Penshurst Castle in the Time of Sir Philip Sidney

The Queen had that very morning spoken out with a pitiless bluntness, which had made Philip unusually thoughtful. The very words the Queen had used haunted him – 'tale-bearers, who had neither clean hearts nor clean tongue.'

Edward Dyer, according to the custom of the friends when they met, read some verses he had lately composed, and Fulke Greville followed.

Then Philip Sidney was called upon to contribute a sonnet or stanza.

If he never reached the highest standard of poetry, and, even in his best stanzas of Stella and Astrophel, rivalled the sweet flow of Edmund Spenser's verse, he had the gift of making his verses vividly express what was uppermost in his mind at the moment, as many of the Stella and Astrophel poems abundantly testify.

In early youth Philip Sidney had been influenced by a distinguished convert to the Reformed Faith, Hubert Languet, whom he met at Frankfort. Between this man of fifty-four and the boy of eighteen, who had gone abroad for thoughtful travel and diligent study, a strong – even a romantic – friendship had sprung up, and the letters which have been preserved show how unwavering Hubert Languet was in his devotion to the young Englishman, whose fine and noble qualities he had been quick to discover.

About this time Philip was anxious as to the health of his old friend. His letters had been less frequent, and the last he had received during the present year, had seemed to tell of failing powers of body, though the mind was as vigorous as ever.

Thus, the two verses which Philip now read from his Arcadia had reference to his old and dearly-loved counsellor and friend, and were inspired by the lifelong gratitude he felt for him. They are clothed, as was the two frequent custom of the time, in pastoral images; but Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer listened spellbound as the words were uttered, in musical tones, with a strength of feeling underlying them, which gave every line a deep significance.

'The song I sang, old Languet had me taught,Languet, the shepherd, best swift Ister knew;For, clerkly read, and hating what is naughtFor faithful heart, clean hands, and mouth as true,With his sweet skill my skilless youth he drew,To have a feeling taste of Him that sitsBeyond the heaven, far more beyond our wits.'He said the music best those powers pleased,Was jump accord between our wit and will,Where highest notes to godliness are raised,And lowest sink, not down to jot of ill,With old true tales he wont mine ears to fill,How shepherds did of yore, how now they thrive,Spoiling their flock, or while 'twixt them they strive.'

'There is naught to complain of in those verses, Philip,' Fulke Greville said. 'He must be a sharp censor, indeed, who could find fault with them. We must do our best to bring good old Gabriel Harvey back to join our Areopagus, as Edmund Spenser is bold enough to call it.'

'Have you heard aught of the friend in whose praise the verses were indited?' Edward Dyer asked.

'Nay, as I said, I have had but one letter from Languet for many months. As soon as this tourney is over I must get leave to make a journey to Holland to assure myself of his condition.'

'The Queen will rebel against your absence, Philip. You are in higher favour than ever, methinks; nor do I grudge you the honour, as, I fear, some I could name grudge it.'

Philip rose quickly, as if unwilling to enter into the subject, and, gathering together their papers, the three friends broke up their meeting and separated till the evening.

Anyone who had seen Philip Sidney as he threw himself on a settle when Fulke Greville and Edward Dyer had left him, and had watched the profound sadness of his face as he gave himself up to meditation on the sorrow which oppressed him, would have found it difficult to imagine how the graceful courtier, who that evening after the banquet at Whitehall led the Queen, as a mark of especial favour, through the mazes of the dance, could ever have so completely thrown off the melancholy mood for one of gaiety and apparent joyousness. How many looked at him with envy when the Queen gave him her hand in the dance then much in fashion called the 'Brawl!' This dance had been lately introduced, and the Queen delighted in it, as it gave her the opportunity of distinguishing the reigning favourite with an especial mark of her favour.

This evening the ring was formed of ladies and gentlemen chosen by Elizabeth, who gorgeously attired, her hoop and stiff brocade making a wide circle in the centre of the ring, called upon Philip Sidney to stand there with her.

The Queen then, giving her hand to Philip, pirouetted with him to the sound of the music, and, stopping before the gentleman she singled out for her favour, kissed him on the left cheek, while Philip, bending on his knee, performed the same ceremony with the lady who had been the partner of the gentleman before whom the Queen had stopped. By the rules of the dance, the couple who stood in the centre of the ring now changed places with those who had been saluted, but this did not suit the Queen's mind this evening.

She always delighted to display her dancing powers before her admiring courtiers, exciting, as she believed, the jealousy of the ladies, who could not have the same opportunity of showing their graceful movements in the 'Brawl.'

The Queen selected Lord Leicester and Christopher Hatton and Fulke Greville and several other gentlemen, and curtseyed and tripped like a girl of sixteen instead of a mature lady of forty-nine.

Elizabeth's caprice made her pass over again and again several courtiers who were burning with ill-concealed anger as they saw Leicester and his nephew chosen again and again, while they were passed over.

At last the Queen was tired, and ordered the music to cease. She was led by Leicester to the raised dais at the end of the withdrawing-room where the dancing took place, and then, at her command, Philip Sidney sang to the mandoline some laudatory verses which he had composed in her honour.

The Queen contrived to keep him near her for most of the evening, but he escaped now and then to circulate amongst the ladies of the Court and to answer questions about the coming tournament.

In one of the alcoves formed by the deep bay of one of the windows Philip found his sister, the Countess of Pembroke, who was purposely waiting there to see him alone, if possible.

'I have been waiting for you, Philip,' she said, 'to ask who will arrange the position my gentlewomen will occupy at the tourney. I have several eager to see the show, more eager, methinks, than their mistress, amongst them the little country maiden, Lucy Forrester, whom you know of.'

'I will give what orders I can to those who control such matters. But, my sweet sister, you look graver than your wont.'

'Do I, Philip? Perhaps there is a reason; I would I could feel happy in the assurance that you have freed yourself from the bonds which I know in your better moments you feel irksome. You will have no real peace of mind till you have freed yourself, and that I know well.'

'I am in no mood for reproaches to-night, Mary,' Philip said, with more heat than he often showed when speaking to his dearly-loved sister. 'Let me have respite till this tournament is over at least.' And as he spoke, his eyes were following Lady Rich as she moved through the mazes of a Saraband – a stately Spanish dance introduced to the English Court when Philip was the consort of poor Queen Mary.

'I might now be in the coveted position of Charles Blount in yonder dance,' Philip said. 'I refrained from claiming my right to take it, and came hither to you instead.'

'Your right! Nay, Philip, you have no right. Dear brother, does it never seem to you that you do her whom you love harm by persisting in that very love which is – yes, Philip, I must say it – unlawful? See, now, I am struck with the change in her since I beheld her last. The modesty which charmed me in Penelope Devereux seems vanished. Even now I hear her laugh, hollow and unreal, as she coquettes and lays herself out for the admiring notice of the gentlemen who are watching her movements. Yes, Philip, nothing but harm can come of persisting in this unhappy passion.'

'Harm to her! Nay, I would die sooner than that harm should befall her through me. I pray you, Mary, let us speak of other matters.' But though he did begin to discuss the affairs of his father, and to beg Lady Pembroke to advise his mother to be wary in what she urged when the Queen gave her an interview, it was evident to his sister that his thoughts were in the direction of his eyes, and that she could not hope to get from him the wise advice as to her father's embarrassments which she had expected.

But the gently exercised influence of his pure and high-minded sister had its effect, and long after the sounds of revelry had died away, and the quiet of night had fallen upon the palace, there was one who could not sleep.

Philip Sidney was restlessly pacing to and fro in the confined space of the chamber allotted to him at Whitehall, and this sonnet, one of the most beautiful which he ever wrote, will express better than any other words what effect his sister's counsel had upon him.

'Leave me, oh! Love! which reachest but to dust,And thou, my mind, aspire to higher things,Grow rich in that, which never taketh rust.Whatever fades, but fading pleasure brings.Draw in thy beams, and humble all thy might,To that sweet yoke, where lasting freedoms be,Which breaks the clouds, and opens forth the lightThat doth both shine and give us sight to see.Oh! take fast hold! let that light be thy guideIn this small course which birth draws out to Death,And think how evil becometh him to slideWho seeketh heaven, and comes of heavenly breath.Then farewell world, thy uttermost I see;Eternal Love, maintain thy life in me.'

The clouds were soon to break and the light shine upon the way in that 'small course' which yet lay before him.

We who can look onward to the few years yet left to Philip Sidney, and can even now lament that they were so few, know how his aspirations were abundantly fulfilled, and that Love Eternal did indeed maintain its life in his noble and true heart.

CHAPTER VII

WHITSUNTIDE, 1581

'The greater stroke astonisheth the more;Astonishment takes from us sense of pain;I stood amazed when others' tears begun,And now begin to weep, when they have done.'Henry Constable, 1586.

After Lucy's departure from Penshurst, Mary Gifford kept her boy continually in sight, and, however restive Ambrose might be under the control which his grandmother exercised over him, he was generally obedient to his mother.

His high spirit was curbed by a look from her, and, having promised that he would not go beyond the gate leading from the farmyard on one side of Ford Manor, or into the lane which led to the highroad on the other, Ambrose held that promise sacred.

He trotted along by his mother's side as she performed the duties in the dairy and poultry-yard, which Lucy's absence in the household had made it necessary for her to undertake. Although it was a relief that peace reigned now that the wranglings between their stepmother and Lucy had ceased, Mary found the additional work a great strain upon her, however glad she was to have her hands well occupied, that she might have less time to brood over the fears which her husband's visit and threats had aroused.

Two weeks had now gone by, and these fears were comparatively laid to rest. Mary thought that her husband would not risk being seen in the neighbourhood, as news came through the Puritan friends of Mrs Forrester that several Papists had been seized at Tunbridge, and had been thrown into prison, on the suspicion that they were concerned in one of the Popish plots of which the Protestants were continually in dread, and in one of which Edmund Campion was implicated.

Indeed, there was an almost universal feeling throughout the country that the Papists cherished evil designs against the Queen's life, and that they were only biding their time to league with those who wished to place the captive Queen of Scotland on the throne, and so restore England to her allegiance to the Pope.

News of the imprisonment of this celebrated Edmund Campion had been circulated about this time through the country, and stories of the manner in which he had been mercilessly tortured to extract from him the confession of a plot against Elizabeth's life.

On the Sunday after Ascension Day there were to be great shows and games in the village of Penshurst, and Ambrose, hearing of them from his friend Ned the cowherd, on Saturday evening, begged his mother to let him see the sports.

'There's a wrestling match,' he urged, 'on the green, and a tilting between horsemen in the outer park. Mother, I'd like to see it; do take me down to see it. Oh! mother, do; I'll hold your hand all the time; I won't run away from you, no, not an inch. I am six years old. I am big enough now to take care of you, if there's a crowd or the horses plunge and kick. Ned says it will be a brave show.'

'I will go down to church with you, Ambrose,' his mother said, 'and if I can secure a safe place I will wait for a part of the sports, but you must not fret if I do not stay to see the sports end, for I am tired, Ambrose, and I would fain have rest on Sunday.'

The child looked wistfully into his mother's face.

'I'll be a very good boy, mother. I have been a good boy,' he said, 'and you will tell Mr Sidney that I didn't plague you, and tell Master Humphrey too. He said I was a plague to you, and I hate him for saying it.'

'Hush, Ambrose, Master Ratcliffe will be a good friend to you, if – '

'If what? if I am good?

'I meant, if ever you had no mother to care for you.'

'No mother!' the child repeated, only dimly catching her meaning. 'No mother!' and there was a sudden change in his voice, which told of something that was partly fear and partly incredulity. 'No mother! but you said we should always have each other. I have you, and you have me. You said I must not leave you, and,' with vehemence, 'you sha'n't leave me.'

'Ambrose, God's will must be done, let us trust him.'

But the boy's serious mood passed, and he was now capering about and singing as he went in a joyous monotone as he went to find Ned in the farmyard.

'I am to see the sports on the morrow. I'm to see the sports on the green.'

The words reached other ears than Ned's. His grandmother came out of the bakehouse, where she had been storing piles of loaves on a high shelf, which had just been taken from the oven, and called out, —

'Sports on the Lord's Day, what does the child say? No one who eats my bread shall see that day profaned. The wrath of the Almighty will fall on their heads, whoever they be, mind that, Mary Gifford, mind that! Ay, I know what you will say, that the Queen lends her countenance to them, and your grand folk in the great house, but as sure as you live, Mary Gifford, a curse will fall on your head if you let that child witness this wickedness.'

Mary took refuge in silence, but her stepmother's words sounded in her ears like a knell.

For herself she would willingly have dispensed with games and sports on Sundays. Her sympathies were with those who, taking the just view of the seventh day, believed that God had ordained it for the refreshment both of body and soul – a day when, free from the labours of this toilsome world, the body should rest, and the soul have quiet and leisure for meditation in private, and for prayer and praise in the services appointed by the Church.

Sports and merry-making were quite as much out of harmony with Mary Gifford's feelings as they were with her stepmother's, but, in the due observance of Sunday, as in many other things, the extreme Puritan failed to influence those around them by their harsh insistence on the letter which killeth, and the utter absence of that spirit of love which giveth life.

The villagers assembled in the churchyard on this Sunday morning were not so numerous as sometimes, and the pew occupied by the Sidneys, when the family was in residence at the Park, was empty.

Mary Gifford and her boy, as they knelt together by a bench near the chancel steps, attracted the attention of the old Rector. He had seen them before, and had many times exchanged a kindly greeting with Mary and complimented Lucy on her 'lilies and roses,' and asked in a jocose way for that good and amiable lady, their stepmother! But there was something in Mary's attitude and rapt devotion as the light of the east window fell on her, that struck the good old man as unusual.

When the service was over, he stepped up to her as she was crossing the churchyard, and asked her to come into the Rectory garden to rest.

'For,' he added, 'you look a-weary, Mistress Gifford, and need refreshment ere you climb the hill again.'

The Rectory garden was an Eden of delight to little Ambrose. His mother let him wander away in the winding paths, intersecting the close-cut yew hedges, with no fear of lurking danger, while, at the Rector's invitation, she sat with him in a bower, over which a tangle of early roses and honeysuckle hung, and filled the air with fragrance. A rosy-cheeked maiden with bare arms, in a blue kirtle scarcely reaching below the knees, which displayed a pair of sturdy legs cased in leather boots, brought a wooden trencher of bread and cheese, with a large mug of spiced ale, and set them down on the table, fixed to the floor of the summer bower, with a broad smile.

As Ambrose ran past, chasing a pair of white butterflies, the Rector said, —

'That is a fine boy, Mistress Gifford. I doubt not, doubly precious, as the only son of his mother, who is a widow. I hear Master Philip Sidney looks at him with favour; and, no doubt, he will see that he is well trained in service which will stand him in good stead in life.'

'Ambrose is my only joy, sir,' Mary replied. 'All that is left to me of earthly joy, I would say. I pray to be helped to bring him up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. But it is a great charge.'

'Take heart, Mistress Gifford; there are many childless folk who would envy you your charge, but, methinks, you have the air of one who is burdened with a hidden grief. Now, if I can, by hearing it, assuage it, and you would fain bring it to me, I would do what in me lies as a minister of Christ to give you counsel.'

'You are very good, kind sir, but there are griefs which no human hand can touch.'

'I know it, I know it, for I have had experience therein. There was one I loved beyond all words, and God gave her to me. I fell under heavy displeasure for daring to break through the old custom of the Church – before she was purged of many abuses, which forbids the marriage of her priests – and my beloved was snatched from me by ruthless hands, even as we stood before the altar of God.

'She died broken-hearted. It is forty years come Michaelmas, but the wound is fresh; and I yet need to go to the Physician of Souls for healing.

'When the hard times of persecution came, and our blessed young King died, and I had to flee for my life, I could thank God she was spared the misery of being turned out in the wide world to beg her bread, with the children God might have given us. Then, when the sun shone on us Protestants, and our present Queen – God bless her! – ascended the throne, and I came hither, the hungry longing for my lost one oppressed me. But the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away: let us both say, "Blessed be His holy name." Now, summon the boy to partake of this simple fare, and remember, Mistress Gifford, if you want a friend, you can resort to me. I am now bound for the parish of Leigh, where I say evensong at five o'clock.'

Mary called Ambrose, and said, —

'Bless my child, sir, and bless me also.'

Ambrose, at his mother's bidding, knelt by her side, and the Rector pronounced the blessing, which has always a peculiar significance for those who are troubled in spirit.

'To the Lord's gracious keeping I commit you. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon you, and give you peace – now, and for evermore.'

A fervid 'Amen' came from the mother's lips, and was echoed by the child's, as the old man's footsteps were heard on the path as he returned to the Rectory.

It was a very happy afternoon for Ambrose. He enjoyed his dinner of wheaten bread and creamy cheese; and his mother smiled to see him as he buried his face in the large mug, and, after a good draught of the spiced drink, smacked his lips, saying, —

'That is good drink, sweeter than the sour cider of which grandmother gives me a sup. Aunt Lou says it is as sour as grandmother, who brews it. Aunt Lucy is having sweet drinks now, and pasties, and all manner of nice things. Why can't we go to London, mother, you and I?'

'Not yet, my boy, not yet.'

And then Ambrose subsided into a noonday sleep, curled up on the rude bench which was fixed round the summer bower. His mother put her arm round him, and he nestled close to her.

Peace! the peace the old Rector had called down upon her seemed to fill Mary Gifford's heart; and that quiet hour of the Sunday noontide remained in her memory in the coming days, as the last she was to know for many a long year.

'The sports, mother!' Ambrose said, rousing himself at last, and struggling to his feet. 'Let us go to see the sports.'

'Would you please me, Ambrose, by going home instead?'

Ambrose's lips quivered, and the colour rushed to his face.

'I want to see the sports,' he said; 'you promised you would take me.'

Then Mary Gifford rose, and, looking down on the child's troubled face, where keen disappointment was written, she took his hand, saying, —

'Come, then; but if the crowd is great, and you are jostled and pushed, you must come away, nor plague me to stay. I am not stout enough to battle with a throng, and it may be that harm will come to you.'

They were at the Rectory gates now, and people were seen in all their Sunday trim hurrying towards the field where the tilting match was to take place.

Mary turned towards the square, on either side of which stood the old timbered houses by the lych gate, and asked a man she knew, if the horsemen who were to tilt in the field were to pass that way.

'For,' she added, 'I would fain wait here till they have ridden on. I might get into danger with the child from the horses' feet.'

'Better have a care, mistress,' was the reply, and he added; 'scant blessings come to those who turn Sunday into a day of revelry.'

'Ah!' said another voice, 'you be one of the saints, Jeremy; but why be hard on country folk for a little merry-making, when the Queen and all the grand nobles and ladies do the same, so I've heard, at Court.'

'I tell you,' was the reply, 'it's the old Popish custom – mass in the morning, and feasting and revelling all the rest of the day. I tell you, it is these licences which make the Nonconformists our bitter foes.'

'Foes!' the other said. 'Ay, there's a pack of 'em all round. Some seen, some unseen – Papists and Puritans – but, thank the stars, I care not a groat for either. I am contented, any way. Saint or sinner, Puritan or Papist, I say, let 'em alone, if they'll let me alone.'

'Ay, there's the rub,' said the other, 'there's no letting alone. You and I may live to see the fires kindled again, and burn ourselves, for that matter.'

'I sha'n't burn. I know a way out of that. I watch the tide, and turn my craft to sail along with it.'

And this easy-going time-server, of whom there are a good many descendants in the present day, laughed a careless laugh, and then, as the sound of horses' feet was heard, and that of the crowd drawing near, he good-naturedly lifted Ambrose on his shoulder, and, planting his broad back against the trunk of the great overshadowing elm, he told the boy to sit steady, and he would carry him to the wall skirting the field, where he could see all that was going on.

Mary Gifford followed, and, feeling Ambrose was safe, was glad he should be gratified with so little trouble and risk. She rested herself on a large stone by the wall, Ambrose standing above her, held there by the strong arm of the man who had befriended them.

The tilt was not very exciting, for many of the best horses and men had been called into requisition by the gentry of the neighbourhood, for the far grander and more important show to come off at Whitehall in the following week.