second son of Robert, earl of Leicester, and of Dorothy, eldest

daughter of Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, and was born in 1622. Sir Philip Sidney was his granduncle. Algernon accompanied his father in his embassy to Denmark in 1632; and four years after he went with him to Paris, where he was held in high esteem by many of the principal persons about the French court. In 1641 his father, on being appointed lord-lieutenant of Ireland, procured him a commission in his own regiment of horse; and on the breaking out of the Irish rebellion both he and his elder brother. Viscount Lisle, displayed great bravery. The two brothers returned to England in 1643, and on their way to join the king at Oxford, were arrested by order of the parliament. Charles suspected, and probably not without reason, that this was done with their own connivance. Be this as it may, they both joined the parliamentary party, and in 1644 Algernon was appointed a captain in the earl of Manchester's regiment, and fought gallantly at Marston Moor. In the following year he was raised by Fairfax to the rank of a colonel of cavalry; and in 1646 his brother. Lord Lisle, having been appointed lieutenant-general of Ireland, he was made lieutenant-general of the horse in that kingdom, and also for a short time governor of Dublin. In the beginning of the same year he was chosen member for Cardiff. On his return to England in May, 1647, he received the thanks of the house of commons for his services, and was appointed governor of Dover. Next year he was nominated one of the judges of the king, but for some reason unknown he took no part in the trial, and did not sign the warrant for the execution. He strenuously opposed the establishment of the protectorate, and refused to accept any employment under the government of Cromwell. On the resignation of Richard Cromwell he was nominated by the parliament one of the council of state (May, 1659), and in the following month was sent along with two other commissioners to negotiate a peace between Denmark and Sweden. He was absent on this mission when Charles II. was restored, and declining to follow the advice of his friends, who recommended him through his father's interest with the king to get his name inserted in the act of oblivion, he resolved to remain out of England and to wait for better times. He resided successively at Hamburg, Frankfort, and Rome; and subsequently wandered through Switzerland, Germany, France, and the Netherlands. At length he united with other English exiles in 1665 in urging the states of Holland to undertake an expedition for the overthrow of the Stewart dynasty. In the following year he visited Paris, and endeavoured to convince Louis XIV. that France would derive great advantage from the establishment of a republic in England, and offered to procure a rising in favour of this project if the French government would supply the money. He was at length pardoned and allowed to return home in 1677, through the influence of the Hon. Henry Savile, ambassador at the court of France, in order that he might see his aged father before he died. The death of the earl took place shortly after, and he bequeathed Algernon £5100. With this sum Sidney would have immediately returned to France, but he was detained by a tedious chancery suit instituted by his elder brother, who wanted to break his father's will. He now took a leading part in the councils of the opposition, and was implicated in the intrigues with the French ambassador, who fomented the jealousies between the parliament and the crown, in order to keep England passive during the extension of French power on the continent. In his eagerness to establish a republic in this country, Sidney was not only blind to the danger arising from the aggressions of Louis in the Netherlands, but was even willing to stand indebted to France for protection. If the statements of Barillon are to be credited, Sidney, along with many other leading members of the opposition, received about the end of 1680 various sums of money from the French king. The admirers of the haughty patriot have endeavoured to discredit the assertions of the French ambassador; but Mr. Hallam and Lord Macaulay incline to the affirmative side of the question, at the same time calling attention to the fact that the recipients of these gifts did not take a bribe to desert their principles, but only accepted a trifling present for acting in conformity with them—an action undoubtedly mean and indelicate, but not dishonest. The court party had long hated and feared Sidney, and eagerly availed themselves of the Rye-house plot to effect his destruction. He was arrested in June, 1683, along with his friend. Lord William Russell, and committed to the Tower. He was brought to trial on the 21st of November on a charge of high treason, before Judge Jeffries, and by a most iniquitous perversion of law and justice, was found guilty by a packed jury on the sole evidence of the vile miscreant. Lord Howard of Eserick, supplemented by some passages taken from a manuscript treatise on government written before the Restoration. He was executed on Tower Hill, December 7, and died as he had lived with heroic fortitude. His attainder was reversed after the Revolution. Sidney is described by Evelyn as "a man of great courage, great sense, and great parts;" and appears to have been regarded in the same light both by friends and enemies. But his pride and inflexibility rendered his views narrow and his temper unaccommodating. His "Discourses on Government" were published in 1698; and an edition of his works, with his "Apology," and a Life by Willis, appeared in 1751. Several of his treatises are still in MS.—(Life of Algernon Sidney, by G. W. Meadley, 8vo, London, 1813.)—J. T. SIDNEY, Henry, Earl of Romney, was the youngest son of Robert, earl of Leicester, and brother to Algernon Sidney. He was one of the memorable seven who invited William of Orange to undertake the expedition to England, and the formal invitation sent to that prince was in Sidney's handwriting. He had formerly resided at the Hague in an official character, and had succeeded in gaining the confidence of William. His handsome form, his amiable manners, and above all his tact and knowledge of the world, enabled him to render invaluable service in promoting the schemes of the whig patriots. Through his intrigue with Lady Sunderland, he gained over her husband, James' most trusted minister, and transmitted to William the intelligence which he obtained from time to time through this channel. He passed over secretly to the Hague about the middle of August, 1688, and accompanied the expedition to England. He was rewarded by being created Viscount Sidney, and afterwards Earl of Romney; was nominated in 1690 the first of the lord-justices, to whom William committed the government of Ireland; a few months later he was appointed secretary of state; in 1692 he resigned the seals, and was nominated lord-lieutenant of Ireland, but he failed to conciliate the turbulent and bigoted English settlers, and could not master the crowd of jobbers and peculators who then infested the viceregal court. He was accordingly soon recalled. He died unmarried in 1700, when his titles became extinct. Swift, who cherished a bitter grudge against Sidney, terms him "an old, vicious, illiterate rake;" and his friends admit that he was deficient in knowledge, voluptuous, and indolent. But he was one of the few politicians of his age who could be entirely trusted.—J. T. SIDNEY, Mary, Countess of Pembroke, sister of Sir Philip Sidney, married in 1576 Henry earl of Pembroke. She was one of the most accomplished and amiable women of her time, and wrote and translated in various languages. Her brother is said to have written his poem of "Arcadia" for her amusement. She translated many of the psalms from Hebrew into English verse; translated from the French a "Discourse of Life and Death," and the tragedy of "Antony;" and wrote an "Elegy on Sir Philip Sidney," printed in Spenser's Astrophel; and a "Pastoral Dialogue in praise of Astræa" (Queen Elizabeth). She died in London at a very advanced age, and was buried in Salisbury cathedral. Her epitaph by Ben Jonson is justly celebrated:—

SIDNEY, Sir Philip, the ideal of an English gentleman in the Elizabethan age, was born at his father's seat of Penshurst in Kent, on the 29th of November, 1554. He was the son of Sir Henry Sidney, one of the most upright, energetic, and ill-requited of Queen Elizabeth's servants, who alternated a long official life chiefly between the lord-deputyship of Ireland and the lord presidentship of Wales. Sir Philip's mother was a daughter of the duke of Northumberland, father-in-law of Lady Jane Grey, and he was thus the nephew of Queen Elizabeth's questionable favourite, Robert Dudley, earl of Leicester. In his tenth year Philip Sidney was sent to Shrewsbury school, his father as lord-president of Wales then living at Ludlow castle, on the southern border of Shropshire. Here he had for schoolfellow his friend through life and biographer after death, Fulke Greville (Lord Brooke, q.v.). "Of his youth," wrote Lord