His friends and his soldiers were overcome with grief when his state became known; at the sight of his sufferings they almost forgot the glory of his triumph; Yet amidst all his pain, he never ceased declaring that as long as he lived his life was the queen's, and not his own, and that his friends ought not to be discouraged. They laid him gently in his uncle's barge; slowly it glided down the river to Arnheim, in Gelderland, and whilst he lay patiently in it, he was heard to express the hope that his wound was not mortal, and that he might yet have time to become holier before he died.
Day after day he lay in great pain, but talking kindly the while to the friends who grouped lovingly around him, and tended by his wife, Walsingham's daughter, who had hastened to Arnheim as soon as she heard tidings of his disaster. When he felt he could only live a little time longer, he made his confession of Christian faith, and settled his earthly affairs, remembering in his will all those whom he had loved. He took a tender farewell of his brother Robert, telling him "to love his memory and cherish his friends, and to govern his own will by the word of his Creator." And then having called for music, while sweet strains filled the chamber, silent with coming death, the spirit passed from this world.
His remains were brought to England, and interred in the great church of St. Paul, which eighty years later was destroyed by the fire of London.
"Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord:" such were the words inscribed on his coffin; and the perfectness of his character, and the regard in which men held him, cannot be better expressed than in the language of the old chronicle which says, "As his life was most worthie, so his end was most godlie. The love men bore him, left fame behind him; his friendlie courtesie to many procured him good-will of all."[28]
The Poles after the death of their king, Stephen Balori, would have conferred the crown on Sir Philip Sidney, because he was so justly renowned for his humane and upright spirit, but he thought that his first duty was to his sovereign, and the idea was renounced.
[26] The Earl of Leicester, the Court favourite of Queen Elizabeth, was brother to Lady Mary Sidney.