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.

During his travels in Flanders, which at that time belonged to Spain, he had grieved to see how unhappy the people were made by the Duke of Alva, the State minister of Philip the Second of Spain. Philip did not love his Flemish subjects at all; they were mostly Protestants, and he wanted to take their liberty from them and force them to become Roman Catholics. And when they began to rebel against his unjust treatment, he sent the cruel Duke of Alva to them, having first told him that he might do whatever he liked with them.

Alva arrived in Brussels, and began by arresting and imprisoning the Counts Egmont and Horn, two noble-minded men, who, after trying in vain to make peace between the king and the Belgians, had taken the part of the Protestants from a love of justice and mercy. Count Egmont had helped Philip to win the great battle of St. Quentin over the French, but he was compassionate as well as brave, and Philip was so afraid that he would be too kind to the people of Belgium that he advised Alva secretly to get rid of him.

Alva kept the Counts in prison in Ghent for nine months, and then had them carried to Brussels and beheaded, on the 4th of June, 1568, on a scaffold raised on one of the principal squares in the city. They died with courage, martyrs for the liberty of Flanders, but their execution was a cruel injustice, and the people were nearly frantic with grief when the bloody deed was done. Alva remained in Flanders more than four years, and is said to have caused eighteen thousand Protestants to be beheaded during that time. Then Holland rose in revolt; the Prince of Orange was made stadtholder, and Alva, seeing that his day was over, went back to Spain, where he must have been very unhappy when he thought over all his wickedness. The Protestants in Germany fared very little better than those in Flanders, for when the Emperor Rudolf the Second began to reign, he forbade them to worship according to their faith. Sidney was sent on an embassy to Rudolf, and did all he could whilst he was in Germany to humble Spain.

The Flemings asked Elizabeth to be their queen; this she would not agree to, but she sent them some troops and some money, and Sidney implored her to let him take the command in the enterprise, he wanted so much to be of service to his fellow-men, and to deliver those who were unjustly treated from their oppressors. The queen declared, however, that she could not spare him from her Court, and he was obliged to wait patiently a little longer. Meanwhile he took part in the amusements of the Court, the jousts and the royal progresses from place to place, which were always attended with great show. To these must be added the masques, and the first time Sir Philip distinguished himself as an author was by writing a masque, entitled "The Lady of May," which was performed before the queen at Wanstead in Essex. Sidney was the patron of artists, musicians, and authors; he was a kind and sincere friend of the poet Spenser, who had originally been brought from his home in Ireland to the English Court by Sir Walter Raleigh.

Weary at last of remaining inactive, Sidney planned, without the queen's knowledge, an expedition to America, in which he was to be joined by the bold navigator, Sir Francis Drake. He had arrived at Plymouth, whence the ships were to start, when Elizabeth, having gained information of the projected voyage, sent messengers with letters to Sidney, in which she desired him not to sail, and threatened to stay the whole fleet if he did not obey her.

Sir Philip, already on the alert, contrived to intercept the messengers; their letters were taken from them by two soldiers disguised as sailors. The queen, finding threats useless, then sent a positive royal command to her favourite, which he was bound out of duty to his sovereign to obey, and thus he was fated never to see the beautiful new land in the west, with its growth of gorgeous flowers and rich fruits, its giant trees, and its bright-coloured birds, its wonderful landscapes, the beauty of which far exceeded the ideal formed of them.

Elizabeth's displeasure did not last long. It was the high esteem she held him in that made her so loth to let him quit England, and she was not offended with him when he had the courage to write her a letter in which he entreated her not to marry the Duke of AlenÇon, now Duke of Anjou, and pointed out the trouble such a union might bring upon England. The queen wisely followed his advice, and gave up all idea of a marriage which her subjects had very much disliked.

Sir Philip, one day in the tilt-yard, had a dispute with Lord Oxford, in which both were to blame, but Lord Oxford the more so of the two. This caused Sidney to withdraw for a time from Court, and retire to a house he had at Wilton, where he wrote "The Arcadia," a pastoral romance, and some other works, which gained him the fame of a poet. He did not mean "The Arcadia" to be published, nor did it appear in print until after his death. He wrote it to afford pleasure to his sister Mary, and sent to her each part of it as he completed it.

A time came when the Flemings were again reduced to a state of extreme wretchedness. The great and good stadtholder was basely murdered, and the Spanish troops were making rapid progress through the country. So they asked Elizabeth again to be their queen and to send them succour. She refused the crown a second time, but agreed to help the Flemings with troops on condition that the towns of Flushing and Brille should be placed in her hands. And Sidney, to his great joy, was appointed governor of Flushing, whither he went in November, 1585. The good Count Maurice of Nassau received him as a brother, and he was made general of all the forces, English and Dutch, in the town. Soon he had to welcome there his uncle, the Earl of Leicester, who, by the favour of Elizabeth, was entrusted with the command of the army.

For some time Sidney was obliged to remain inactive, but in the year 1586 he and Count Maurice surprised Axel, a town on the way to Antwerp, and the strongest place held by the Spaniards in the Netherlands. Here he kept his soldiers in the strictest order. When they were marching they were enjoined to be silent, and a band of the choicest among them was stationed in the market-place for the security of the town.

So many brave gentlemen were covetous of the honour of surprising Gravelines, that Sir Philip Sidney, not liking to risk the lives of all, persuaded his inferior officers to try their fortune by dice on the top of a drum. The lot fell upon Sir William Browne, and by this game of hazard[27] the lives of many Englishmen were saved.

On the 30th of August Sidney went with his uncle to invest Doesburg, a fortress on the river Issel. This place was important because it opened the way to Zutphen, and if Zutphen were once taken, the English and Dutch would command the river. Doesburg was gained, and Zutphen soon after surrounded; Leicester guarding it by water, and Sir Philip Sidney, Count Louis of Nassau, and Sir John Norris, guarding it by land.

News was brought to the English camp that a large supply of food was at a place called Deventer, not far off, and Leicester was resolved that it should not be brought into the town, whilst the garrison were equally resolved to receive it. On the morning of the 22nd of September, Sidney advanced to the walls of Zutphen with only 200 men. Before he set out he was clad in complete armour, but meeting the marshal of the camp only lightly armed, he took off some of the armour that covered his legs. There was a mist at the time he set out, but when he had galloped quite close to the town, it dispersed, and he found a thousand of the enemy in readiness to receive him. The fight soon began, his horse was killed under him, and he mounted another. The battle was furious, and the Spaniards, although they were five times as many as the English, were totally routed. In the last charge, Sir Philip was wounded severely in the thigh; his horse, being very mettlesome, rushed furiously from the battle-field, and carried him a mile and a half, wounded and bleeding, to the spot where Leicester stood. When he lay in his anguish on the field, a bottle of water was brought to him that he might quench his thirst; but seeing a soldier near him, wounded like himself, look wistfully at it, he ordered it to be carried to him, saying, "This man's necessity is greater than mine."

His friends and his soldiers were overcome with grief when his state became known; at the sight of his sufferings they almost forgot the glory of his triumph; Yet amidst all his pain, he never ceased declaring that as long as he lived his life was the queen's, and not his own, and that his friends ought not to be discouraged. They laid him gently in his uncle's barge; slowly it glided down the river to Arnheim, in Gelderland, and whilst he lay patiently in it, he was heard to express the hope that his wound was not mortal, and that he might yet have time to become holier before he died.

Day after day he lay in great pain, but talking kindly the while to the friends who grouped lovingly around him, and tended by his wife, Walsingham's daughter, who had hastened to Arnheim as soon as she heard tidings of his disaster. When he felt he could only live a little time longer, he made his confession of Christian faith, and settled his earthly affairs, remembering in his will all those whom he had loved. He took a tender farewell of his brother Robert, telling him "to love his memory and cherish his friends, and to govern his own will by the word of his Creator." And then having called for music, while sweet strains filled the chamber, silent with coming death, the spirit passed from this world.

His remains were brought to England, and interred in the great church of St. Paul, which eighty years later was destroyed by the fire of London.

"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:" such were the words inscribed on his coffin; and the perfectness of his character, and the regard in which men held him, cannot be better expressed than in the language of the old chronicle which says, "As his life was most worthie, so his end was most godlie. The love men bore him, left fame behind him; his friendlie courtesie to many procured him good-will of all."[28]

The Poles after the death of their king, Stephen Balori, would have conferred the crown on Sir Philip Sidney, because he was so justly renowned for his humane and upright spirit, but he thought that his first duty was to his sovereign, and the idea was renounced.