Sidney, Robert, Earl of Leicester (1563 -1626)

Sir Robert Sidney was the younger son of Sir Henry Sidney, K.G., and Mary, daughter and heir of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland. He was Member of Parliament for Glamorganshire in 1584 and afterwards of Kent. He was knighted by Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester in 1586. He married Barbara, daughter and heir of John Gamage of Coity in 1584. In 1600 he gave £100 to the newly founded Bodleian Library in Oxford, which was entirely spent on fifty five foreign printed books, all of which the library impressed Sidney’s stamp. The presence of his signature in the Polydore Virgil suggests that he also used the same stamp. He was created Baron Sydney of Penshurst in 1603, and two years later Viscount L'Isle. In 1616, he was made a Knight of the Garter and in 1618 was created Earl of Leicester.