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88-550: Sir Philip Sidney (30 November 1554 – 17 October 1586) was an English poet, courtier , scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominent figures of the Elizabethan age . His works include a sonnet sequence , Astrophel and Stella , a treatise , The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence of Poesie or An Apology for Poetrie ) and a pastoral romance , The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia . Born at Penshurst Place , Kent , of an aristocratic family, he

176-602: A career in law at the age of twenty. A committed Protestant , during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England he joined other expatriates in exile in Switzerland and northern Italy until Mary's death and the accession of her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. Walsingham rose from relative obscurity to become one of the small coterie who directed the Elizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy. He served as English ambassador to France in

264-462: A confession —an admission of guilt that clearly implicated Mendoza. The Throckmorton plot called for an invasion of England along with a domestic uprising to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Elizabeth. Throckmorton was executed in 1584 and Mendoza was expelled from England. Walsingham is often mentioned - negatively - in coded letters from Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French ambassador. After

352-634: A conspiracy among the Catholic powers to invade England and displace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots. By April 1583, Walsingham had a spy, identified as Giordano Bruno by historian John Bossy , deployed in the French embassy in London. Walsingham's contact reported that Francis Throckmorton , a nephew of Walsingham's old friend Nicholas Throckmorton , had visited the ambassador, Michel de Castelnau . In November 1583, after six months of surveillance, Walsingham had Throckmorton arrested and then tortured to secure

440-578: A courtier were likely the ša rēsi and mazzāz pāni of the Neo-Assyrian Empire . In Ancient Egypt a title has been found that translates to high steward or great overseer of the house. The courts influenced by the court of the Neo-Assyrian Empire such as those of the Median Empire and the Achaemenid Empire had numerous courtiers After invading the Achaemenid Empire , Alexander

528-432: A degree. From 1550 or 1551, he travelled in continental Europe, returning to England by 1552 to enrol at Gray's Inn , one of the qualifying bodies for English lawyers. Upon the death in 1553 of Henry VIII's successor, Edward VI , Edward's Catholic half-sister Mary became queen. Many wealthy Protestants, such as John Foxe and John Cheke , fled England, and Walsingham was among them. He continued his studies in law at

616-530: A former ambassador to France. By 1569, Walsingham was working with William Cecil to counteract plots against Elizabeth. He was instrumental in the collapse of the Ridolfi plot , which hoped to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots . He is credited with writing propaganda decrying a conspiratorial marriage between Mary and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk , and Roberto di Ridolfi , after whom

704-592: A friend of the Tuscan ambassador to Madrid, was an exceptional intelligence triumph and Standen's dispatches were deeply revealing. Walsingham worked to prepare England for a potential war with Spain, in particular by supervising the substantial rebuilding of Dover Harbour , and encouraging a more aggressive strategy. On Walsingham's instructions, the English ambassador in Turkey, William Harborne , attempted unsuccessfully to persuade

792-695: A language delicately archaic. In form Sidney usually adopts the Petrarchan octave (ABBAABBA), with variations in the sestet that include the English final couplet. His artistic contacts were more peaceful and significant for his lasting fame. During his absence from court, he wrote Astrophel and Stella (1591) and the first draft of The Arcadia and The Defence of Poesy . Somewhat earlier, he had met Edmund Spenser , who dedicated The Shepheardes Calender to him. Other literary contacts included membership, along with his friends and fellow poets Fulke Greville , Edward Dyer , Edmund Spenser and Gabriel Harvey , of

880-667: A large court operated at many levels: many successful careers at court involved no direct contact with the monarch. The largest and most famous European court was that of the Palace of Versailles at its peak, although the Forbidden City of Beijing was even larger and more isolated from national life. Very similar features marked the courts of all very large monarchies, including in India , Topkapı Palace in Istanbul , Ancient Rome , Byzantium or

968-544: A marginal figure in the politics of his time, he was memorialised as the flower of English manhood in Edmund Spenser 's Astrophel , one of the greatest English Renaissance elegies. An early biography of Sidney was written by his devoted friend and schoolfellow, Fulke Greville . While Sidney was traditionally depicted as a staunch and unwavering Protestant , recent biographers such as Katherine Duncan-Jones have suggested that his religious loyalties were more ambiguous. He

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1056-454: A potential leader of the Dutch. Walsingham was sent to France in mid-1581 to discuss an Anglo-French alliance, but the French wanted the marriage agreed first and Walsingham was under instruction to obtain a treaty before committing to the marriage. He returned to England without an agreement. Personally, Walsingham opposed the marriage, perhaps to the point of encouraging public opposition. Alençon

1144-468: A range of plots against Elizabeth and secured the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots . Francis Walsingham was born around 1532, probably at Foots Cray , near Chislehurst in Kent , the only son of William Walsingham (died 1534), a successful and well-connected London lawyer who served as a member of the commission appointed to investigate the estates of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530. William's elder brother

1232-675: A ring of crystal. A mutual defence pact was eventually agreed in the Treaty of Berwick of 1586 . Walsingham's cousin Edward Denny fought in Ireland during the rebellion of the Earl of Desmond and was one of the English settlers granted land in Munster confiscated from Desmond. Walsingham's stepson Christopher Carleill commanded the garrisons at Coleraine and Carrickfergus . Walsingham thought Irish farmland

1320-607: A special embassy to the Netherlands in 1578, to sound out a potential peace deal and gather military intelligence. Charles IX died in 1574 and the Duke of Anjou inherited the French throne as Henry III. Between 1578 and 1581 the Queen resurrected attempts to negotiate a marriage with Henry III's youngest brother, the Duke of Alençon, who had put himself forward as a protector of the Huguenots and

1408-401: A staff of servants until her death in 1602. Protestants lauded Walsingham as "a sound pillar of our commonwealth and chief patron of virtue, learning and chivalry". He was part of a Protestant intelligentsia that included Philip Sidney , Edmund Spenser and John Dee : men who promoted an expansionist and nationalist English Renaissance. Spenser included a dedicatory sonnet to Walsingham in

1496-416: A successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham arranged a single exception: a covert means for Mary's letters to be smuggled in and out of Chartley in a beer keg. Mary was misled into thinking these secret letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham's agents. In July 1586, Anthony Babington wrote to Mary about an impending plot to free her and kill Elizabeth. Mary's reply

1584-517: A united Protestant effort against the Catholic Church and Spain. In the winter of 1575-76 he fought in Ireland while his father was Lord Deputy there. In the early 1580s, he argued fruitlessly for an assault on Spain itself. Promoted General of Horse in 1583, his enthusiasm for the Protestant struggle was given free rein when he was appointed governor of Flushing in the Netherlands in 1585. Whilst in

1672-478: Is a term that was coined for this spread of the Byzantine system in the 19th century. In modern English, the term is often used metaphorically for contemporary political favourites or hangers-on. In modern literature, courtiers are often depicted as insincere, skilled at flattery and intrigue, ambitious and lacking regard for the national interest. More positive representations include the role played by members of

1760-437: Is the work of Monsieur de Walsingham for my destruction", to which he replied, "God is my witness that as a private person I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man, and as Secretary of State, nothing unbefitting my duty." Mary was found guilty and the warrant for her execution was drafted, but Elizabeth hesitated to sign it, despite pressure from Walsingham. Walsingham wrote to Paulet urging him to find "some way to shorten

1848-551: The Arcadia , to her. After her brother's death, Mary reworked the Arcadia , which became known as The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia . His brother, Robert Sidney was a statesman and patron of the arts, and was created Earl of Leicester in 1618. In 1572, at the age of 18, he travelled to France as part of the embassy to negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth I and the Duc D'Alençon . He spent

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1936-688: The Faerie Queene , likening him to Maecenas who introduced Virgil to the Emperor Augustus . After Walsingham's death, Sir John Davies composed an acrostic poem in his memory and Watson wrote an elegy, Meliboeus , in Latin. On the other hand, Jesuit Robert Persons thought Walsingham "cruel and inhumane" in his persecution of Catholics. Catholic sources portray a ruthless, devious man driven by religious intolerance and an excessive love for intrigue. Walsingham attracts controversy still. Although he

2024-708: The Monty Python's Flying Circus sketches "Tudor Jobs Agency", "Pornographic Bookshop" and "Elizabethan Pornography Smugglers" (Season 3, episode 10), Superintendent Gaskell, a vice squad policeman, is transported back to the Elizabethan age and assumes Sir Philip Sidney's identity. An epitaph of Sir Philip Sidney: "England has his body, for she it fed; Netherlands his blood, in her defence shed; The Heavens have his soul, The Arts have his fame, The soldier his grief, The world his good name." Works Books Articles Other Courtier Monarchs very often expected

2112-531: The Caliphs of Baghdad or Cairo . Early medieval European courts frequently travelled from place to place following the monarch as they travelled. This was particularly the case in the early French court. But, the European nobility generally had independent power and was less controlled by the monarch until around the 18th century, which gave European court life greater complexity. The earliest courtiers coincide with

2200-576: The Isle of Wight . The following year, they had a daughter, Frances . Walsingham's other two stepsons, Ursula's sons John and George, were killed in a gunpowder accident at Appuldurcombe in 1567. In the following years, Walsingham became active in soliciting support for the Huguenots in France and developed a friendly and close working relationship with Nicholas Throckmorton , his predecessor as MP for Lyme Regis and

2288-672: The Muscovy Company and the Levant Company . He supported the attempts of John Davis and Martin Frobisher to discover the Northwest Passage and exploit the mineral resources of Labrador , and encouraged Humphrey Gilbert 's exploration of Newfoundland . Gilbert's voyage was largely financed by recusant Catholics and Walsingham favoured the scheme as a potential means of removing Catholics from England by encouraging emigration to

2376-606: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , Walsingham's house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary for Protestant refugees, including Philip Sidney . Ursula, who was pregnant, escaped to England with their four-year-old daughter. She gave birth to a second girl, Mary, in January 1573 while Walsingham was still in France. He returned to England in April 1573, having established himself as a competent official whom

2464-542: The camarilla , were also considered courtiers. As social divisions became more rigid, a divide, barely present in Antiquity or the Middle Ages , opened between menial servants and other classes at court, although Alexandre Bontemps , the head valet de chambre of Louis XIV , was a late example of a "menial" who managed to establish his family in the nobility. The key commodities for a courtier were access and information, and

2552-551: The cryptographer Thomas Phelippes , who was an expert in forgery and deciphering letters, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairing seals without detection. In May 1582, letters from the Spanish ambassador in England, Bernardino de Mendoza , to contacts in Scotland were found on a messenger by Sir John Forster , who forwarded them to Walsingham. The letters indicated

2640-459: The privy seal , though he was not formally invested as Lord Privy Seal . Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian. He was knighted on 1 December 1577, and held the sinecure posts of Recorder of Colchester, custos rotulorum of Hampshire, and High Steward of Salisbury, Ipswich and Winchester. He

2728-572: The (possibly fictitious) " Areopagus ", a humanist endeavour to classicise English verse. Sidney played a brilliant part in the military/literary/courtly life common to the young nobles of the time. Both his family heritage and his personal experience (he was in Walsingham's house in Paris during the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre ), confirmed him as a keenly militant Protestant. In the 1570s, he persuaded John Casimir to consider proposals for

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2816-444: The 1580s, Astrophel and Stella . Her father, Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex , was said to have planned to marry his daughter to Sidney, but Walter died in 1576 and this did not occur. In England, Sidney occupied himself with politics and art. He defended his father's administration of Ireland in a lengthy document. More seriously, he quarrelled with Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford , probably because of Sidney's opposition to

2904-448: The 16-year-old daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham . In the same year, he made a visit to Oxford University with Giordano Bruno , the polymath known for his cosmological theories, who subsequently dedicated two books to Sidney. In 1585 the couple had one daughter, Elizabeth, who later married Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland , in March 1599 and died without issue in 1612. Like the best of

2992-501: The Crown's debt than was fair. In 1611, the Crown's debts to him were calculated at over £48,000, but his debts to the Crown were calculated at over £43,000 and a judge, Sir Julius Caesar , ordered both sets of debts cancelled quid pro quo . Walsingham's surviving daughter Frances received a £300 annuity, and married the Earl of Essex . Ursula, Lady Walsingham, continued to live at Barn Elms with

3080-551: The Elizabethans, Sidney was successful in more than one branch of literature, but none of his work was published during his lifetime. However, it circulated in manuscript. His finest achievement was a sequence of 108 love sonnets. These owe much to Petrarch and Pierre de Ronsard in tone and style, and place Sidney as the greatest Elizabethan sonneteer after Shakespeare . Written to his mistress, Lady Penelope Rich, though dedicated to his wife, they reveal true lyric emotion couched in

3168-458: The English Nation was dedicated to Walsingham. Walsingham advocated direct intervention in the Netherlands in support of the Protestant revolt against Spain, on the grounds that although wars of conquest were unjust, wars in defence of religious liberty and freedom were not. Cecil was more circumspect and advised a policy of mediation, a policy that Elizabeth endorsed. Walsingham was sent on

3256-447: The French marriage of Elizabeth to the much younger Alençon, which de Vere championed. In the aftermath of this episode, Sidney challenged de Vere to a duel, which Elizabeth forbade. He then wrote a lengthy letter to the Queen detailing the foolishness of the French marriage. Characteristically, Elizabeth bristled at his presumption, and Sidney prudently retired from court. During a 1577 diplomatic visit to Prague , Sidney secretly visited

3344-672: The Great returned with the concept of the complex court featuring a variety of courtiers to the Kingdom of Macedonia and Hellenistic Greece . The imperial court of the Byzantine Empire at Constantinople would eventually contain at least a thousand courtiers. The court's systems became prevalent in other courts such as those in the Balkan states, the Ottoman Empire and Russia . Byzantinism

3432-529: The Netherlands, he consistently urged boldness on his superior, his uncle the Earl of Leicester . He carried out a successful raid on Spanish forces near Axel in July 1586. Later that year, he joined Sir John Norris in the Battle of Zutphen , fighting for the Protestant cause against the Spanish. During the battle, he was shot in the thigh and died of gangrene 26 days later, at the age of 31. One account says this death

3520-545: The New World. Walsingham was among the promoters of Francis Drake 's profitable 1578–1581 circumnavigation of the world, correctly judging that Spanish possessions in the Pacific were vulnerable to attack. The venture was calculated to promote the Protestant interest by embarrassing and weakening the Spanish, as well as to seize Spanish treasure. The first edition of Richard Hakluyt 's Principal Navigation, Voyages and Discoveries of

3608-552: The Ottoman Sultan to attack Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean in the hope of distracting Spanish forces. Walsingham supported Francis Drake 's raid of Cadiz in 1587 , which wrought havoc with Spanish logistics. The Spanish Armada sailed for England in July 1588. Walsingham received regular dispatches from the English naval forces, and raised his own troop of 260 men as part of the land defences. On 18 August 1588, after

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3696-552: The Queen and Cecil could trust. He cultivated contacts throughout Europe, and a century later his dispatches would be published as The Complete Ambassador . In the December following his return, Walsingham was appointed to the Privy Council of England and was made joint principal secretary (the position which later became "Secretary of State") with Sir Thomas Smith . Smith retired in 1576, leaving Walsingham in effective control of

3784-411: The Spanish in the Netherlands and Walsingham was faced with paying off more of Sidney's extensive debts. His widowed daughter gave birth, in a difficult delivery, to a second child shortly afterward, but the baby, a girl, was stillborn. Walsingham was driven by Protestant zeal to counter Catholicism, and sanctioned the use of torture against Catholic priests and suspected conspirators. Edmund Campion

3872-580: The Surety of the Queen's Person , passed by Parliament in March 1585, set up a legal process for trying any claimant to the throne implicated in plots against the Queen. The following month Mary, Queen of Scots, was placed in the strict custody of Sir Amias Paulet , a friend of Walsingham. At Christmas, she was moved to a moated manor house at Chartley . Walsingham instructed Paulet to open, read and pass to Mary unsealed any letters that she received, and to block any potential route for clandestine correspondence. In

3960-649: The assassination in mid-1584 of William the Silent , the leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain, English military intervention in the Low Countries was agreed in the Treaties of Nonsuch of 1585. The murder of William the Silent also reinforced fears for Queen Elizabeth's safety. Walsingham helped create the Bond of Association , the signatories of which promised to hunt down and kill anyone who conspired against Elizabeth. The Act for

4048-702: The centrepiece of the Old Salopians Memorial at Shrewsbury School to alumni who died serving in World War I (unveiled 1924). Philip Sidney appears as a young man in Elizabeth Goudge's third novel, Towers in the Mist (Duckworth, 1937), visiting Oxford around the time Queen Elizabeth also visited Oxford. (Goudge admitted to slightly advancing the time of Sidney's arrival in Oxford, for the sake of her larger story.) In

4136-492: The court in the development of politeness and the arts. Examples of courtiers in fiction: Francis Walsingham Sir Francis Walsingham ( c.  1532  – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her " spymaster ". Born to a well-connected family of gentry , Walsingham attended Cambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on

4224-718: The death of Christopher Marlowe , whom he predeceased. Charles Nicholl examined (and rejected) such theories in The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992), which was used as a source by Anthony Burgess for his novel A Dead Man in Deptford (1993). The 1998 film Elizabeth gives considerable, although sometimes historically inaccurate, prominence to Walsingham (portrayed by Geoffrey Rush ). It fictionalizes him as irreligious and sexually ambiguous, merges chronologically distant events, and inaccurately suggests that he murdered Mary of Guise . Rush reprised

4312-467: The development of definable courts beyond the rudimentary entourages or retinues of rulers. There were probably courtiers in the courts of the Akkadian Empire where there is evidence of court appointments such as that of cup-bearer which was one of the earliest court appointments and remained a position at courts for thousands of years. Two of the earliest titles referring to the general concept of

4400-399: The dispersal of the armada, naval commander Lord Henry Seymour wrote to Walsingham, "you have fought more with your pen than many have in our English navy fought with their enemies". In foreign intelligence, Walsingham's extensive network of "intelligencers", who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. While foreign intelligence was a normal part of

4488-514: The early 1570s and witnessed the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre . As principal secretary, he supported exploration, colonization, the development of the navy, and the plantation of Ireland . He worked to bring Scotland and England together. Overall, his foreign policy demonstrated a new understanding of the role of England as a maritime Protestant power with intercontinental trading ties. He oversaw operations that penetrated Spanish military preparation, gathered intelligence from across Europe, disrupted

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4576-620: The exiled Jesuit priest Edmund Campion . Sidney had returned to court by the middle of 1581. In the latter year he was elected to fill vacant seats in the Parliament of England for both Ludlow and Shrewsbury , choosing to sit for the latter, and in 1584 was MP for Kent . That same year Penelope Devereux was married, apparently against her will, to Lord Rich. Sidney was knighted in 1583. An early arrangement to marry Anne Cecil , daughter of Sir William Cecil and eventual wife of de Vere, had fallen through in 1571. In 1583, he married Frances ,

4664-476: The life" of Mary to relieve Elizabeth of the burden, to which Paulet replied indignantly, "God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience, or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity, to shed blood without law or warrant." Walsingham made arrangements for Mary's execution; Elizabeth signed the warrant on 1 February 1587 and entrusted it to William Davison , who had been appointed as junior Secretary of State in late September 1586. Davison passed

4752-418: The more important nobles to spend much of the year in attendance on them at court. Not all courtiers were noble , as they included clergy , soldiers , clerks , secretaries , agents and middlemen with business at court. All those who held a court appointment could be called courtiers but not all courtiers held positions at court. Those personal favourites without business around the monarch, sometimes called

4840-557: The most famous story about Sir Philip, intended to illustrate his noble and gallant character. Sidney's body was returned to London and interred in Old St Paul's Cathedral on 16 February 1587. The grave and monument were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. A modern monument in the crypt lists his among the important graves lost. Already during his own lifetime, but even more after his death, he had become for many English people

4928-399: The next several years in mainland Europe, moving through Germany, Italy, Poland , the Kingdom of Hungary and Austria . On these travels, he met a number of prominent European intellectuals and politicians. Returning to England in 1575, Sidney met Penelope Devereux (who would later marry Robert Rich, 1st Earl of Warwick ). Although much younger, she inspired his famous sonnet sequence of

5016-411: The plot was named, was interrogated at Walsingham's house. In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX of France . Later that year, he succeeded Sir Henry Norris as English ambassador in Paris. One of his duties was to continue negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and Charles IX's younger brother Henry, Duke of Anjou . The marriage plan

5104-469: The principal secretary's activities, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition, and large sums of his own money. He cast his net more widely than others had done previously: expanding and exploiting links across the continent as well as in Constantinople and Algiers , and building and inserting contacts among Catholic exiles. Among his spies may have been the playwright Christopher Marlowe ; Marlowe

5192-547: The service of the Queen and the Protestant cause. In 1586, he funded a lectureship in theology at Oxford University for the Puritan John Rainolds . He had underwritten the debts of his son-in-law, Sir Philip Sidney , had pursued the Sidney estate for recompense unsuccessfully and had carried out major land transactions in his later years. After his death, his friends reflected that poor bookkeeping had left him further in

5280-585: The subsequent election in 1563, he was returned for both Lyme Regis, Dorset , another constituency under Bedford's influence, and Banbury, Oxfordshire . He chose to sit for Lyme Regis. In January 1562 he married Anne, daughter of Sir George Barne , Lord Mayor of London in 1552–3, and widow of wine merchant Alexander Carleill. Anne died two years later leaving her son Christopher Carleill in Walsingham's care. In 1566, Walsingham married Ursula St. Barbe , widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Walsingham acquired her estates of Appuldurcombe and Carisbrooke Priory on

5368-456: The topic that "young princes were many times carried into great errors upon an opinion of the absoluteness of their royal authority and do not consider, that when they transgress the bounds and limits of the law, they leave to be kings and become tyrants." According to James Melville of Halhill , James VI intended to give Walsingham a valuable diamond ring as a parting gift, but James Stewart, Earl of Arran , who Walsingham had ignored, substituted

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5456-483: The true state of his finances is unclear. He received grants of land from the Queen, grants for the export of cloth and leases of customs in the northern and western ports. His primary residences, apart from the court, were in Seething Lane by the Tower of London (now the site of a Victorian office building called Walsingham House), at Barn Elms in Surrey and at Odiham in Hampshire . Nothing remains of any of his houses. He spent much of his own money on espionage in

5544-440: The universities of Basel and Padua , where he was elected to the governing body by his fellow students in 1555. Mary I died in November 1558 and was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth . Walsingham returned to England and through the support of one of his fellow former exiles, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford , he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament as the member for Bossiney, Cornwall , in 1559. At

5632-488: The unpredictable Henry III and distrustful of the English ambassador in Paris, Edward Stafford . Stafford, who was compromised by his gambling debts, was in the pay of the Spanish and passed vital information to Spain. Walsingham may have been aware of Stafford's duplicity, as he fed the ambassador false information, presumably in the hope of fooling or confusing the Spanish. The pro-English Regent of Scotland James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton , whom Walsingham had supported,

5720-427: The use of England's maritime power to open new trade routes and explore the New World, and was at the heart of international affairs. He was involved directly with English policy towards Spain, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and France, and embarked on several diplomatic missions to neighbouring European states. Closely linked to the mercantile community, he actively supported trade promotion schemes and invested in

5808-399: The very epitome of a Castiglione courtier: learned and politic, but at the same time generous, brave, and impulsive. The funeral procession was one of the most elaborate ever staged, so much so that his father-in-law, Francis Walsingham , almost went bankrupt. As Sidney was a brother of the Worshipful Company of Grocers , the procession included 120 of his company brethren. Never more than

5896-432: The warrant to Cecil and a privy council convened by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge agreed to carry out the sentence as soon as was practical. Within a week, Mary was beheaded. On hearing of the execution, Elizabeth claimed not to have sanctioned the action and that she had not meant Davison to part with the warrant. Davison was arrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London . Walsingham's share of Elizabeth's displeasure

5984-471: The week before the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre , the "most horrible spectacle" he had ever witnessed, Walsingham raised the spectre of religious riots in England in the event of the marriage proceeding. Elizabeth put up with his blunt, often unwelcome, advice, and acknowledged his strong beliefs in a letter, in which she called him "her Moor [who] cannot change his colour". These were years of tension in policy towards France, with Walsingham sceptical of

6072-401: The year. As part of the marriage agreement, Walsingham agreed to pay £1,500 of Sidney's debts and gave his daughter and son-in-law the use of his manor at Barn Elms in Surrey . A granddaughter born in November 1585 was named Elizabeth after the Queen, who was one of two godparents along with Sidney's uncle, Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester . The following year, Sidney was killed fighting

6160-414: Was Sir Edmund Walsingham , Lieutenant of the Tower of London . Francis's mother was Joyce Denny , a daughter of the courtier Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and a sister of the courtier Sir Anthony Denny , the principal Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry VIII . After the death of her first husband she married the courtier Sir John Carey in 1538. Carey's brother William

6248-419: Was a Catholic and as his elder brother, Henry III, was childless, he was heir presumptive to the French throne. Elizabeth was past the age of childbearing and had no clear successor. If she died while married to him, her realms could fall under French control. By comparing the match of Elizabeth and Alençon with the match of the Protestant Henry of Navarre and the Catholic Margaret of Valois , which occurred in

6336-464: Was among those tortured and found guilty on the basis of extracted evidence; he was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn in 1581. Walsingham could never forget the atrocities against Protestants he had witnessed in France during the Bartholomew's Day massacre and believed a similar slaughter would occur in England in the event of a Catholic resurgence. Walsingham's brother-in-law Robert Beale , who

6424-731: Was appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter from 22 April 1578 until succeeded by Sir Amias Paulet in June 1587, when he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in addition to principal secretary. The duties of the principal secretary were not defined formally, but as he handled all royal correspondence and determined the agenda of council meetings, he could wield great influence in all matters of policy and in every field of government, both foreign and domestic. During his term of office, Walsingham supported

6512-415: Was avoidable and heroic. Sidney noticed that one of his men was not fully armoured. He took off his thigh armour on the grounds that it would be wrong to be better armored than his men. As he lay dying, Sidney composed a song to be sung by his deathbed. According to the story, while lying wounded he gave his water to another wounded soldier, saying, "Thy necessity is yet greater than mine". This became possibly

6600-443: Was buried privately in a simple ceremony at 10 pm on the following day, beside his son-in-law, in Old St Paul's Cathedral . The grave and monument were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. His name appears on a modern monument in the crypt listing the important graves lost. In his will, dated 12 December 1589, Walsingham complained of "the greatness of my debts and the mean state [I] shall leave my wife and heirs in", but

6688-520: Was clearly encouraging and sanctioned Babington's plans . Walsingham had Babington and his associates rounded up; fourteen were executed in September 1586. In October, Mary was put on trial under the Act for the Surety of the Queen's Person in front of 36 commissioners, including Walsingham. During the presentation of evidence against her, Mary broke down and pointed accusingly at Walsingham saying, "all of this

6776-491: Was concluded between France and England in 1572, but the treaty made no provision for a royal marriage and left the question of Elizabeth's successor open. The Huguenots and other European Protestant interests supported the nascent revolt in the Spanish Netherlands , which were provinces of Habsburg Spain . When Catholic opposition to this course in France resulted in the death of Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny and

6864-423: Was educated at Shrewsbury School and Christ Church, Oxford . He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley . His mother was the eldest daughter of John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland , and the sister of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester . His sister, Mary , was a writer, translator and literary patron, and married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke . Sidney dedicated his longest work,

6952-479: Was eventually dropped on the grounds of Henry's Catholicism. A substitute match with the youngest brother, Francis, Duke of Alençon , was proposed but Walsingham considered him ugly and "void of a good humour". Elizabeth was 20 years older than Alençon, and was concerned that the age difference would be seen as absurd. Walsingham believed that it would serve England better to seek a military alliance with France against Spanish interests. The defensive Treaty of Blois

7040-670: Was in France in the mid-1580s and was acquainted with Walsingham's kinsman Thomas Walsingham . From 1571 onwards, Walsingham complained of ill health and often retired to his country estate for periods of recuperation. He complained of "sundry carnosities ", pains in his head, stomach and back, and difficulty in passing urine. Suggested diagnoses include cancer, kidney stones , urinary infection, and diabetes. He died on 6 April 1590, at his house in Seething Lane . Historian William Camden wrote that Walsingham died from "a carnosity growing intra testium tunicas [testicular cancer]". He

7128-526: Was in Paris with Walsingham at the time of the massacre, encapsulated Walsingham's view: "I think it time and more than time for us to awake out of our dead sleep, and take heed lest like mischief as has already overwhelmed the brethren and neighbours in France and Flanders embrace us which be left in such sort as we shall not be able to escape." Walsingham tracked down Catholic priests in England and supposed conspirators by employing informers, and intercepting correspondence. Walsingham's staff in England included

7216-759: Was known to be friendly and sympathetic towards individual Catholics. A memorial, erected in 1986 at the location in Zutphen where he was mortally wounded by the Spanish, can be found at the entrance of a footpath (" 't Gallee") located in front of the petrol station at the Warnsveldseweg 170. In Arnhem , in front of the house in the Bakkerstraat 68, an inscription on the ground reads: "IN THIS HOUSE DIED ON THE 17 OCTOBER 1586 * SIR PHILIP SIDNEY * ENGLISH POET, DIPLOMAT AND SOLDIER, FROM HIS WOUNDS SUFFERED AT THE BATTLE OF ZUTPHEN. HE GAVE HIS LIFE FOR OUR FREEDOM". The inscription

7304-557: Was overthrown in 1578. After the collapse of the Raid of Ruthven , another initiative to secure a pro-English government in Scotland, Walsingham reluctantly visited the Scottish court in August 1583, knowing that his diplomatic mission was unlikely to succeed. James VI dismissed Walsingham's advice on domestic policy saying he was an "absolute King" in Scotland. Walsingham replied with a discourse on

7392-636: Was ruthless, his opponents on the Catholic side were no less so; the treatment of prisoners and suspects by Tudor authorities was typical of European governments of the time. Walsingham's personal, as opposed to his public, character is elusive; his public papers were seized by the government while many of his private papers, which might have revealed much, were lost. The fragments that do survive demonstrate his personal interest in gardening and falconry. Fictional portrayals of Walsingham tend to follow Catholic interpretations, depicting him as sinister and Machiavellian. He features in conspiracy theories surrounding

7480-463: Was small because he was absent from court, at home ill, in the weeks just before and after the execution. Davison was eventually released in October 1588, on the orders of Cecil and Walsingham. From 1586, Walsingham received many dispatches from his agents in mercantile communities and foreign courts detailing Spanish preparations for an invasion of England. Walsingham's recruitment of Anthony Standen ,

7568-507: Was the husband of Mary Boleyn , the elder sister of Anne Boleyn , the second wife of King Henry VIII. Of Francis's five siblings, Mary married Sir Walter Mildmay , who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for over 20 years, and Elizabeth married the parliamentarian Peter Wentworth . Francis Walsingham matriculated at King's College, Cambridge , in 1548 with many other Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for

7656-431: Was underdeveloped and hoped that plantation would improve the productivity of estates. Tensions between the native Irish and the English settlers had lasting effects on the history of Ireland . Walsingham's younger daughter Mary died aged seven in July 1580; his elder daughter, Frances, married Sir Philip Sidney on 21 September 1583, despite the Queen's initial objections to the match (for unknown reasons) earlier in

7744-724: Was unveiled on 17 October 2011, exactly 425 years after his death, in the presence of Philip Sidney, 2nd Viscount De L'Isle , a descendant of the brother of Philip Sidney. The city of Sidney, Ohio , in the United States and a street in Zutphen , Netherlands, have been named after Sir Philip. A statue of him can be found in the park at the Coehoornsingel where, in the harsh winter of 1795, English and Hanoverian soldiers were buried who had died while retreating from advancing French troops. Another statue of Sidney, by Arthur George Walker , forms

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