CHAPTER 33
Alittle more investigation indicated that the answer to this conundrum probably lay in South Wales. It turned out that, in 1584, Robert Sidney married a lady called Barbara Gamage. She, it seemed, was the heiress of Coity, a tiny but valuable Lordship in Glamorgan. This would not have mattered to the Queen had not the young couple disobeyed express orders from her. Barbara’s father had recently died, and she was to be made a ward of court. Her fate (ie who she would marry) was to be decided by both the Queen and her ministers. Letters to this effect were dispatched by Sir Francis Walsingham to her guardian, an older cousin called Sir Edward Stradling, demanding that she be brought to London forthwith. Stradling, however, pretended the letters had not arrived and, instead, acted boldly in what he clearly believed was in her own best interests. Ignoring both Walsingham’s threats and the entreaties of other suitors, he quickly arranged for her to be married to Robert Sidney. He did this, or so it would appear, for the very best of reasons: the mutual love of bride and groom.
Attending the wedding, which was held at Stradling’s home of St Donat’s Castle, also in Glamorgan, was none other than Henry Herbert, the 2nd Earl of Pembroke. He supported the marriage and, indeed, at the behest of Robert’s uncle, the Earl of Leicester, may well have arranged it. Fortunately, once Walsingham discovered that the groom was none other than the brother of his own son-in-law (Sir Philip Sidney was by now married to his daughter), he changed his attitude entirely. It is clear from his subsequent letters to Stradling that he, at least, was delighted to have this wealthy heiress joining the family of his daughter’s in-laws. Therefore, we can be sure that he did his level best to mollify the Queen for any perceived snub. Nevertheless, she was someone you crossed at your peril and she also had a very long memory. It seems likely, therefore, that this precipitate marriage, done without her permission, was the principal reason that when Leicester died, she refused to pass on his titles to his nephew. Sir Robert Sidney had to wait until the accession of James I before being created Baron Sidney (1603), Viscount De L’Isle (1605) and finally Earl of Leicester (1618).
Now I found all of this very interesting, not least the light it shed on the origins of Rosicrucianism. As we have seen, though not as famous as his brother Philip, Robert Sidney was a member of Dee’s circle of former pupils. As the surviving brother of Mary Sidney Herbert, the Countess of Pembroke, he was a frequent visitor to Wilton House and a friend of her husband Henry Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke. This means that he was also directly connected to their Shakespearean circle of ‘proto Rosicrucian’ poets we discussed in an earlier chapter. However, this was not his only significant involvement with Rosicrucianism and possibly not the most important either.
In an earlier book of mine, London: A New Jerusalem, I investigated the influence of Rosicrucian ideas on both the advancement of science in Britain during the mid 17th century and the birth of modern Freemasonry. As far as Rosicrucianism itself is concerned, the core event of the 17th century was the publication of the Fama and Confessio pamphlets between 1614 and 1616. As discussed, the affair of the Rosicrucian pamphlets turned into a major furore that greatly annoyed some and intrigued others. Robert Sidney did not admit to being directly involved himself. However, he knew some of the people who almost certainly were, and there are good reasons for thinking that he knew a lot more on what Rosicrucianism was really about than he let on.
In 1972, Dame Frances Yates of the Warburg Institute of London University, one of the most eminent historians of her day, published a seminal work on the subject, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment. In this book, still the most important on this subject to appear in the English language, she argued that the Rosicrucian pamphlets emanated from the German city of Heidelberg, the capital of the Palatinate. This is interesting, as they could not have been published without the covert if not open blessing of the Elector Palatine, the ruler of this small Protestant state. What concerns us is that the Elector at the time was Frederick V, and he was married to Princess Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of King James I of Great Britain.
Frederick and Elizabeth’s marriage, on St Valentine’s Day, 14 February 1613, was more than just the union of two people: it was the culmination of a plan for a pan-Protestant alliance between Great Britain, the Netherlands and some of the statelets of Germany. This had long been proposed by the Walsingham faction at the former court of Queen Elizabeth, and negotiating such an alliance had been the main purpose of Sir Philip Sidney’s European journeys of the 1570s. His untimely death and Queen Elizabeth’s coolness towards getting England involved in expensive European wars poured cold water on the idea of such an alliance, especially after the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) reduced the threat of England’s imminent invasion by Spain. However, the assassination in 1610 of Henry IV of France (whose marriage in 1572 precipitated the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre) renewed the threat to Protestant England. Because of this, James I was open to persuasion that England should find allies in Germany to counterbalance the growing power of Catholic France. Accordingly, he favoured the idea of his daughter, Elizabeth, marrying Frederick, even though he was a relatively minor prince and she had been courted earlier by the King of Sweden.
By the time the wedding took place, both Sir Philip Sidney and Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, had been dead for over 20 years. However, Sir Robert Sidney, by now holding the deceased Earl of Leicester’s junior title of Viscount De L’Isle, was in a key position to influence events. Following his brother Philip’s death in 1586, he took over the position as Governor of Flushing, and his connection with Holland continued unabated until he relinquished the post in 1616. At the time of the wedding he was in far better favour with King James than he had ever been with Queen Elizabeth and so could influence events. Although Flushing lies on the mouth of the River Scheldt, it has relatively easy access to the Rhine. We may assume, therefore, that Sir Robert Sidney was given a role – possibly informal – to keep an eye on James’s daughter and to help her should she find herself in trouble.
In 1619, trouble came with a vengeance. Regarding it as his duty but against all good advice, her husband Frederick accepted the poisoned chalice that was the Crown of Bohemia, thereby triggering the war of religion that Elizabeth had feared so greatly. For although he was crowned in Prague, an army was immediately mobilized by the Catholic Holy Roman Emperor. Despite being an Austrian and living in Vienna, he was a Hapsburg, and they regarded the Crown of Bohemia as their own possession. Frederick’s forces were no match for the Imperial army, and they were comprehensively defeated in the Battle of the White Mountain. As a result, he and his wife Elizabeth, now Queen of Bohemia, had no choice but to flee Prague, leaving many of their most prized possessions behind. Furthermore, a second army, this time from Spain, invaded the Palatinate and sacked Heidelberg itself. This meant there was no going home for the Royal couple. They were forced to find sanctuary in exile, living in The Hague from now on.
Robert Sidney, like everyone else in England, could only watch with horror as the Protestant rebellion in Germany was crushed. An old man by this time, he could do little, especially as despite his earlier agreements, King James did not mind whether he became involved. However, the Sidneys remained good friends with Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia and her family.
Sidney’s eldest son Robert, who, in 1626, became the 2nd Sidney Earl of Leicester, was closer still. By this time, Charles I had taken the throne in England, and he charged the Earl of Leicester with the fruitless task of negotiating a settlement that would allow his sister Elizabeth, her husband Frederick and their family to be restored to their ruling position in the Palatinate. Such a restoration was eventually enacted under the terms of the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), but by this time Charles had lost his own throne and would be executed the following year.
In 1661, the now widowed Elizabeth, who had remained in The Hague even after her eldest son was restored to his patrimony in Heidelberg, returned to England. She came back home to congratulate her nephew Charles II on his own Restoration, but evidence of her continuing close friendship with the Sidney family is shown by the fact that she stayed not at St James’s Palace but Leicester House. This was a large mansion that the 2nd Earl had built on the north side of what is now Leicester Square. Today all traces of this house have gone. It has been replaced by cinemas, restaurants and perhaps some rather less salubrious establishments. Yet it was here, on 13 February 1662, that she died, a day short of the 48th anniversary of her wedding to Frederick and just around the corner from where her own portrait now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery.
Taking all the above evidence into consideration, it became clear to me that it was no accident that Penshurst Church contains Rosicrucian symbolism. The question remained, though: who influenced whom? Were Rosicrucian influences imported from Europe in the 17th century or did they ultimately derive from Wales, being transmitted to Europe by the Sidneys and their associates? As there was only one way to answer this question, I decided I would have to visit Coity, the home of Countess Barbara Gamage before she defied Queen Elizabeth’s orders and married the young Robert Sidney.