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Title: Penshurst Castle
In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney

Author: Emma Marshall

Release Date: April 26, 2009 [EBook #28616]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PENSHURST CASTLE

[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TOWER, PENSHURST CASTLE.]

PENSHURST CASTLE

_IN THE TIME OF_

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

BY

EMMA MARSHALL

_Author of 'Under Salisbury Spire,' 'Winchester Meads,' etc._

'A right man-like man, such as Nature, often erring,
yet shows sometimes she fain would make.'--Sir Philip Sidney.

LONDON

SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED

ESSEX STREET, STRAND

1894

_PREFACE_

For the incidents in the life of Sir Philip Sidney, who is the central
figure in this story of 'the spacious times of great Elizabeth,' I am
indebted to Mr H. R. Fox Bourne's interesting and exhaustive Memoir of this
noble knight and Christian gentleman.

In his short life of thirty-one years are crowded achievements as scholar,
poet, statesman and soldier, which find perhaps few, if indeed any equal,
in the records of history; a few only of these chosen from among many
appear in the following pages. The characters of Mary Gifford and her
sister, and the two brothers, Humphrey and George Ratcliffe, are wholly
imaginary.

The books which have been consulted for the poetry of Sir Philip Sidney and
the times in which he lived are--Vol. I. of _An English Garner;_ M.
Jusserand's _Roman du Temps de Shakespere,_ and a very interesting essay on
Sir Philip Sidney and his works, published in Cambridge in 1858.

WOODSIDE, LEIGH WOODS,
CLIFTON, _October_ 5, 1893.

_CONTENTS_

BOOK I.

PAGE

I. THE SISTERS, 1

II. IN THE PARK, 17

III. A STRANGE MEETING, 35

IV.