congratulations to William of Orange on the birth of his first
child, and what impression he made upon that leader of men is shown
by a message William sent afterwards through Fulke Greville to Queen
Elizabeth. He said "that if he could judge, her Majesty had one of
the ripest and greatest counsellors of State in Philip Sidney that
then lived in Europe; to the trial of which he was pleased to leave
his own credit engaged until her Majesty was pleased to employ this
gentleman, either amongst her friends or enemies."

Sidney returned from his embassy in June, 1577. At the time of his
departure, in the preceding February, his sister Mary, then twenty
years old, had become the third wife of Henry Herbert, Earl of
Pembroke, and her new home as Countess of Pembroke was in the great
house at Wilton, about three miles from Salisbury. She had a
measure of her brother's genius, and was of like noble strain.
Spenser described her as


"The gentlest shepherdess that lives this day,
And most resembling, both in shape and spright,
Her brother dear."


Ben Jonson, long after her brother had passed from earth, wrote upon
her death the well-known epitaph:-


"Underneath this sable herse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother.