ABSTRACT
The funeral of Sir Philip Sidney, a man hailed by his contemporaries and by subsequent generations in England as the ideal Elizabethan courtier, soldier and scholar, may at first glance seem a strange choice of topic for a volume devoted to court festivals of the European Renaissance. Descriptions of Sidney's funeral procession survive in numerous written accounts. Sidney's funeral—staged in London nearly four months after his death—was the beginning of a concerted effort on the part of his family and political supporters to improve his standing at the English court, even if only posthumously. Both the funeral and the official account of it seem to have been designed not only to cement Sidney's legacy as a quasi-royal, Protestant martyr, but also to bolster the religio-political agenda of the militant Protestant wing at Elizabeth's court. Performance was political at Sidney's funeral, and the politics were performative.
