God forbid I should be slow to acknowledge that in some things Ambrose has been trained well—in obedience, and the putting aside of self, and the mortification of appetite. Yes, I feel that in this discipline he may have reaped a benefit which with me he might have missed. But, oh! Lucy, there are moments when I long with heart-sick longing for my joyous, if wilful child, who, on a fair spring evening long ago, sat astride on Sir Philip's horse, and had for his one wish to be such another brave and noble gentleman!

'Methinks this wish is gaining strength, and that the strange repression of all natural feeling which I sometimes notice, may vanish 'neath the brighter shining of love—God's love and his mother's.

'You would scarce believe, could you see Ambrose, that he—so tall and thin, with quiet and restrained movements and seldom smiling mouth—could be the little torment of Ford Place! Four years have told on my boy, like thrice that number, and belike the terrible ravages of the fever may have taken something of his youthful spring away.

'He is tender and gentle to me, but there is reserve.

'On one subject we can exchange but few words; you will know what that subject is. From the little I can gather, I think his father was not unkind to him; and far be it from me to forget the parting words, when the soul was standing ready to take its flight into the unseen world. But oh! my sister, how wide the gulf set between him, for whom the whole world, I may say, wears mourning garb to-day—for foreign countries mourn no less than England—how wide, I say, is the gulf set between that noble life and his, of whom I dare not write, scarce dare to think.

'Yet God's mercy is infinite in Christ Jesus, and the gulf, which looks so wide to us, may be bridged over by that same infinite mercy.

'God grant it.

'This with my humble, dutiful sympathy to your dear lady, the Countess of Pembroke, for whom no poor words of man can be of comfort, from your loving sister,

Mary Gifford.

'Post Scriptum.—Master Humphrey Ratcliffe has proved a true friend to me, and to my boy. To him, under God, I owe my child's restoration to health, and to me.

'He is away with that solemn and sorrowful train I saw embark for Flushing, nor do I know when he will return.

M. G.'

'At Penshurst, in the month of February 1586,—For you, my dear sister Mary, I will write some account of the sorrowful pageant, from witnessing which I have lately returned to Penshurst with my dear and sorely-stricken mistress, and all words would fail me to tell you how heavy is her grief, and how nobly she has borne herself under its weight.

'Four long and weary months have these been since the news of Sir Philip's death came to cast a dark shadow over this country. Much there has been to harass those who are intimately connected with him. Of these troubles I need not write. The swift following of Sir Philip's death on that of his honoured father, Sir Henry Sidney, caused mighty difficulties as to the carrying out of that last will and testament in which he so nobly desired to have every creditor satisfied, and justice done.

'But, sure, no man had ever a more generous and worthy father-in-law than Sir Philip possessed in Sir Francis Walsingham. All honour be to him for the zeal and care he has shown in the settlement of what seemed at the first insurmountable mountains of difficulties.

'Of these it does not become me to speak, rather of that day, Thursday last past, when I was witness of the great ceremony of burying all that was mortal of him for whom Queen and peasant weep.

'Mary! you can scarce picture to yourself the sight which I looked on from a casement by the side of my dear mistress. All the long train of mourners taken from every class, the uplifted standard with the Cross of St George, the esquires and gentlemen in their long cloaks of mourning garb, these were a wondrous spectacle. In the long train was Sir Philip's war horse, led by a footman and ridden by a little page bearing a broken lance, followed by another horse, like the first, richly caparisoned, ridden by a boy holding a battle-axe reversed. All this I say I gazed at as a show, and my mistress, like myself, was tearless. I could not believe, nay, I could not think of our hero as connected with this pageant. Nay, nor with that coffin, shrouded in black velvet, carried by seven yeomen, and the pall borne by those gentlemen who loved him best, his dearest friends, Sir Fulke Greville, Sir Edward Dyer, Edward Watson, and Thomas Dudley.

'Next came the two brothers, Sir Robert—now Lord of Penshurst—chief mourner, and behind, poor Mr Thomas Sidney, who was so bowed down with grief that he could scarce support himself.

'Earls and nobles, headed by my Lord of Leicester, came after; and the gentlemen from the Low Countries, of whom you will have heard, and all the great city folk—Lord Mayor and Sheriffs—bringing up the rear.

'My dear mistress and I, with many other ladies of her household, having watched the long train pass us from the Minories, were conveyed by back ways to St Paul's, and, from a seat appointed us and other wives of nobles and their gentlewomen, we were present at the last scene.

'It was when the coffin, beautifully adorned with escutcheons, was placed on a bier prepared for it, that my mistress said, in a low voice, heard by me—perhaps by me only,—

'"Beati mortui qui in Domino moriuntur."

'These words were the motto on the coffin, and they were the words on which the preacher tried to enforce his lesson.

'Up to the moment when the double volley was fired, telling us within the church that the body rested in peace, there had been profound stillness.

'Then the murmur of a multitude sorrowing and sighing, broke upon the ear; and yet, beyond those whispered words, my lady had not made any sign.

'Now she laid her hand in mine and said,—

'"Let us go and see where they have laid him."

'I gave notice to the gentlemen in attendance that this was my lady's desire. We had to wait yet for a long space; the throng, so closely packed, must needs disperse.

'At length way was made for us, and we stood by the open grave together—my mistress, whose life had been bound up in her noble brother's, and I, to whom he had been, from my childhood's days to the present, the hero to whose excellence none could approach—a sun before whose shining other lights grew dim.

'Do not judge me hardly! Nay, Mary, you of all others will not do this. My love for him was sacred, and I looked for no return; but let none grudge it to me, for it drew me ever upwards, and, as I humbly pray, will still do so till I see him in the other life, whither he has gone.

'Throughout all this pageantry and symbols of woe which I have tried to bring before you, my dear sister, I felt only that these signs of the great grief of the whole realm were yet but vain, vain, vain.

'As in a vision, I was fain to see beyond the blackness of funeral pomp, the exceeding beauty of his soul, who, when he lay a-dying, said he had fixed his thoughts on these eternal beauties, which cheered his decaying spirits, and helped him to take possession of the immortal inheritance given to him by, and in Christ.

'"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord; blessed be those who mourn, for they shall be comforted."

'I have finished the task I set myself to do for your edification, dearest sister. Methought I could scarce get through it for tears, but these did not flow at my will. Not till this morning, when I betook myself to the park, where all around are signs of a springing new life, and memories of Sir Philip in every part, did these tears I speak of have their free way. All things wakening into life, buds swelling on the stately trees he loved; birds singing, for the time to pair is come; dew sparkling like the lustre of precious stones on every twig and blade of grass, daisies with golden eyes peeping up between. Life, life, everywhere quickening life, and he who loved life, and to see good days, can walk no more in the old dear paths of his home, which he trod with so graceful and alert a step, his smile like the sunshine lying on the gate of the President's Court, under which he that went out on the November morning in all the glory of his young manhood, shall pass in no more for ever.

'As I thought of seeing him thus, with the light on his bright hair and glistening armour, as he took his infant child in his arms and bade her farewell, I wept, not bitter tears, but those God sends to us as a blessing when the heart desires some ease of its burden.

'It may be that you will care to read what I have written to the boy Ambrose. Bid him from me to remember his old desire to be such another brave and goodly knight as Sir Philip Sidney, and strive to follow him in all loyal service to his God, his Queen, and his kindred.

'I am thinking often, Mary, of your return to this country. Will it never come to pass? You told me in your letter in which you gave me those particulars of Sir Philip's death, that I should scarce believe that Ambrose was the child I knew at the old home of Ford Place. And scarce will you believe, when we meet, as meet I pray we shall, I am the same Lucy of days past. Ever since that time of your grief and sickness, I have changed. I look back with something which is akin to pity on the vain child who thought fine clothes and array the likest to enhance the fair face and form which maybe God has given me. Ay, Mary, I have learned better now. I should have been a dullard, in sooth, had I not learned much in the companionship graciously granted me by my honoured mistress. To be near her is an education, and she has been pleased in many ways to instruct me, not only in the needlecraft and tapestry work in which she excels, but also in opening for me the gates of knowledge, and in rehearsing in my ear the beautiful words of Scripture, and the Psalms in verse, as well as the poems of Mr Spenser, and, chiefest of all, of those works in prose and verse which Sir Philip has left behind. Sure, these will never die, and will tell those who come after us what we possessed and lost!

'Yet, after all, as my mistress saith again and yet again, it was not by all his deeds of valour and his gifts of learning that he stands so high forever amongst men. No, nor not by his death and the selfless act which men are speaking of on all sides, as he lay in the first agony of his sore wound on the battlefield of Zutphen. Not by these only will his name live, but by his life, which, for purity and faith, virtue and godliness, loyalty and truth, may be said to be without peer in this age of which he was so fair an ornament.

'I dare not say more, lest even you charge me with rhapsody.

'I rest, dear Mary, in all loving and tender affection, your sister,

Lucy Forrester.

'To my honoured sister, Mary Gifford, at the house of Master Gifford, in Arnhem, February 1586. From Penshurst Place, in the county of Kent.'