SIDNEY

SIDNEY, or SYDNEY, ALGERNON, a noble English
patriot, who fell a victim to the judicial tyranny of the
Second Charles, was distinguished alike by the superiority
of his mind, and by the excellence of his public and private
character; was grand-nephew to the illustrious Sir Philip
Sidney, second son of the second Earl of Leicester, and of
Dorothy, eldest daughter of Henry, earl of Northum-
berland, and was born in 1622. After receiving as careful
an education as the time could bestow, he was, while still
a child, taken by his father, in 1632, who had been ap-
pointed ambassador extraordinary to the court of Denmark,
in conjunction with his elder brother, Lord Lisle, to the
place of his father's embassy. Accustomed from his
tenderest years to the gaiety and splendour of courts, and
educated in the largest and most liberal sense, he grew up
a most accomplished youth, endowed with all the dignity
and worth which can give weight to a man's character, and
with all the gentler graces which lend to his manners the
quality of fascination. Four years after he had visited
Copenhagen, he accompanied his father to Paris, where he
gained the esteem of many of the principal personages
about the French court, and his mother had the gratifica-
tion of having his good repute wafted to her ears again and
again in England. In 1641 he did good service in Ireland,
where he commanded a troop of horse in his father's regi-
ment. Returning along with his brother, Lord Lisle, in
the autumn of 1643, on their way to join the royal standard
at Oxford, they were injudiciously detained by the royalists
at Liverpool. Insulted by this apparent jealousy of their
characters, the youths immediately set spurs to their horses,
and joined the parliamentary army. Sidney entered with
the rank of a captain in the Earl of Manchester's army on
the 10th of May 1644. He was raised to be lieutenant-
colonel before the summer was done, and fought and bled
profusely at the battle of Long Marston Moor, on the 2d
July 1644. Sidney having now vindicated his claims to
the rank of a soldier, rose afterwards with much rapidity,
till, in 1646, we find him lieutenant-general of the horse
in Ireland, and governor of the city of Dublin. He had

been returned member for Cardiff in the beginning of the
same year, and in May 1647 he received the thanks
of the House for his services in Ireland, and was made
governor of Dover Castle. Next year he acted as one
of the judges of the king, but withheld his presence
on the signing of the warrant for his execution. This was
possibly through respect for his father's convictions, who
was a royalist. It certainly was not through any dislike
which he entertained to the shedding of royal blood, for on
being challenged, many years after, by his father as to
whether he was guilty of the late king's death, "Guilty!"
said he, "do you call that guilt? Why, it was the justest
and bravest action that ever was done in England or any-
where else." Sidney, while advocating with all his might
the erection of a free legislature over a free people, was not
prepared for the ambitious step taken by Cromwell in
accepting the Protectorship of the Commonwealth. He
used all his influence in opposing his election, and had for
his pains the misfortune to hear the Protector insist twice
upon his quitting the House of Commons. This occurred
on the 19th of April 1653. He indignantly retired to his
father's residence, at Penshurst in Kent, where, in the bosom
of his family, he could nurse the wounds which his pride
had sustained in his late contest with the Lord-Protector.
He preserved his retirement for the next six years, when
the restoration of the long parliament again summoned him
to London.

On the 13th of May 1659, Sidney was appointed a
councillor of state, and was despatched on the 2d of June,
with other ambassadors, to negotiate a peace between
Denmark and Sweden. While he was absent on this
mission, King Charles II. was restored. Sidney, who had
heartily acquiesced in the first resolution of the long par-
liament, which was "to secure the liberty and property
of the people, without the government of a single person,
kingship, or a House of Lords," was of opinion that that
resolution was still binding on his conscience, and that he
could forego it only at the risk of public perjury. He
accordingly resolved to stay out of England, and watch for
fairer weather. This is not the place to follow him in his
sad wanderings through Holland, Germany, Rome, Swit-
zerland, and France, until his return to England in 1677.
Here is an extract or two from a very noble letter of Sid-
ney's, written to a friend a little before the Restoration,
which must here suffice for a partial delineation of his
mental character. "I have," he says, "in my life been
guilty of many follies; but, as I think, of no meanness. I
have ever had in my mind, that when God should cast me
into such a condition as that I cannot save my life but by
doing an indecent thing, He shows me the time is come
wherein I should resign it; and when I cannot live in my
own country but by such means as are worse than dying
in it, I think He shows me I ought to keep myself out of
it." He further adds, "My thoughts as to king and state
depending upon their actions, no man shall be a more faith-
ful servant to him than I, if he make the good and pros-
perity of his people his glory; none more his enemy if he
doth the contrary." Tired out with waiting and watching,
and no appearance of dawn on the western horizon, Sidney
concurred with some of his companions in exile in urging
on the Dutch government the invasion of England in 1665.
Disappointed in this attempt, we next find him at Paris,
whither he had been induced to go in expectation of a
French insurrection in England. He submitted his plans
to the government, but that wily body thought 100,000
crowns too great a stake to be thrown away upon the faith
of an exile. At length, after a long interval, Sidney was
induced to set foot upon English soil. His father, the Earl
of Leicester, declining in health and strength, wished to see
his outcast son, Algernon, before he died, and busied him-
self to obtain a passport from the king, which was granted

Sidney, Sir Philip, in 1677. The father died shortly after, leaving the vagabond rebel £5100. Sidney was afterwards detained in England by a tedious suit in Chancery, occasioned by his elder brother disputing his father's will. There are various references to Sidney in Barillon, the French minister's despatches, of this date; and among the disbursements of French money to English patriots, we find 500 guineas, alleged to have been paid by that functionary to Algernon Sidney. Without attaching too great importance to the statement of this intriguing Frenchman, it is not very improbable that Sidney's hands may have been soiled by the taint of French gold. If he did receive money from Barillon, as is alleged, he could doubtless satisfy his conscience that the taking of it was no crime. He twice failed to obtain a seat in parliament, once at Guildford in 1678, and once at Bramber in 1679. He was no doubt eagerly watched by the party in power, and it is well known that Charles II. both feared and hated him. Sidney leagued himself in opposition to the court with Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Russell, and Essex. No doubt he sought his own time and way to introduce an entire change in the existing system of government. The Rye-House Plot of June 1683 was made the signal for his arrest. Sidney was dragged to the Tower, along with Lord William Russell, on a charge of high treason, where, with the notorious Jeffreys for a judge and the abandoned Howard for sole witness, his examination must have been a mere mockery. No legal evidence could be found of his guilt, yet "in defiance of law and justice," he was summarily beheaded on Tower Hill on Friday the 7th December 1683. (See Lord Macaulay's Hist. of Eng. vol. i.) Sidney died as he had lived, with all the Christian firmness, and with little of the pride of suffering usually ascribed to the Stoics. He did not even address the mob congregated to witness his execution. On being asked to speak, he replied he had made his peace with God, and had nothing to say to man. A truly valorous and right noble man, who both in life and death showed that he possessed many of the qualities which go to make up a hero, both in largeness of soul and in loftiness of purpose. His is a name that England will not willingly let die: his is a death that she would gladly wipe from the pages of her history. Yet, perhaps, it is better so, for it endears to an English memory the records of his country, the thought that they have been consecrated by a heroic and innocent death.

Sidney had studied more deeply perhaps than any other man of his time the history of government in all its aspects. He has left us a short treatise on that subject, which was published in 1698, under the title of Discourses concerning Government, by John Toland. Again it appeared with his Apology, and a life of the author, in 1751, by Thomas Hollis. The whole of his works which have yet been published were brought out in 1772 by Brand Hollis. This edition omits his Essay on Love, said to be still in manuscript at Penshurst. There is also a careful Life of Algernon Sidney, by G. W. Meadley, Svo, London, 1813. The trial of Sidney was printed in 1684, but it is said to have been first cooked by Jeffreys. (See Howel's State Trials, vol. ix. pp. 357-1000.)