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 by his brother Henry. He was returned for the borough of Agmondesham, but his election was declared void on 11 Dec. 1680. He contested Agmondesham again in February 1681, but, owing to the partiality of the returning officer, was not declared elected, though he obtained a majority of the lawful votes (, i. 153, 155; Letters to Savile, pp. i. 50;, Debates, viii. 127; Report on the MSS. of Sir William Fitzherbert, p. 19; Diary and Correspondence of Henry Sidney, i. 88, 103, 115, 70). Outside parliament, however, Sidney exercised considerable influence. Soon after the discovery of the ‘popish plot’ he was accused of being head of a great nonconformist plot, but succeeded in vindicating himself of the charge in a personal interview with the king (Apology, p. 4). His close friendship with Penn, who helped him in his election contests, excited some comments, and another quaker, Benjamin Furley, was among his most trusted correspondents (, i. 153;, Life and Letters of Lady Russell, p. 134). With the Commonwealthsmen, as the republicans were termed, Sidney was intimately connected; Major Wildman was his friend, and Slingsby Bethell's election as sheriff of London was attributed to his influence (ib. pp. 131–2;, i. 357; , Life of Robert Ferguson, p. 434). With Shaftesbury, however, his relations seem to have been far from cordial. In 1680 Shaftesbury was reported to have said that Sidney was a French pensioner and a spy of Lord Sunderland; a violent quarrel followed and after that their communications were carried on through the younger Hampden (, pp. 128, 136). Sidney's letters to Henry Savile are very cautiously written, and throw little light on his actions. They show his sympathy for the nonconformists and the oppressed Scots, and his hatred of bishops and papists (pp. 18, 29, 41, 44, 45, 48, 54).

Sidney's reputation deservedly suffers from the part which he took in the intrigues of the opposition with the French ambassador, and the fact that he received from Barillon one thousand guineas for his services (, i. 381, 383; cf., An Examination into the Charges brought against A. Sidney by Sir J. Dalrymple, 1773, 8vo). There is no good reason to suspect the truth of Barillon's statement. It is doubtless true that Sidney used the money for public not for personal objects; but this is an insufficient excuse for his conduct. Barillon describes his character to Louis XIV in the following terms: ‘Mr. Sidney has been of great use to me on many occasions. He is a man who was in the first wars, and who is naturally an enemy to the court. He has for some time been suspected of being gained by Lord Sunderland, but he always appeared to me to have the same sentiment, and not to have changed maxims. He has a great deal of credit amongst the independents, and is also intimate with those who are most opposed to the court in parliament. … I gave him only what your majesty permitted me. He would willingly have had more, and if a new gratification was given him it would be easy to engage him entirely. … I believe he is a man who would be very useful if the affairs of England should be brought to extremities.’ In a second letter he describes him as ‘a man of great views and high designs, which tend to the establishment of a republic’ (, i. 339, 357). Sidney endeavoured to convince Louis XIV, through Barillon, that the establishment of a republic in England would be far less prejudicial to French interests than the elevation of the Prince of Orange to the English throne, and that it was therefore the interest of France to maintain the rights and privileges of the English nation. Louis XIV returned satisfactory professions of his resolve to maintain English liberties (ib. i. 353, 379). Sidney was doubtless well aware of the hollowness of that king's professions, as the references to the despotism of Louis XIV in his ‘Discourses concerning Government’ prove. But he hoped to utilise Barillon and his master, if not for the establishment of an English republic, at least for the maintenance of the rights of parliament, and laughed at Barillon's pretensions to direct the opposition (Letters to Savile, p. 46). On some foreign questions the interests of France and those of the parliament seemed to coincide. Sidney was eager to frustrate the treaty guaranteeing the peace of Nimeguen proposed by Charles to William of Orange in 1679, because he thought a close union between the houses of Orange and Stuart would be dangerous to English liberty (ib. pp. 29, 46, 51;, i. 339; , Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, ii. 217; , Life of Sidney, p. 357). In 1680 he similarly opposed a league with Spain and other European powers for the same object, because he regarded the policy as intended to divert parliament from the exclusion bill (, i. 355;, ii. 275). In both cases what determined his conduct was the domestic constitutional question which blinded him to the danger of assisting the European schemes of Louis XIV.

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