The life of Sir Philip Sidney

II Cornell

UNIVERSITY

LIBRARY

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND GIVEN IN 1891 BY

HENRY WILLIAMS SAGE

DATE DUE

-Sf^

10 1077-

PRINTED IN U-S.A.

3 1924 082 453 683

The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library.

There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text.

THE LIFE OF

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

C. F. CLAY, Manaoeb

annDon: FETTER LANE, E.C.

Entonto: J. M. DENT AND SONS, Ltd.

THE LIFE OF

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

BY

MALCOLM WILLIAM WALLACE

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE,

TORONTO

Cambridge :

at the University Press

E.V,

PBINIED BT JOHN CLAY, M.A.

AT THE UNIVEESITT PBESS

Preface

TT is more than fifty years since Mr Fox-Bourne published his excellent Memoir of Sir Philip Sidney. Although many books have since been pubUshed on the subject no one of them represents a first-hand attempt to examine the sources of information; their authors have simply availed themselves of Mr Fox-Bourne's labours. An exception should be noted in the case of Professor Fliigel's Einleitung to his edition of the Apologie and Astrophel and Stella, but this is a collection of notes rather than a detailed 'Life.' Some twenty-five years ago Mr Fox-Bourne re-wrote his Memoir in a briefer and more popular form for the Heroes of the Nation series of biographies, and in this edition he was able to incorporate some new facts regarding Sidney's life which the lapse of time had brought to light.

Under these circumstances it may be unnecessary to offer any apology for another study of the life of a man whose character and achievements have always possessed a peculiar fascination for his countrymen. I have attempted to make a thorough examination of the manuscript and published sources of information, and to estimate Sidney's significance by studying him in his relation to his contemporaries and to the history of his time. To what has been previously known of his life I have been able to add some significant details, notably the account of his school-days based on Marshall's manuscript — a document of very unusual interest which I was so fortunate as to discover at Penshurst. The story of his more intimate relation vi Preface

to the Prince of Orange is also of real significance. In addition I have discovered a number of facts which are interesting rather than significant, for example, the identity of H. S., and the name of one of Sidney's translations which had been forgotten. And finally I have incorporated in this account of his life many new facts of very slight importance, and I am afraid that my desire to tell everything that a student of Sidney's life might wish to know has sometimes had the effect of obscuring the wood by the multitude of the trees.

In telling the story, however, I have constantly tried to remember that details find their chief value in the degree in which they throw new light on the character or amplify the conceptions which we have already formed. In one of his letters Mr George Meredith writes: "We cannot come to the right judgment in Biography unless we are grounded jn History. It is knowledge of the world for the knowing of men. Question the character, whether he worked, in humanity's mixed motives, for great ends, on the whole : or whether he inclined to be merely adroit, a juggler for his purposes. Many of the famous are only clever interpreters of the popular wishes. Real greatness must be based on morahty. These platitudes are worth keeping in mind." I have tried to keep in mind similar considerations and to deduce as just an estimate from the facts as possible.

To my late colleague and friend. Professor George S. Stevenson, I am indebted for the deep interest which he took in my work, for many helpful suggestions, and for reading the proof of the first half of the book. It is a melancholy pleasure to record here my sense of the supreme loss which his death means to his friends and to the university.

In preparing the Notes on Sidney's Portraits I am much indebted to the courtesy and wide knowledge of Mr Milner of the National Portrait Gallery,

Preface vii

This account of Sidney's life was completed before the outbreak of war in August last. When we are able once more to turn to books that deal with themes not directly related to the one all- engrossing subject, the hfe of Sidney may possess a new interest for us, for he, too, died in the Netherlands in defence of ideals strangely similar to those for which the British nation is to-day engaged in a hfe-and-death struggle.

M. W. W.

University College,

TOEONTO.

Contents

CHAP.

PAGE

I. BlETH AND PaEBNTAGE 1

Chapter 1 Birth And Parentage

Philip Sidney was born " on Friday the last of November being St Andrew's day, a quarter before five in the morning " in the year 1554, according to an entry made by his father. Sir Henry Sidney, in a family psalter^. Both his father and his mother were closely related to many of the noblest English families of the time. By his mother, Mary, the eldest daughter of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, and Jane Guilford, his wife, he was descended from the great houses of Grey, Talbot, Beauchamp and Berkeley; his father was the son of that Sir William Sidney who had commanded the right wing of the English army at Flodden, who had later become Tutor and Chamberlain and Steward of the Household to King Edward the Sixth, and who was related to the Brandon Dukes of Suffolk. It was in his mother's Uneage, however, that PhiKp himself always felt the greatest pride.

" Though, in all truth," he once declared, " I may justly affirm that I am by my father's side of ancient and always well-esteemed and wellmatched gentry, yet I do acknowledge, 1 say, that my ohiefest honour is to be a Dudley^,"

1 A large folio preserved in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It contains 155 leaves and each page is richly illuminated. The volume is bound in oak boards with leather back and brass comers.

' In his reply to the author of Leicester's Commonwealth. Printed by Collins in his Memoirs of the Lives and Actions of the Sidneys, etc. (p. 64), prefixed to his Letters and Memorials of State. . . .loritten and collected by Sir Henry Sidney

the famous Sir Philip Sidney, etc., and otherwise known as the Sidney

Papers. (2 vols., London, 1746.)

and Sir Henry Sidney, wishing to impress on his young son the moral obligations imposed by noble birth, wrote to him,

" Bemember, my son, the noble blood you are descended of by your mother's side, and think that only by virtuous life and good action you may be an ornament to that illustrious family^."

The Dudleys traced their descent from Robert de L'Isle, one of the barons who rebelled against King John. He was the son of Ealph de L'Isle, who was the grandson and heir of another Ralph de L'Isle. Throughout the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries the family was represented by men who played conspicuous parts in English history. Robert de L'Isle in 1265 was in rebellion against Henry III under Simon de Montfort's leadership ; Warine de L'Isle, his son, followed his father's example by taking up arms in protest against the supremacy of the Spencers, Edward II's favourites, and suffered a traitor's death. Gerard de L'Isle, his son, having been restored in blood, won an honourable reputation as a soldier in the Scottish and French wars of Edward III, as did also his son, Warine, both during the lifetime of his father and after his death. This Warine was survived by an only daughter, Margaret (1361- 1392), the wife of Thomas, Lord Berkeley, and from this union there was an only daughter, Elizabeth, who was born in 1388 and who married Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. The three daughters of this marriage all made great matches: Margaret (1404-1468) became Countess of Shrewsbury, Eleanors, Duchess of Somerset, and EUzabeth, Lady Latimer. The Earl of Shrewsbury and his son John Talbot, who had been created Baron L'Isle in 1444 and Viscount L'Isle in 1452, were both killed at the battle of Chastilion in 1453. Thomas Talbot, son of John Talbot, succeeded to his father's dignities, but he died without issue in 1471. His sister EUzabeth had married Sir Edward Grey, who was created Baron L'Isle in 1476 and Viscount L'Isle in 1486. It was their daughter EUzabeth who became the wife of Edmund Dudley, Esq., Henry VII's infamous minister, and mother of John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, who was PhiUp Sidney's grandfather^.

' Sidney Papers, vol. i, p. 9. " See genealogical tree, p. 3.

I]

Birth and Parentage sa

.1^ o o am

1^

CO ^

■S-a

i-HOB

§1

■g

CO ot3 ii ^6

Si

o o .a j3

2 M

-d a c

CQ

H

•k ft

DQ

'd

So

OS a®

'so

-Ss g-

S a

O

CD ^ o ^ Hto

ig3

J2 fl^

Is

eg f~i a

o

H

S a o

-r

<5

-s

al a °

S OS g

I °

ao-S

•R bO

ill

-•aw 9 ap£i

Mary, m.

Sir Henry

Sidney in lilford, m. uly Jane Grey d S >0 Cfi iS ^-i

T3 o

- Kfem

'h g d

.a a"

4 Birth and Parentage [oh.

The Sidneys traced their descent in unbroken male succession from the time of King Stephen or Henry II. A charter is still preserved at Penshurst in which Henry II before his accession to the throne of England grants to William de Sidne (who had accompanied him from Anjou and who later became his Chamberlain) the manor of Sutton in Surrey, and from this fact the name of the family has sometimes been derived^.

Throughout the centuries they were well-esteemed and wellmatched gentry, but no alliance with the greatest families is recorded until the marriage of Nicholas Sidney, Esquire (Philip's great-grandfather) with Anne, daughter of Sir William Brandon, and cousin and one of the heirs of Charles Brandon, Duke of Sufiolk. The Brandons traced their descent from the Conqueror and also from Alexander, King of Scotland, and Nicholas Sidney's son, Sir William, inherited from his mother lands in Lincolnshire, Yorkshire and Lancashire, the extent of which was further increased by purchase and lease by Sir Henry Sidney^.

Sir William Sidney (1482-1554), Phihp's grandfather, was a man of great note throughout the reign of Henry VIII. In 1510, being then an Esquire of the King's House, he saw service against the Moors in Spain ; two years later he held command in the French war under Lord Edward Howard, High Admiral of England, and was knighted for his bravery at the burning of Conquest. In the battle of Flodden he commanded the right wing of the EngHsh army, and was then for his valour

• " The name of Sidney is aaid to be a corruption of Saint Denis but without any probability afforded by circumstances. The first on record Sir William Sidney, Chamberlain to Henry II, had a grant from that monarch of Sutton in Surrey ; and as Stepney, near BlackwaU, is a proved corruption of Stephen's Heath, analogy would more safely derive Sidney from Sutton Heath." Nichols, Topographer and Oenealogist, vol. m, p. 393.

* Among the Penshurst documents delivered to Sir Francis Walsingham on May 26, 1689, "for the use of Mrs Elizabeth Sidney" (Sir Philip's daughter) parcel 17 contained " A deed of feoffment by Sir Wm. Stanley, Knight' unto Sir Henry Sidney, Knight, and others, of his third part of the fee simple land of Charles the elder, late Duke of Suffolk in York, Lincoln," etc The document is dated February 19th, but the year is torn off. The parcel also contained " thirteen obligations concerning the Duke of Suffolk's lands in Lincolnshire," " An indenture of lease to Sir Henry Sidney of the fifth part of the late Duke of Suffolk's lands," etc. Penshurst MS.

made Knight Banneret^. He took part in Henry's later French wars and from that monarch received many tokens of his favour. He was made a Knight of the Garter, a member of the Privy Council, and Lieutenant of the Tower, and received from the King several grants of land, the most extensive of which were the monastery or abbey of Robertsbridge in Sussex in 1539^ and Penshurst in 1552. Most of these marks of royal favour were conferred upon Sir Wilham in direct recognition of the services which he and the Lady Anne, his wife (the daughter of Sir Hugh Pagenham), had rendered to Prince Edward, who had been committed almost exclusively to their care. Sir Wilham was his tutor, and Chamberlain and Steward of the Household, Lady Anne his governess ; her sister was

" in such place as among meaner personages is called a dry nvirse, for from the time he left sucking she continually lay in bed with him so long as he remained in woman's government^."

When the Prince was but two years old Henry Sidney, then/ ten years of age and a henchman of King Henry (his godfather),! was formally appointed to be henchman to Prince Edward — " the first boy that ever he had*." A pretty story is told of Sir Wilham, on one occasion when Edward was six or seven years old, summoning his granddaughter, Jane Dormer, who was of about the same age, to be the Prince's playfellow, and of their " reading, playing or dancing and such hke pastimes answerable to their spirits and innocence of years." They also played cards, and the Prince is credited with having remarked at one stage of the game, " Now, Jane, your King is gone, I shall be good enough for you*." Two of Sir WilUam's daughters, Mabell and Elizabeth, were members of the household of the Lady Mary, Edward's sister, by whom they were

* Collins, Memoirs, p. 77. The Pedigree of Sir Philip Sidney, compiled by Rdb't Cooke, Olarencieux King of Arms temp. Eliz. London, privately printed, 1869.

^ Letters and Papers — Foreign and Domestic — Henry VIII, vol. xiv, Pt. 1, April, 1539.

' Sir Henry Sidney to Sir Francis Walsingham, March 1, 1583.

♦ Ibid.

' Henry Clifford, Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 69.

much beloved " for their rare virtue and zeal in Catholic religion^." They died unmarried in her service.

Lady Sidney died in 1544 and Sir WilUam ten years later. Of their family of two sons and seven daughters one son, Henry, and four daughters, survived their father. Mary was the wife of Sir WiUiam Dormer, who had been considered a great enough match for Jane Seymour, but whose mother, preferring to have him ". matched in a kindred of good fame," had arranged the marriage with Lady Sidney* ; from this union there were two daughters — Anne, who married Sir Walter Hungerford, and Jane, who married the great Spanish Count de Feria. Lucy was the wife of Sir James Harrington, and became the mother of three sons — Sir John, Sir Henry and Sir James, and eight daughters. Anne was the wife of Sir WilUam FitzWilham, and had one son. Sir WilUam, and three daughters. Frances was to become the wife of Thomas EatclifEe, Earl of Sussex, and to die without issue.

Henry Sidney was born, probably at Baynard's Castle in London, where his father chiefly lived, on July 20, 1529', and during his childhood and early manhood was closely associated with the Court. Wood records that he " became a student in New College (as it seems) in 1543 or thereabouts, but making no long stay there*." Edward VI, whose bedfellow he had often been, distinguished him with his very special favour throughout his Ufe, and Molyneux tells us that when Sir Henry was one of the principal gentlemen of Edward's privy chamber " he was then reputed for comehness of person, gallantness and liveliness of spirit, virtue, quaUty, beauty and good composition of body, the only odd man and paragon of the Court^." When

^ Henry Clifford, Life of Jane Dormer, Duchess of Feria, p. 13.

' " The nativity of Henry Sidney was on Tuesday the twenty day of July upon St Margaret's day in the morning a quarter after one of the clock, the twenty-one year of Henry the Eight and in the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred twenty and nine. His god-father was King Henry the Eight : his other god-father was Sir William FitzwiUiam after Earl of Southampton and liord Privy Seal : his godmother was the Lady Kingston wife to Sir Wm. Kingston, Knt of the most noble order, and controller of King Henry the Eight his household." Sidney Psalter.

* Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, 3rd ed. 1813, vol. i, col. 613,

' Holinshed't Chronicle, vol. m, p. 1548.

it is remembered that the Duke of Northumberland counted on nothing more than on the marriages of his children to secure the stability of his family, that he married his son John to the daughter of the Protector Somerset, his son Guilford to the Lady Jane Grey and his daughter Catherine to Henry, Lord Hastings, another possible claimant to the English throne, the marriage of his eldest daughter Lady Mary to Henry Sidney is a testimony that Northumberland anticipated a briUiant career for the young King's favourite. The marriage took place at Asser on March 29, 1551, and was " afterward most publicly and honourably solemnized in Ely Place in Holborn in the Whitsuntide holidays next following^." The marriage covenants between the Earl of Warwick (he was created Duke of Northumberland some months later) and Sir William Sidney, by which the Earl conveys to Sir Henry and Lady Mary the manor of Halden in Kent, are dated May, 155P- At the beginning of June, attended by four servants, Sir Henry accompanied the Marquis of Northampton on his mission to the French King, Henry II, to whom he carried the habit of the Order of the Garter, and on July 17th he set out for England bearing despatches from Northampton to the Privy Council*. On October 11th his father-in-law was created Duke of Northumberland, and on the same day Henry Sidney and William Cecil were knighted, a fact which Sir Henry in his later life was fond of recalling. During the remaining years of Edward's reign honours and rewards came thick and fast upon Sir Henry. On December 26, 1552, he was again sent on a French embassy*, and Sir WiUiam Pickering, Enghsh ambassador at Paris, wrote to the Privy Council commending Sidney's dexterity and his discreet and "wise handling of the matter confided to him, and to Sir WiUiam Cecil of Sir Henry's great wisdom and circumspection^.

Sir Henry also held many offices — Chief Cup-bearer to the King for Ufe, Chief Cypherer to the King for Ufe, and Chief Steward of various royal manors, mansions and parks®.

* Sidney PscUter. * Collins, Memoirs, p. 83. ' State Papers — Foreign — Edward VI.

* Acts of the Privy Council, Deo. 26, 1652.

" State Papers — Foreign — Edward VI, Jan. 17, 1563. " Collins, Memoirs, p. 83.

8 Birth and Parentage [P^^

The boy-king seemed to delight in doing him honour, and Sir Henry himself has given us this account of their relationship :

" As that sweet prince grew in years and discretion, so grew I in favour and liking of him, in such sort as by that time I was twenty-two years old he made me one of the four principal gentlemen of his bedchamber. While I was present with him he would always be cheerful and pleasant with me, and in my absence gave me such words of praise as far exceeded my desert. Sundry times he bountituOy rewarded me ; finally he always made too much of me ; once he sent me into France and once into Scotland Lastly not only to my own still felt grief but also to the universal

woe of England he died in my arms^."

During the last two years of Edward's reign Sir Henry was one of the chief lieutenants of Northumberland. We find him in the company of his father-in-law at Court*, and in the north of England repressing the rebels in the summer of 1552, whence he is despatched post-haste with messages to the Council and King, which he must deUver before going to his wife, as Northumberland awaits an answer at Newcastle^. In December of the same year there was talk of his being sent as ambassador to the Emperor*.

Immediately before Edward's death there can have been few young noblemen in England whose worldly prospects were more brilliant, or who enjoyed a greater measure of domestic happiness than Sir Henry Sidney. Many years later when his estate was much decayed he estimated that he was worth £30,000 less than at the death of King Edward 5. If we multiply this sum by six or seven to reduce it to the terms of its value in our own day it becomes obvious that Sir Henry was a very wealthy man in his own right, besides being prospective heir to the vast estates of his father in several EngUsh counties. Moreover, we have every reason to believe that his great match with the daughter of Northumberland was not merely a mariage

"^ Sir Henry to Walsingham, March 1, 1583.

^ Slate Papers — Dom.-^Edward VI, vol. xiv, June 4, 1552.

' State Papers — Dom. — -Addenda — -Edward VI, vol. rv, July 25, 1552.

• State Papers — Dom. — Edward VI, vol. xv, Deo. 28, 1552,

^ " If I die tomorrow next I should leave them [his sons] worse than my father left me by £20000. . . .yea and £30000 worse than I was at the death of my most dear King and master King Edward the Vlth." Sir Henry to Walsingham, March 1, 1583.

de convenance. Practically all marriages in sixteenth century English society were arranged by parents and for worldly reasons, but we know that Sir Henry and Lady Mary were bound together throughout their Hves of sorrow and disappointment by ties of the warmest affection and admiration. Of their relation to each other before the time of their marriage we know nothing, but there still remains a curious bit of evidence regarding the happiness of their early married Ufe. In a copy of Hall and Grafton's Chronicle which is still extant, there are manuscript Latin verses written by Sir Henry, and the following morahzing lines by Lady Mary, in which it would surely be an excess of caution to refuse to recognize Lady Sidney's sense of insecurity on the dizzy heights to which her family had attained, and of fear lest a sword of Damocles was suspended over the Sidney household :

" To whyshe the best and fere the worst are to points of the wyese to suffer then whatt happen shall that man is happy thryese. 1551

Mary Sidney fere god."

" Upon the good daye have thou in mind the unware who that may come behind Is not for to sped thou think a pain Will not the thing that thou maeist not attain for thou and none other art cause of thy let if that which thou mayest not thou travel to get. Soriptum manu felix.

" Of al thinges the newest is the best saue of loue and frinship which the elder it waxeth is euer the better Escript par la maine d'un femme heuruse assavoir

[Mary Sidjneyi."

^ Catalogue of the Anderson Auction Co., New York — Tuesday and Wednesday, Feb. 1 and 2, 1910 (Selections from the library of George G. Tillotson):

" Edward Hall and Richard Grafton— The Union of the two noble and illustre famebes of Lancastre and Yorke etc. Londini : Richard Grafton, 1548." The volume was bought by Dodd, Mead and Co., of New York City.

10 BiHh and Parentage [ch.

In her later life Lady Mary was to find need of the stoicism which she here seems to invoke. The Unes thus carelessly jotted down form a dramatic background to her future experience of tragic sorrow, ill-health, isolation and petty trouble. To her husband she was to remain " a full fair lady, in mine eye at least the fairest " ; she was to find in him the " noble and careful father" of her children, whom she honoured for his uprightness and unswerving devotion to whatsoever things were of good report, and if pride in the character of their offspring is one of the truest sources of happiness for mature men and women, the mother of Sir Philip Sidney and the Countess of Pembroke was not denied one of the greatest consolations of fife. In spite of these things there was probably no period after the death of Edward VI when Lady Sidney would have felt impelled to subscribe herself a happy woman without many qualifications.

To what extent Sir Henry Sidney was involved in the conspiracy of his father-in-law to secure the throne for Lady Jane Grey we do not know. He was a witness to Edward's wilP on June 21st, and on July 4th, only two days before his death, Edward bestowed on him a manor in Wiltshire — the last of many gifts. On July 21st or 22nd he received his pardon from Queen Mary^. It would be interesting to know the story of Sir Henry's fife during the intervening days. He was on terms of the closest intimacy with the Duke and Duchess of Northumberland and Sir Andrew Dudley, Northumberland's brother ; Lord Hastings and Ambrose Dudley were his warm friends, and all of these were deeply involved. Moreover, in a letter to Queen Mary, the authenticity of which there seems little reason to doubt. Lady Jane says that the news of her accession was communicated to her by Lady Sidney.

" The person by whom this news was brought unto me was the Lady Sidney, my sister-in-law, daughter of the duchess of Northumberland ; she told me with seriousness more than common that it was needful I should go with her and I did so'."

' Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 91.

' Froude, History of England, vol. vi, p. 48. Queen Jane and Queen Mary, p. 13.

» Pollino.

I J Birth and Parentage 11

At first sight it seems strange that Sir Henry should have escaped a lodging in the Tower. It is not difficult, however, to conjecture an explanation. In the first place his strong common sense may have forewarned him of the futility of the whole scheme, and he may have been able to view the feverish activity of the whole Dudley family as the intoxication of ambition. He must have found it, however, an almost impossible role not to come out definitely for the one side or the other, and he can never have been in greater need of the circumspection which characterized his whole fife than he was at this juncture. One circumstance which must have told strongly in his favour with Queen Mary was the fact that two of his sisters, Mabell and Elizabeth, had long been members of her household, and were so entirely devoted to her that

" when the Queens (the wives of King Henry) had sought with much importunity to have them in their service they would by no means leave the Lady Mary although the King himself requested it^."

These ladies were much beloved by Mary for their rare virtue and zeal in the Catholic religion. And Sir Henry had at least one other friend at Court. His father had not only placed his own daughters in Lady Mary's household ; it was he who persuaded his granddaughter Jane Dormer to accept a similar service, and for this child of his dead sister Sir Henry had always had an especially warm feeling. When we remember further that it did not need Northumberland's dying message to persuade Mary that his children were rebels by his commandment and not of their own free wills, and that she sincerely wished to be merciful wherever it was possible to show mercy, it is not strange that the Sidneys were able to avoid the full force of the blow when it descended.

' What is perhaps stranger is the fact that Sir Henry, although neither Uking nor liked as he had been, to use his own phrase, found employment under the new sovereign within a few months and was even shown unusual favours. On March 13, 1554, he started on a journey to Spain, having been appointed a member

' Clifford, Life of Jane Dormer, p. 62.

of the deputation sent thither to escort King Philip to England, where he was to wed the Enghsh Queen^. The ambassadors, among whom were the Earl of Bedford and Lord Fitzwalter, had a formal audience with PhiUp on June 23rd2, and returned with him to England on July 19th»- During his absence Queen Mary had granted to Sir Henry the wardship of Eobert Pakenham, probably one of his yoimg cousins, on May 28th, and on November 8th she ratified all the letters patent which had been granted to him and his father by the late King, and confirmed Sir Henry in all his offices such as Chief Cypherer, Serjeaunt of the Otter Hounds, etc.* Ten days later Sir Henry was ordered to attend upon the Lord Cobham, who had gone to welcome Cardinal Pole and to accompany him from Eochester to Gravesend, and when on Novembe r 30th Sir Henry's first son was bor n King PhiUp himself was godfather and gave the boy his own name. In the multifarious business of governing Spain and her possessions the Spanish King never forgot the occasion ; many years later when the news of Sir PhiUp Sidney's death reached him he scribbled on the despatch in the laconic manner which characterized him : " He was my godson^."