ABSTRACT
Sir William Sidney and Brandon often jousted together in royal tournaments, and the latter’s friendship with the king led to his creation in 1514 as Duke of Suffolk. Sidney continued to prosper at the Henrician court, in 1538 becoming chamberlain to the household of the king’s infant son and heir, Prince Edward, with his wife, Anne, serving as the prince’s governess and his sister-in-law, Sybil Penne, as dry-nurse. Family christenings and marriages during the 1580s provided less controversial opportunities for the Sidneys, Herberts, and Dudleys to enjoy one another’s company. The powerful familial bonds that existed between the Sidneys and the Dudleys during the Tudor period had now been constructively replaced by those between the Sidneys and the Herberts. On 6 January Robert Sidney, Mary Wroth, and the Earls of Pembroke and Montgomery were among the elite audience which attended Jonson’s The Masque of Beauty staged at the newly rebuilt Whitehall Banqueting House.
