n, returned in 1677 to England. He,
however, retained the republican principles which he had all his life
advocated, fell under the suspicion of the Court, and was in 1683, on the
discovery of the Rye House Plot, condemned to death on entirely
insufficient evidence, and beheaded on Tower Hill, December 7, 1683.
Though no charge of personal venality has been substantiated, yet it
appears to be certain that he received money from the French King for
using his influence against war between the two countries, his object
being to prevent Charles II. from obtaining command of the war supplies.
S. was deeply versed in political theory, and wrote _Discourses
concerning Government_, _pub._ in 1698.

SIDNEY, SIR PHILIP (1554-1586).--Poet and romancist, _s._ of Sir Henry
S., Deputy of Ireland, and Pres. of Wales, _b._ at the family seat of
Penshurst, and _ed._ at Shrewsbury School and Oxf. He was at the French
Court on the fateful August 24, 1572--the massacre of St.
Bartholomew--but left Paris soon thereafter and went to Germany and
Italy. In 1576 he was with his _f._ in Ireland, and the next year went on
missions to the Elector Palatine and the Emperor Rudolf II. When his
father's Irish policy was called in question, he wrote an able defence of
it. He became the friend of Spenser, who dedicated to him his _Shepherd's
Calendar_. In 1580 he lost the favour of the Queen by remonstrating
against her proposed marriage with the Duke of Anjou. His own marriage
with a _dau._ of Sir Francis Walsingham took place in 1583. In 1585 he
was engaged in the war in the Low Countries, and met his death at Zutphen
from a wound in the thigh. His death was commemorated by Spenser in his
_Astrophel_. S. has always been considered as the type of English
chivalry; and his extraordinary contemporary reputation rested on his
personal qualities of nobility and generosity. His writings consist of
his famous pastoral romance of _Arcadia_, his sonnets _Astrophel and
Stella_, and his _Apologie for Poetrie_, afterwards called _Defence of
Poesie_. The _Arcadia_ was originally written for the amusement of his
sister, afterwards Countess of Pembroke, the "Sidney's sister, Pembroke's
mother," of Ben Jonson. Though its interest now is chiefly historical, it
enjoyed an extraordinary popularity for a century after its appearance,
and had a marked influence on the immediately succeeding literature. It
was written in 1580-81 but not _pub._ until 1590, and is a medley