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 and probably landed in Ireland with his brother in April 1642 (, Ormonde, ii. 255;, Hibernia Anglicana, ii. 87). Nothing is known of his services except a general statement that Lord Lisle and his brother Algernon behaved with great spirit and resolution (, i. 76). On 18 June 1643, when Ormonde was negotiating with the Irish leaders for a cessation of arms, Sidney wrote to his mother for leave to return to England. Fighting was over, and if he remained he would run into debt. ‘If I had well known how to dispose of myself, I must confess I should not have been patient here so long. I am not likely to seek after those employments many others receive with greediness. Nothing but extreme necessity shall make me bear arms in England, and yet it is the only way of living well for those that have not estates. And, besides, there is so few abstain from war for the same reason that I do, that I do not know whether in many men's eyes it may not prove dishonourable to me. If I could procure any employment abroad, I should think myself extremely happy’ (, History of Confederation and War in Ireland, vol. ii. p. xlix). The Earl of Leicester, by license dated 22 June 1643, gave Sidney leave to return to England (, i. 150).

He landed in Lancashire in the following August with his brother and Sir Richard Grenville; but the parliamentary committee at Manchester suspected him of intending to join the king, on the ground of an intercepted letter to the royalist governor of Chester. All three were therefore arrested by order of parliament (31 Aug.), and sent up to London under a guard (Commons' Journals, iii. 223; Tanner MSS. Bodleian Library, lxii. 287). In spite of the views expressed in his letter to his mother, Algernon was soon persuaded to take up arms against the king. His motives were doubtless those set forth in his ‘Apology,’ in which he says ‘From my youth I endeavoured to uphold the common rights of mankind, the laws of this land, and the true protestant religion, against corrupt principles, arbitrary power, and popery’ (The Apology of A. Sydney in the Day of his Death, ed. 1772, p. 1). On 10 May 1644 the commons voted that the 400l. due to Colonel Sidney for his service in Ireland should be paid as soon as possible, in order to enable him to equip himself for service in the Earl of Manchester's army (Commons' Journals, iii. 507). His commission as a captain in Manchester's horse regiment is dated the same day (, i. 151). At Marston Moor a few weeks later ‘Colonel Sidney charged with much gallantry in the head of my Lord Manchester's regiment of horse, and came off with many wounds, the true badges of his honour’ (, God's Ark, p. 273;, i. 90). For the cure of these wounds Sidney went to London, and he was still disabled a year later. On 2 April 1645 Fairfax commissioned him colonel of horse in the new model; but on 14 May following (Sloane MS. 1519, f. 112) he resigned it on the plea of ill-health. ‘I have not left the army,’ he wrote to Fairfax, ‘without extreme unwillingness, and would not persuade myself to it by any other reason than that by reason of my lameness, I am not able to do the parliament and you the service that would be expected of me’ (, i. 102; Fairfax Correspondence, iii. 213). He accepted, however, the government of Chichester, which was conferred upon him on 10 May 1645 (Lords' Journals, vii. 365). On 17 July 1646 he was returned to the Long parliament for the borough of Cardiff. Next year Sidney was sufficiently recovered from his wounds again to undertake active service. Lord Lisle had been appointed lord lieutenant of Ireland, and desired to take his brother with him. On 4 Jan. 1647 Sidney was voted 2,000l., and on 11 Jan. the House of Commons gave him leave of absence (Commons' Journals, v. 41, 49). He held the rank of lieutenant-general of the horse. Lisle landed in Munster, but effected nothing, and his commission terminated on 15 April, and was not renewed. Before he left, Sidney, as lieutenant-general of the horse, and Sir Hardress Waller [q. v.], as major-general of the foot, made a claim to the command of the army during Lisle's absence, which was naturally contested by Lord Inchiquin, the president of Munster [see ]. The council attempted to compromise the matter by vesting the control of the forces in a commission of four, including Inchiquin and Lord Broghil, as well as Sidney and Waller. Inchiquin, however, declined to acquiesce in this solution, and the adherents of the two parties nearly came to blows in the streets of Cork. In the end, as the majority of the officers declared for Inchiquin, Sidney left Ireland with his brother in April 1647 (, Ormonde, iii. 324; Report on the Duke of Portland's MSS. i. 419;, Confederation, iv. 19–25). Lord Lisle had also given Sidney a commission as governor of Dublin, but on 8 April the House of Commons voted Colonel Michael Jones [q. v.] governor in his place, although Jones had actually accepted the post of deputy-governor to Sidney. In defence of this somewhat hard treatment Sir Henry Vane the elder [q. v.] alleged ‘that since the house had thought fit to recall the Lord Lisle, it was