34 Longleat Papers, No. 3. 



XXTT. — 1572, March 18th. Sir Philip Sidney, on his Travels U 



IN HIS NINETEENTH YEAR, TO HIS UNCLE, THE EARL OF LEICESTER, | 



from Frankfort. 1 



I 



[Sir Philip Sidney, born at Penshurst, in Kent, 29th November, 

 1554, was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, by Lady Mary Dudley, \ 

 sister of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. With Wiltshire he j 

 was much connected by the marriage of his sister Mary with 

 Henry, second Earl of Pembroke. He was often at Wilton, and j 

 at Ivy Church. John Aubrey, among" other anecdotes of him j 

 (" Letters from the Bodleian, vol. ii., pt. 2, p. 552 ") says : " My [ 

 great uncle, Mr. T. Browne, remembered him : and sayd that he ! 

 was wont to take his table book out of his pockets and write down 

 his notions as they came into his head, when he was writing his I 

 Arcadia (wch. was never finished by him) as he was hunting on Ij 

 our pleasant plainest In 1585 Queen Elizabeth having taken fj 

 the Protestants in the Netherlands under her protection, sent a 

 military force to their assistance, and appointed Sir Philip ( 

 Governor of Flushing. He was followed by his uncle, the 

 Earl of Leicester, who made him General of the Horse. He died h 

 16th October, 1586, about a fortnight after receiving a wound j» 

 at the Battle of Zutphen, and his body was brought back to [I 

 England and interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. After the burning | 

 of the Church Aubrey saw Sir Philip's leaden coffin, under I 

 « Our Ladies Chapel." 



Sir Philip has had several biographers, some recently. 2 Letters j 

 written by him are very rare. In his " Works/' collected by j 

 W. Gray, 1829, only six are given, of the years 1572, and 1586. 

 His handwriting was remarkably neat and precise. He spells his ji 

 own family name, " Sidney " but his father, Sir Henry, in letters j i 

 preserved at Longleat, writes " Sydney."] 



"Ryghte honorable and my singular good Lorde and Tinkle, this bearer j 

 havinge showed me the woorkes he dothe cary into Englande gave me ocasion I 



1 In Collins' s lives of the Sidneys it is stated that his license to travel was dated M 

 25th May, 1572. But both the letters here printed are dated from Frankforlin i 

 March of that year. 



2 H. R. Fox Bourne, and Julius Xloyd. 



