The Ashgate Research Companion to The Sidneys, 1500–1700 by Margaret P. Hannay Michael G. Brennan and Mary Ellen Lamb (review)

The public careers, domestic lives, and historical sensibilities of the Sidney family of Penshurst during the Tudor and Stuart periods are richly documented by an unusual blend of literary works, private and official correspondence, estate papers, library lists, and personal miscellanea. Much has been lost, of course – during the Great Fire of London, in various shipwrecks, and as a result of other misadventures – but what remains make the Sidneys one of the best-documented English families of that time. As the editors of this wonderful research companion point out in their Introduction, the Sidneys are remarkable, not only for the political and cultural influence of the male members of the family, but also for the notable contributions of their womenfolk, many of whom were well educated and creative in their own right.

This two-volume guide presents forty-two essays by the leading experts in the field of Sidney studies. Volume i, subtitled ‘Lives’, opens with an analysis of the family’s links with other influential English dynasties, particularly the Dudleys and Herberts, with whom the Sidneys intermarried, a strategy that underpinned the steady rise in their fortunes, once Sir Henry Sidney established himself at court following his appointment as governor of the household of Henry VIII’s infant son, Edward. Biographical portraits of Sir Henry (1529–86) and his three brilliant children – Sir Philip (1554–86), Robert, First Earl of Leicester (1563–1626), and Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke (1561–1621) – feature among the twelve biographies that make up Part II of the first volume. A number of other essays are devoted to lesser-known family members and there is an admirable balance here between biographies of women and men. The remainder of Volume i, Parts III to V, explores the Sidneys’ political roles in Scotland, Wales, and on the Continent, along with their involvement in artistic patronage, ranging from the visual arts, music, court festivals, and architecture.

Volume ii focuses on the literary output of the Sidneys, particularly on Sir Philip’s Arcadia and his Defence of Poesy, the poetry of his brother, Robert, and the writings of Lady Mary Wroth and Mary Sidney Herbert. The devotional works of Sir Philip and Mary Sidney Herbert are also sensitively analysed by Anne Lake Prescott, Hannibal Hamlin, and Danielle Clarke.

As well as presenting the latest scholarship on the Sidney family’s complex engagement with the political, artistic, and religious currents of the early modern centuries, the Ashgate Companion concludes with an essay on future directions for Sidney Studies. This is a timely and very welcome initiative, given the number of important editions of letters and literary works by members of the family published in the last decade. The publication by Oxford University Press of The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney, ed. Roger Kuin (2012) and the earlier, two-volume Collected Works of Mary Sidney Herbert, eds Margaret Hannah and others (1998), as well as the marital correspondence of Robert Sidney and Barbara Gamage, Domestic Politics and Family Absence: The Correspondence (1588–1621) of Robert Sidney, First Earl of Leicester, and Barbara Gamage Sidney, Countess of Leicester, eds Margaret Hannah and others (Routledge, 2005), have all been prepared with the highest scholarly rigour. It is now possible to study the tight interweaving of religion and politics in the lives of these individuals, their social and cultural networks, and the connections between their careers at the English court and their diplomatic and intellectual links with the rest of Europe. Combined with this new guide to current scholarship, the modern editions of writings by the Sidneys open up a wealth of opportunities for the next generation of scholars to build on the splendid work of the experts represented in these two volumes.

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