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= Elizabeth Sidney, Countess of Rutland = Elizabeth Sidney, Countess of Rutland (31 January 1585 – 1? August 1612) was the only daughter of Sir Philip Sidney and his wife Frances, née Walsingham. Following an example of her aunt Mary Herbert, née Sidney, Countess of Pembroke, she organized a circle of contemporary writers, which, among others, included Ben Jonson and Sir Thomas Overbury, who praised Elizabeth for her beauty and poetic skills. She, along with her husband Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland, was favoured by King James I. She enjoyed the friendship of some of the most prominent poets of the Elizabethan age and Jacobean age. In 1606 she danced in a masque, performed for Queen Anne of Denmark, wife of King James I. The masque was written by Ben Jonson and designed by the architect Inigo Jones.

Early life
She was born in London and baptized on 15 November 1585 at a church near the house of her maternal grandfather Sir Francis Walsingham popularly remembered as "spymaster" of Queen Elizabeth I. The Queen attended the baptism and acted as the godmother. By the end of that year a London-based Italian law professor Scipione Gentili published in Latin a book in honour of the birth of baby Elizabeth entitled "Nereus", and dedicated it to Sir Philip Sidney.

In September 1586, during the Battle of Zutphen her father Sir Philip was shot in the thigh and died of gangrene about a month later, at the age of 31. In 1590 her widowed mother Frances Walsingham married Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. The couple had several children (three of whom survived into adulthood), and the young Elizabeth was frequently asked to look after them. She also often stayed with her aunt Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, at Wilton House, her husband's estate. The young Elizabeth seems to have been well educated under the supervision of her aunt Mary. She spoke several languages, and started writing poetry at an early age. At Wilton House she met her first cousin, the elder son of her aunt, William Herbert, future 3rd Earl of Pembroke, as well as her another first cousin Mary, future author Lady Wroth. At her stepfather's home she also met his younger friend and protege, her future husband Roger Manners.

Marriage and later life
On 5 March 1599 Elizabeth was married to Roger Manners, 5th Earl of Rutland. The marriage was arranged by her stepfather despite the reluctance of the groom, who was rumored to be impotent. The marriage was childless, and widely believed to be unhappy. In 1618-1619, Ben Jonson in his conversations with a Scottish poet William Drummond alluded that Roger Manners could have become impotent during his European travels in 1596. According to other sources, Rutland possibly had syphilis. Francis Beaumont later wrote that Elizabeth lived "like a betrothed virgin than a wife". That was confirmed by Ben Jonson, who wrote that she lived "like a widowed wife".

Rutland took part in an unsuccessful Essex's rebellion against the Queen on 8 February 1601. He was arrested, found guilty, fined £30.000 (roughly equivalent to £6.6 million in 2019 money) and briefly jailed. Then he was exiled to his provincial home, Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire, where he remained with his wife until March 1603 when Queen Elizabeth I died. Rutland's fortunes recovered under James I, who on his way to London stayed at the castle and was fascinated by beauty and wit of the Countess of Rutland.

Eminent writers, poets and playwrites were her frequent guests, among them John Donne, John Fletcher, Thomas Overbury, and Francis Beaumont. William Drummond related the words of Ben Jonson: "The Countess of Rutland was nothing inferior to her father, Sir Philip Sidney, in poesy. Sir Th. Overbury was in love with her, and caused Ben to read his "Wyffe" to her, which he, with an excellent grace, did, and praised the Author. " Apparently. Francis Beaumont was also in love with Elizabeth when he wrote his Ad Comitissam Rutlandiæ, and praised her poetic talent. Ben Jonson in his Epistle to Elizabeth, Countess of Rurland (1600) wrote:

"That poets are far rarer births than kings Your noblest father proved; like whom before, Or then, or since, about our Muses’ springs, Came not that soul exhausted so their store."

And added that were her father see her poetry now, "he would burn, or better far his book". "Modern Jonson scholars are struck by his veneration of her talent, for not a single poetic line signed by Philip Sidney’s daughter has come down to us so far."

Rutland did not like these literary gatherings, and treated his wife with jealous suspicion. According to Drummond, "Ben, one day, being at table with my Lady Rutland, her husband coming in, accused her that she kept table to poets of which she wrote a letter to him (Jonson) which he answered, my lord intercepted the letter, but never challenged him."

Lewis F. Bostelmann, and his followers Célestin Demblon, the Russian writers Petr Porokhovshchikov and Ilya Gililov, who believed that Shakespeare was the nom de plume of Rutland, had conjectured that his wife Elizabeth actively participated in writing some of the plays.

The information that Elizabeth was briefly imprisoned in early October 1605 for non-payment of a debt to a jeweler is incorrect. In 1605 there were two Countesses of Rutland still alive – Roger's wife Elizabeth, and the elderly Isabelle Rutland, widow of Edward, 3rd Earl of Rutland (she died a year later). It is known from the records made by the Roger's secretary Thomas Screeven that Elizabeth was treated in Bath from June to the end of October that year. Thus, it was Isabelle, who had been imprisoned. She was permanently in debt.

Death and afterward
Elizabeth's husband Roger Manners died in Cambridge on 26 June 1612, and about a month later he was buried in St Mary the Virgin's Church at Bottesford, Leicestershire, near Belvoir Castle. Elizabeth was mentioned in his will just once: "I give to my other nephew Robert Tyrwitt and his heirs my lands in Barcton in the County of Warwick, the possessions of my wife. " Thus, not only didn't he leave anything to Elizabeth, but even her possessions were bequeathed to his nephew. Elizabeth didn't attend his funeral.

The exact date of her death is unknown. An informed contemporary wrote on 11 August 1612: "T'he widow Countess of Rutland died about ten days ago and is privately buried in St. Paul's Cathedral, by her father Sir Philip Sidney. Sir Walter Raleigh is slandered to have given her certain pills that despatched her".

Francis Beaumont wrote An Elegy on the Death of the Virtuous Lady Elizabeth, Countess of Rutland. The first lines were: "I may forget to drink, to eat, to sleep, remembering thee..."

In 2010 a poem Upon the death of the Countess of Rutland was discovered and attributed to Elizabeth's aunt Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke. No elegies were written on the death of her husband.

No portraits of Elizabeth are extant. According to the book by a British historian Irwin Eller, published in 1841, her portrait was on the wall at the Elizabeth Saloon in a magnificent frame. Lewis Bostelmann also saw this portrait in the early 1900s, and reproduced it in his book. Presently it is not on display neither in Belvoir Castle, nor elsewhere.

In the book Women’s Works 1550-1603, published in 2013, there are a few poems attributed to Elizabeth Sidney. The origins of these poems are uncertain.

External link
Bottesford Living History, Elizabeth Sidney

Category:People of the Elizabethan era Category:1585 births Category:1612 deaths Category:17th-century English nobility