SOURCE: "Puritans Versus Royalists: Sir Philip Sidney's Rhetoric at the Court of Elizabeth I," in Sir Philip Sidney's Achievements, M. J. B. Allen, Dominic Baker-Smith, Arthur F. Kinney, with Margaret M. Sullivan, AMS Press, 1990, pp. 42-56.

In the following excerpt, Kinney discusses Sidney's political statements, both masked and explicit, and his bids for authority in Queen Elizabeth's court.

One of the few encounters between Sir Philip Sidney and Elizabeth I that is documented in some detail is his appearance before her at Whitehall in 1581 during the performance of a court spectacle called The Four Foster Children of Desire. He is the third foster child to appear, following the earl of Arundel and Lord Windsor and preceding his friend Fulke Greville, and his striking appearance suggests the central role he means to play at court:

Then proceeded M. Philip Sidney, in very sumptuous maner, with armor part blewe, & the...