"
Sidney returned from his embassy in June, 1577. At the time of his
departure, in the preceding February, his sister Mary, then twenty
years old, had become the third wife of Henry Herbert, Earl of
Pembroke, and her new home as Countess of Pembroke was in the great
house at Wilton, about three miles from Salisbury. She had a
measure of her brother's genius, and was of like noble strain.
Spenser described her as
"The gentlest shepherdess that lives this day,
And most resembling, both in shape and spright,
Her brother dear."
Ben Jonson, long after her brother had passed from earth, wrote upon
her death the well-known epitaph:-
"Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.
Death, ere thou hast slain another,
Learn'd, and fair, and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee."
Sidney's sister became Pembroke's mother in 1580, while her brother
Philip was staying with her at Wilton. He had early in the year
written a long argument to the Queen against the project of her
marriage with the Duke of Anjou, which she then found it politic to
seem to favour. She liked Sidney well, but resented, or appeared to
resent, his intrusion of advice; he also was discontented with what
seemed to be her policy, and he withdrew from Court for a time.
That time of seclusion, after the end of March, 1580, he spent with
his sister at Wilton.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25