From his earliest childhood he was so sweet-tempered and intelligent that his father lovingly called him "the light of this family." He was very fond of study, and went first to school at Shrewsbury, where we find he delighted his father greatly, when he was twelve years old, by writing him a letter in Latin, and another in French. At the age of fifteen he went to Christchurch, Oxford, where he appears to have studied with much diligence during the short period of his college life.
In the year 1571 an embassy was sent to the Court of Charles the Ninth of France, in order to treat for a marriage between the king's youngest brother, Henry Duke of Alençon, and Queen Elizabeth. The queen had already shown signs of regard for young Sidney, whom in after years she called "the brightest jewel in her crown," and she allowed him to go abroad with the mission, for the purpose of acquiring a perfect knowledge of foreign languages.
Sir Philip was in Paris on the fatal day of Saint Bartholomew, but was safe in the house of his friend Walsingham, then English minister at the French Court, whilst the unhappy Protestants were being cruelly massacred everywhere around him.
He afterwards travelled through Germany to Vienna, where he made himself perfect in every martial exercise, going thence to study science at Venice, to visit the poet Tasso at Padua, and lastly to Rome.
And whilst he was storing his mind with knowledge, and learning all accomplishments worthy of a true knight, he tried to lead a holy life, and, as far as it was in his power, to keep himself blameless in the sight of God and man; so that when he returned to England at the age of twenty, other men far older than himself looked up to him with respect, and he was considered the brightest ornament of the English Court.
During his travels in Flanders, which at that time belonged to Spain, he had grieved to see how unhappy the people were made by the Duke of Alva, the State minister of Philip the Second of Spain. Philip did not love his Flemish subjects at all; they were mostly Protestants, and he wanted to take their liberty from them and force them to become Roman Catholics. And when they began to rebel against his unjust treatment, he sent the cruel Duke of Alva to them, having first told him that he might do whatever he liked with them.