SOURCE: "A Woman's Touch: Astrophil, Stella and 'Queen Vertue's Court,'" in ELH VOL. 63, No. 3, Fall, 1996, pp. 550-70.

In the following excerpt, Minogue discusses what Sidney's Sonnets 9 and 83 reveal about the complex relationship between the poet and Queen Elizabeth.

When Sidney, in 1581, presented to his Queen the New Year's gift of a jewel in the shape of a diamondbedecked whip, how did she take it? Not, we presume, lying down, since in this relationship it had already been made clear to Sidney who had the whip-hand. To be in a position to exchange New Year's gifts with the Queen was itself a mark of favor (one used by Steven May as a means of confirming who was an actual courtier to Elizabeth rather than a court hanger-on).¹ Sidney was in that position in both 1580 and 1581; but those dates punctuate a period when at least some commentators see him...