Part 36

As he ceased speaking, a body of Spaniards, under the Marquis of Pescara, arrived where he lay. The gallant Pescara knelt beside his wounded enemy, and with tears in his eyes exclaimed--

"Would to God, Lord Bayard, that I might have taken thee prisoner unhurt! Thou shalt know how much I have always esteemed thy prowess and thy virtues; for since I have held arms, I have never known thy equal!"

The marquis then caused his own tent to be brought and placed for the use of the wounded knight. Then he himself helped to lay Bayard in bed. He smoothed the dying man's pillow, and kissed the hands that had fought so valiantly against him. Pescara then placed a guard around the tent and went himself and fetched a priest to console the dying chevalier.

As Bayard lay thus, there was hardly an officer among the Spanish who did not come to speak kindly to him. Among the distinguished men who visited his bedside was the Constable of Bourbon, who shortly before had deserted the cause of France for a position in the emperor's army. When the constable beheld the expiring knight, he exclaimed--

"Ah, Captain Bayard, how it troubles me to see thee thus! I have always loved and honored thee for thy great valor and wisdom. How I pity thee!"

Bayard looked at him steadily and replied--

"My lord, I thank thee, but thy pity is wasted. I die like an honest man, serving my king. Thou art the man to be pitied, for bearing arms against thy prince, thy country, and thy oath."

A little while longer he talked to them; then, feeling his strength fleeting rapidly, he clasped his hands and prayed aloud--

"My God! my Father! forget my sins; listen only to Thine infinite mercy----Let Thy justice be softened by the merits of the blood of Jesus Christ--"

Death laid a gentle hand upon his lips; and the man who had dealt with his fellow-man without reproach went fearless to his God.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

Sidney, thou star of beaming chivalry, That rose and set 'mid valor's peerless day: Rich ornament of knighthood's Milky-way; How much our youth of England owe to thee!

EDWARD MOXON

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY

(1554-1586 A. D.)

When Mary Tudor was Queen of England, and after she had become the wife of Philip II. of Spain, there was born at "Penshurst Place," in the valley of the Medway, the immortal Philip Sidney.

His mother's family were the powerful house of Dudley, and were among the noblest in the land. The Sidneys were of high birth too,--not so exalted as the Dudleys in point of lineage, but of impregnable honor and integrity.

The little Philip's youth was spent under what would seem to have been very happy circumstances. While he was yet only four years of age, Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, and recalled the Sidneys from the social and political exile to which her sister Mary 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 man apart at the fawning, flattering, self-seeking court of Queen Elizabeth.

"Good Queen Bess," as she has been miscalled, cared little for blunt honesty. She was a vain and selfish woman, fond of flattery and capricious in the extreme. She liked the soft speeches and fulsome compliments of such men as the Earl of Leicester far better than she liked the simple sincerity of the honest Sir Henry. Then, too, the queen was avaricious. The condition of Ireland was of less moment to her than the condition of her exchequer; and she was continually at odds with Sir Henry because he spent more money than she thought necessary on the unfortunate people whom she had sent him to rule.

But though the queen had little love for Philip Sidney's father, she was all too partial to his brilliant uncle. The most conspicuous figure at Elizabeth's court for many years was Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Leicester was own brother to Lady Sidney, but he had few of that lady's noble qualities. He was a courtier of the most ignoble type, being a man who ever sought his own advancement by flattery and cajolery--always ready to "crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, that thrift might follow fawning." For many years Leicester was the avowed lover of the virgin queen, and there was some talk of a secret marriage having been contracted between them, though there was probably no truth in the rumor.

This much is certain, however--the queen favored Leicester in every possible way, showering honor after honor upon him, and giving him great riches.

When young Philip Sidney was not yet seventeen years of age, a dread plague broke out in England and, reaching Oxford University, where he was studying, necessitated the closing of that institution. Philip's education was thus cut short before he had obtained his college degree, but not before he had become one of the most scholarly men of the day.