1586 Sir Philip Sidney lives in the annals of English literature as the author of what is often taken to be the first novel in the language (Arcadia), the author of the first serious literary-critical treatise in the language (An Apology for Poetry), and the author of the first notable sonnet sequence in the language (Astrophil and Stella).
Sidney was also one of Queen Elizabeth’s favoured courtiers and a soldier. In 1586 she appointed him governor of Flushing in the Netherlands – a region where England was then in conflict with the other major imperial power of the age, Spain.
In a skirmish with the Spanish near Zutphen on 22 September 1586, Sidney was wounded in the upper leg by a musket ball (he had, recklessly, left off his ‘cuisses’, or thigh protectors). Three weeks later he died of the wound (or, more precisely, the poor medical treatment he received), aged only 32.
His body was brought back to London and transported in honour through the streets. Reportedly, citizens shouted: ‘Farewell, the worthiest knight that lived.’ Sidney’s worthiness is immortalised by the account given of the poet-warrior’s nobility by his friend (and fellow poet) Fulke Greville, as he was being carried away with his fatal wound from the field of battle at Zutphen:
[P]assing along by the rest of the Army … and being thirstie with excess of bleeding, he called for drink, which was presently brought him; but as he was putting the bottle to his mouth, he saw a poor Souldier carryed along, who had eaten his last at the same Feast, gastly casting up his eyes at the bottle. Which Sir Philip perceiving, took it from his head, before he drank, and delivered it to the poor man, with these words, Thy necessity is greater than mine.
Greville’s anecdote is usually believed to be invented, although in character. It is less often recorded that the Spanish won at Zutphen and in the larger war in which it featured.