1554–1586

portrait

Born: November 29/30, 1554, Penshurst Place, Kent, England.

Died: October 17, 1586, Zutphen, Gelderland, Netherlands, of wounds received in the Battle of Zutphen (September 22, 1586). An epitaph of Sidney read 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.

Buried: Old St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, England (church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666).

Biography

Philip was the son of Sir Henry Sidney and Lady Mary Dudley, and husband of Frances Walsingham, and brother of Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke (1550–1621). Philip was knighted in 1583.

About Philip and Mary, John Julian wrote:

This illustrious pair claim notice in this work [Julian’s Dictionary of Hymnology] from their versification of the Psalms. These are frequently noticed by contemporaries, memorably by Dean Donne (Poems, vol. ii, pp. 313–15 in Fuller Worthies’ Library); but they were not printed until 1823, as follows:–

The Psalms of David, Translated into Divers and Sundry Kinds of Verse, More rare and Excellent For the Method and Varietie Than any yet hath been done in English. Begun by The noble and learned gent, Sir Philip Sidney Knt., and finished by The Right Honorable The Countess of Pembroke, his Sister. Now printed from A Copy of the Original Manuscript, Transcribed by John Davies, of Hereford, in the reign of James the First.

This MS of John Davies…has many bad readings and gratuitous obscurities. A more accurate text is preserved in the Bodleian (Rawlinson, Poet. 25), written by Dr. Samuel Woodford, having been made under the superintendence of Sir Philip Sidney himself…who in certain places has written Leave a space here for a variant stanza…

It was for long doubted which portions belonged to Sir Philip and which to his sister (e.g., Dr. Macdonald in his Antiphon). But the evidence is multiplying that to Sidney belong only the first forty-three.

Julian, p. 1057

Sources

Lyrics