SIDNEY done in England or anywhere else." His op- position to the protectorship of Cromwell coin- Jelled him to relinquish his legislative duties ; d in April, 105S; he retired to his father's residence at IVnslmrst. lie resumed his seat ii>t meeting of the restored parliament in 1659, and on May 13 was nominated one of the council of state. On June 5 he was sent as one of the commissioners to negotiate a peace between Sweden and Denmark, and was ab- sent from England at the time of the restora- tion. Unwilling to return to his native coun- try while it remained under " the government of a single person, kingship, or house of lords, he remained a voluntary exile for nearly II years. Intent upon establishing an English republic, in 1665 he sought the assistance of the Dutch government and the influence of the French ministers toward that end. Fail- ing in both instances, he retired to the south of France, where he lived till 1677, when, at the solicitation of his father (a centenarian), a permission for him to return home was ob- tained from the king. He soon became an ac- tive opponent of the court, but was defeated in two attempts to obtain a seat in parliament. lie is charged with accepting 500 guineas for favoring the intrigues of Barillon, the French ambassador, who about this time was in clan- destine correspondence with prominent mem- bers of the popular party seeking to crush the duke of York and the Roman Catholics, the parliament, and the ministry. But it has been alleged that, if true, the act was not criminal, as it required no betrayal of his principles, and as he needed the money and its acceptance was not repugnant to the practice of the age. The discovery of the Rye House plot, in June, 1683, gave the king an opportunity to exact vengeance for years of restraint and humilia- tion; and Sidney, with his illustrious compan- ion in misfortune, William Lord Russell, was arrested on a charge of complicity with the conspirators, and imprisoned in the tower. At his trial, over which Jeffreys presided, but a single living lopil witness to the conspiracy for an insurrection, the infamous Lord How- ard, could be produced ; but garbled extracts from a theoretical work on government in manuscript, which had been found among Sid- ney's papers, were read in evidence against him. These, though containing assertions of the right of a people to depose an unworthy moonneotea by other evidence with the conspiracy itself ; under the ruling of .rt, they were nevertheless deemed suffi- ieiit to convict. Sidney met his death " with the fortitude of a stoic." His attainder was reversed b Mary. by the first parliament of William and His "DtooonM concernin Govern- concerning Govern- ment" were published in 1698, and a fourth
- . with additions by Thomas Hollis in-
cluding his "Apology," dated on the day of ith, and a number of letters and miscel- laneous pieces, in 1772. His "Essay on Vir- Uous Love" was published in vol. viii. of the Somers collection of tracts (1742). The frag- mentary distich, . manus hsec inimica tyrannis Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, which he wrote in the university album at Copenhagen, is perhaps the best remembered extract from his writings. The report of his trial, after Jeffreys had struck out whatever he pleased, was published in 1684; it is also given in "Howell's State Trials." His life has been written by George Wilson Meadley (8vo, London, 1813), and by G. Van Sant- voord (12mo, New York, 1851). See also Ar- thur Collins, " Memoirs of the Lives and Ac- tions of the Sidneys," prefixed to his " Letters and Memorials of State," &c. (2 vols. fol., London, 1746), and Blencowe, "Sydney Pa- pers" (8vo, 1825). SIDNEY, or Sydney, Sir Philip, an English au- thor, born at Penshurst, Kent, Nov. 29, 1554, died in Arnhem, Holland, Oct. 7, 1586. His father, a descendant of Sir William Sidney, chamberlain to Henry II., was in his youth the bosom friend of Edward VI., and during the reign of Elizabeth held for many years the office of lord deputy of Ireland. His mother was the eldest daughter of the ambitious and unfortunate John Dudley, duke of Northum- berland, and sister of Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. At the age of 12 Sidney was sent to the grammar school of Shrewsbury, and in 1569 entered Christ Church college, Oxford. He subsequently studied at Cambridge, and at both universities was distinguished not less for preeminence in manly exercises than in mental accomplishments. In May, 1572, he obtained a license from the queen " to go out of England into parts beyond the seas," in or- der to perfect his knowledge of the continen- tal tongues. At the court of Charles IX. of France he attracted the attention of the king, who appointed him gentleman in ordinary of his chamber ; but the spectacle of the St. Bartholomew massacre induced him to depart abruptly from Paris, and he travelled through Germany, Italy, Hungary, Poland (where he took some part in the skirmishes with the Russians), and the Low Countries. Returning to England at the expiration of three years, he at once took his place among the foremost of the accomplished Englishmen of the time. The queen showed him special favor, and called him "her Philip," in opposition, it is supposed, to Philip of Spain, her sister Mary's husband. In 1576 he was nominated ambas- sador to Vienna, ostensibly to condole with the emperor Rudolph on the demise of his fa- ther, Maximilian II., but with the secret in- struction to cement an alliance of the Protes- tant states against Spain ; a mission which he discharged successfully, gaining the esteem and high praise of the prince of Orange. He re- turned in 1577, and for the next few years was employed in no important public capacity, part- ly from his reluctance to give up his literary
