Sonnets
written by him according to old fashion, and addressed to a lady in
accordance with a form of courtesy that in the same old fashion had
always been held to exclude personal suit--personal suit was
private, and not public--have led to grave misapprehension among
some critics. They supposed that he desired marriage with Penelope
Devereux, who was forced by her family in 1580--then eighteen years
old--into a hateful marriage with Lord Rich. It may be enough to
say that if Philip Sidney had desired her for his wife, he had only
to ask for her and have her. Her father, when dying, had desired--
as any father might--that his daughter might become the wife of
Philip Sidney. But this is not the place for a discussion of
Astrophel and Stella sonnets.
In 1585 Sidney was planning to join Drake it sea in attack on Spain
in the West Indies. He was stayed by the Queen. But when Elizabeth
declared war on behalf of the Reformed Faith, and sent Leicester
with an expedition to the Netherlands, Sir Philip Sidney went out,
in November, 1585, as Governor of Flushing. His wife joined him
there. He fretted at inaction, and made the value of his counsels
so distinct that his uncle Leicester said after his death that he
began by "despising his youth for a counsellor, not without bearing
a hand over him as a forward young man. Notwithstanding, in a short
time he saw the sun so risen above his horizon that both he and all
his stars were glad to fetch light from him.
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