ABSTRACT
These three Sidney women, beloved of their families and each other, were less famous or wealthy than their close relative Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, the first celebrated non-royal woman writer in england. yet each of the three was known at court, had an arranged marriage equal in rank to that of her father (or stepfather) at that time, and each was praised by Ben Jonson and other poets. Barbara gamage Sidney was a Welsh heiress, Robert Sidney’s wife, and mother of eleven children (illustration 17 shows her with six of them); the eldest was Mary (“Mall”), later Lady Mary Wroth. Lady Sidney was known primarily for her skill as a mother and a hostess, including entertaining aristocrats and royalty, but she did carry on an extensive correspondence with her husband when he was away fulfilling his duties. Her niece elizabeth (“Bess”) was the child of Sir Philip Sidney and his wife, Frances Walsingham; Bess and Mall were closely related, had just a year between their ages, wrote poetry, and met often. They each had an arranged marriage. elizabeth Sidney Manners and Mary Sidney Wroth both came to court as young married women, they each gained a reputation as a poet, acted in a masque, and frequently visited family; each became a widow when she was twenty-six.After that their lives were radically different, since elizabeth died shortly after her husband, Roger Manners, earl of Rutland, and Mary lived another thirty-seven years after the death of her husband, Sir Robert Wroth, continuing with her writing and then some publication. She also had an affair with her cousin, William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, and raised their two children, William and Katherine, giving them significant social positions. Wroth is often mentioned as suffering from her arranged marriage, but her life was much happier and healthier than her cousin elizabeth’s, and not as deeply related to those in court crisis. From these Sidney women writers, only Wroth’s works have been extant; her reputation is now considerable.1
