Sidney’s Legal Patronage and the International Protestant Cause TIMOTHY D. CROWLEY, Northern Illinois University This study brings to light a legal treatise from the mid-1580s on diplomatic and royal immunities and the authority of magistrates. Comparison of extant manuscript copies elucidates the work’s authorship by John Hammond, its commission by Sir Philip Sidney, its legal argument, and its textual transmis- sion to those who orchestrated the treason trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1586. Documentary evi- dence from 1584 to 1585 aligns Sidney with Elizabeth I’s Scottish policy, not directly with the campaign against Mary Stuart. When Sidney commissioned Hammond’s treatise, this study argues, he aimed primarily to prepare himself for anticipated service as a foreign magistrate. INTRODUCTION MODERN BIOGRAPHIES CHARACTERIZE Sir Philip Sidney (1554–86) as an author, courtier, diplomat, knight, parliamentarian, and, in the Netherlands, military commander and governor of Flushing. 1 This study sheds new light on Sidney as the patron of pioneering legal scholarship: in the form of a manuscript treatise by John Hammond (1542–90) on Roman civil law and the broader law of nations regarding questions of jurisdiction and immunity for princes, diplomats, and magistrates. These legal topics were especially relevant to the circumstances of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542–87), during her English captivity from 1568 to 1587, and of Bernardino de Mendoza (1540–1604), Spain’s resident ambassa- dor at London, expelled in 1584 for political conspiracy on Mary Stuart’s behalf amid the Throckmorton Plot of 1583. Mendoza’s expulsion complemented the English regime’s policy with the previous Spanish ambassador, Guerau de Spes (d. 1572), and with Mary Stuart’s ambassador John Lesley (1527–96), bishop of Ross, both expelled from London for conspiring on her behalf in the Ridolfi Plot For patient and helpful advice on drafts of this study, I am indebted to David Gehring, Lara Crowley, Donna Hamilton, Henry Woudhuysen, Roger Kuin, Rob Stillman, and the anon- ymous readers for Renaissance Quarterly. 1 Among modern biographies, see especially Wallace; Stewart, 2000; with Howell, 1968; Duncan-Jones, 1991. For useful synopses of biographical data, see Woudhuysen, 2004; Stewart, 2015, 41–49. For a survey of modern biographical approaches, see Stewart, 2015, 49–56. Renaissance Quarterly 71 (2018): 1298– 350 © 2018 Renaissance Society of America. This content downloaded from 073.246.092.047 on December 14, 2018 11:15:28 AM All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).