Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/216

 much satisfaction in it,’ he wrote, ‘that for the future I shall very unwillingly put myself into any way of living that shall deprive me of that entertainment. Whatsoever hath been formerly the objects of my thoughts and desires, I have now intention of seeking very little more than quietness and retirement’ (, ii. 719). The chief drawback to his happiness was want of money; he had incurred heavy expenses on his embassy, and had spent large sums of money in the endeavour to settle the affairs of his sister, Lady Strangford. Neither of these debts was repaid, and his father was far from liberal; but at Rome he found he could live on five shillings a day (, ii. 717). Political hatreds, however, drove him from Rome. ‘I was defended,’ he says, ‘from such as those designed to assassinate me only by the charity of strangers’ (Apology, p. 1). In the summer of 1663 he stayed for three weeks at Vevey with Ludlow and other exiled regicides (, Memoirs, ii. 346, 486). In December following he was at Brussels, meditating a scheme for serving the emperor in the war in Hungary. He proposed to raise a regiment or two of Cromwell's old soldiers, believing that, although the government might be disinclined to grant him any favour, it would assent in order to get rid of them. But leave was refused, and his attempts to obtain foreign military employment were frustrated by the influence of the English court (, ii. 725; Apology, p. 2).

For some little time Sidney lived in Germany, apparently at Augsburg, whither a party of ruffians was sent to assassinate him (ib. p. 1;, ii. 382). The war between England and the united provinces emboldened the exiled republicans to dream of a rising in Holland, whither Sidney removed in June 1665. Embittered by the repeated attempts on his life, he abandoned his resolution to remain quiet, and thought it a duty to seize the opportunity. ‘In the end,’ he wrote, ‘I found it an ill-grounded peace that I enjoyed, and could have no rest in my own spirit, because I lived only to myself, and was in no ways useful to God's people, my country, and the world. This consideration, joined with those dispensations of providence which I observed and judged favourable to the designs of good people, brought me out of my retirement’ (, p. 259;, Life of Clarendon, iii. 384, 388). After France declared war against England, Sidney obtained, by the mediation of John de Witt, a passport enabling him to go to Paris in order to negotiate with the French government (March 1666). He applied to Louis XIV for one hundred thousand crowns in order to raise a revolt in England, but the king thought the sum too high, and offered him only twenty thousand, promising to send all necessary help to the rebels when a rising took place (Œuvres de Louis XIV, ii. 203;, Portraits Politiques, ed. 1874, p. 87; , Jean de Witt, i. 376; , Memoirs, ii. 391–393). When the war ended, Sidney, who had obtained leave to live in French territory, retired to Languedoc. In the summer of 1670 he was in Paris, and Charles II, in answer to the inquiries of the French government, declared ‘that he did not care where Sidney lived provided he did not return to England, where his pernicious sentiments, supported with so great parts and courage, might do much hurt.’ But a few weeks later the king changed his mind, saying that he would be better in Languedoc and could not be too far from England. According to Colbert's despatches, Charles spoke of Sidney as ‘un homme de cœur et d'esprit,’ and it is clear that he was regarded as the ablest man among the exiles (, Memoirs, ed. 1790, vol. i., App. p. 122;, Works, ed. 1754, iii. 70).

Sidney returned to England about September 1677. He asked the king's leave to do so in order to settle his private affairs, and obtained it through the intervention of Henry Savile [q. v.], the English envoy at Paris, and by the influence of the Earl of Sunderland, who was the son of his sister Dorothy. He intended to stay three months and then to return to Gascony. Six weeks after his arrival in England his father died, leaving him 5,100l., which he resolved to spend in buying an estate near Bordeaux (, i. 153;, Letters to Savile, ed. Holles, p. 57; , Algernon Sidney, &c., 1847, p. 3). The new Earl of Leicester declined to pay the legacy, and a chancery suit took place, which, though ultimately decided in Sidney's favour, detained him in England till 1680 (, Life and Letters of Rachel, Lady Russell, &c., 1819, p. 122).

The excitement caused by the exclusion struggle was too great for Sidney to keep aloof from English politics, whatever his intentions on coming to England may have been, especially as he seems to have been under no pledge to abstain. Four times he made unsuccessful attempts to obtain a seat in the House of Commons. In December 1678 he stood for Guildford, but was defeated by a courtier named Dalmahoy. In August 1679 he became a candidate for Bramber, but withdrew when he was