had condemned them.

Philip's father, Sir Henry Sidney, was made Lord Deputy of Ireland, and
his mother became lady-in-waiting to the queen. Then, too, they owned
the beautiful and historic home, Penshurst Place, and had powerful
friends at court.

But there was another side to the picture. The Sidneys were not rich;
and holding the high position they did, they were obliged to live in a
way they could ill afford. This was bad enough; but, worse still,
Philip's affectionate parents were forced to spend many years of their
married life apart from each other and from their children. The mother
was, for the most part, at Whitehall or at Hampton Court with the queen,
and the father in turbulent, rebellious Ireland; while the children
were, perforce, left at home in the care of servants.

Though his loving father and mother were rarely at Penshurst, the little
Philip lived very happily there with his brothers and sisters.

He soon found other companions too,--companions who fired his young
blood and filled his boyish heart with dreams that were forever to haunt
him. Under the great trees at Penshurst he lay on the grass, by the
hour, and pored over stories of bygone days of chivalry. As he lay thus
and read, the present would fade from him, and the past with all its
glamour and its romance would steal up about him and claim him for its
own. The great trees that clashed their boughs together in the wind
became warriors struggling with each other; the blast of a hunting-horn
from the forest near by was Roland's call at Roncesvalles, while the
echoes that repeated the strain again and again were the answering
clarions of Charlemagne. Little delicate Philip Sidney no longer lay on
the grass in sunny England; in coat-of-mail and golden spurs he followed
the heroes of old,--now with the lion-hearted king at Arsur; now with
triumphant Godfrey on the walls of Jerusalem!

But Philip could not always read and dream; in a short time came the
reality of school-days and boyish struggles. But though he was called
away from the chivalric companionship of the knights of old, the
impression made upon his mind by their courage and fortitude and
devotion to duty ever after ran, like a thread of gold, through the warp
and woof of his character.

During the brief reign of Edward VI., Sir Henry Sidney had been
nicknamed "the only odd man and paragon of the court." The same stanch
virtues that made him "odd" in Edward's time rendered him a m