Sir Philip Sidney (1554–1586)

Sir Philip Sidney was the eldest son of Sir Henry Sidney and his wife Lady Mary Dudley, the sister of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, longtime favorite of Queen Elizabeth I. He was close to his own younger sister, Mary Sidney, who became Countess of Pembroke, and he dedicated his 1580 pastoral romance The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia -- also known as The Acadia -- to her. His other works included a sonnet sequence, Astrophel and Stella, and a treatise called The Defence of Poesy (also known as The Defence of Poesie or An Apology for Poetrie). In 1583, he was knighted, and he married Frances Walsingham, daughter of the queen's spymaster and Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham. Sir Philip Sidney was considered one of the Elizabethan Age's most romantic and noble figures. Well-known during his life for his poetry and gallantry as a courtier and soldier, he became even more famous after his death in the Battle of Zutphen at age 31.