Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Procedures
- Introduction
- Part I Roots 1548–1562
- Part II Youth 1562–1571
- Part III Emancipation 1571–1574
- Part IV Exploration 1574–1576
- Part V Alienation 1576–1579
- Part VI Intrigue 1579–1580
- 37 Oxford vs. Sidney
- 38 Oxford vs. Leicester
- 39 Table, Gallery, Garden
- 40 Atheist
- 41 Sodomite
- 42 Prophet
- 43 A Passing Singular Odd Man
- 44 Oxford's Folly
- 45 Literary Patronage (1)
- 46 Oxford's Players (1)
- Part VII Sedition 1580–1581
- Part VIII Release 1581–1585
- Part IX Reiteration 1586–1591
- Part X Renewal 1592–1595
- Part XI Re-engagement 1595–1599
- Part XII Decline 1600–1604
- Part XIII Aftermath 1604–1613
- Notes
- Appendix: Oxford's Letters and Libel Documents
- Bibliography
- Index
- Liverpool English texts and Studies
37 - Oxford vs. Sidney
from Part VI - Intrigue 1579–1580
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Abbreviations
- Acknowledgements
- Editorial Procedures
- Introduction
- Part I Roots 1548–1562
- Part II Youth 1562–1571
- Part III Emancipation 1571–1574
- Part IV Exploration 1574–1576
- Part V Alienation 1576–1579
- Part VI Intrigue 1579–1580
- 37 Oxford vs. Sidney
- 38 Oxford vs. Leicester
- 39 Table, Gallery, Garden
- 40 Atheist
- 41 Sodomite
- 42 Prophet
- 43 A Passing Singular Odd Man
- 44 Oxford's Folly
- 45 Literary Patronage (1)
- 46 Oxford's Players (1)
- Part VII Sedition 1580–1581
- Part VIII Release 1581–1585
- Part IX Reiteration 1586–1591
- Part X Renewal 1592–1595
- Part XI Re-engagement 1595–1599
- Part XII Decline 1600–1604
- Part XIII Aftermath 1604–1613
- Notes
- Appendix: Oxford's Letters and Libel Documents
- Bibliography
- Index
- Liverpool English texts and Studies
Summary
From 17 to 27 August 1579 Elizabeth entertained Alençon and his French ‘Commissioners’, having arrived without the contemplated exchange of hostages. While Oxford seems to have been sympathetic to a possible marriage, the determined opposition of Sir Philip Sidney and his uncle Leicester may have triggered an incident between Oxford and Sidney known to history as the ‘tennis-court quarrel’.
Sidney, born in 1554 and thus four years younger than his rival, had been formally pledged to Anne Cecil before she married Oxford instead (Ward, p. 61). Sidney had accompanied Lincoln to Paris in 1572, along with Henry Burrough and Charles Arundel: there Sidney witnessed the St Bartholomew's Day massacre. Sidney was returning from his three-year Continental tour when he ran into Oxford's entourage at Strasbourg in April 1575, Ralph Hopton leaving Sidney for Oxford. In August 1578 Oxford and Sidney had accompanied Elizabeth to Saffron Walden, whence both men became dedicatees of Harvey's Gratulationes Valdenenses.
The most elaborate description of the ‘tennis-court quarrel’ occurs in Fulke Greville's ‘Life of Sidney’, in manuscript until 1652. Born in 1554, Greville was Sidney's exact contemporary, indeed his schoolmate. He characterizes Sidney as one who enjoyed ‘the freedome of his thoughts’; rather than naming Oxford, he calls him simply ‘a Peer of this Realm’:
And in this freedome of heart [Sir Philip] being one day at Tennis, a Peer of this Realm, born great, greater by alliance [i.e., to Burghley], and superlative in the Princes [=the Queen's] favour, abruptly came into the Tennis-Court; and speaking out of these three paramount authorities, he forgot to entreat that, which he could not legally command. When by the encounter of a steady object, finding unrespectiveness in himself (though a great Lord) not respected by this Princely spirit, he grew to expostulate more roughly. The returns of which stile comming still from an understanding heart, that knew what was due to it self, and what it ought [=owed] to others, seemed (through the mists of my Lords passions, swoln with the winde of his faction then reigning) to provoke in yeelding. Whereby, the lesse amazement, or confusion of thoughts he stirred up in Sir Philip, the more shadowes this great Lords own mind was possessed with: till at last with rage (which is ever illdisciplin'd) he commands them to depart the Court.
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- Monstrous AdversaryThe Life of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, pp. 195 - 199Publisher: Liverpool University PressPrint publication year: 2003