5 - Family politics 1677–83

Summary

my desir of being … somme service unto my old father perswaded me to ask leave to comme over … but [he] … being dead within six weekes after my arrivall, I have noe other businesse heare then to cleare somme small contests that are growne between one of my brothers and me concerning that which he hath left me, and, if it please God to give [me] successe … have [only] … the desire of retiring from hence, without any thought of ever returning … carrying with me … sufficient to purchase a convenient habitation in Gascony, not farre from Bordeaux, where I may in quiet finish thoes days that God hath appointed for me.

Sidney to Benjamin Furly, 29 November 1677

INTRODUCTION

After eighteen years on the continent, seventeen of them in exile, Sidney landed in England in late September 1677. He may have arrived at the Castle at Dover, of which he had been commander almost thirty years before. From the Kentish coast there was not far to travel to Penshurst, where his father was to die five and a half weeks later.

Sidney seems to have returned alone, though doubtless accompanied by the usual ‘domesticks’. Despite the later reference to a daughter, to marry his ‘valet’ from Nerac, Joseph Ducasse, there is no evidence that such a person travelled with him now.