Lady Mary Sidney:

Mary Sidney was an astute and influential figure, who had close connections with Wilton in Wiltshire (England) through her marriage to the immensely powerful Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Family members, and acquaintances of Sidney’s extended family (including the poet John Donne who was Herbert’s godfather), became known as the ‘Wilton Circle’, and were highly influential and pioneering in the arts. Sidney lived in Wilton House, a very substantial home built on the ruins of Wilton Abbey - a Benedictine abbey founded around the ninth century for the daughters of the aristocracy - within living memory of Wilton’s Abbey’s dissolution by Henry VIII in 1539. With the dissolution of the Abbey the influence of powerful female figures dwindled as the patriarchal institution of Salisbury Cathedral (where Sidney was later buried) became the dominant influence locally.

Crucially, as a member of an aristocratic family she had enjoyed a very high level of education in comparison with most girls and women of her time, though it was not equal to that of her male peers, and the pathways open to her as a creative adult were limited due to societal expectations of women.

As a married woman moving in Court circles, she adroitly navigated complex religious and political territory. As a writer of devotional lyric poetry she developed her own particular style which was to influence the next generation of poets.

Following the death of her brother, the poet, soldier and artistic patron Philip Sidney, in 1586, the bereaved Mary broke new ground by creating her own translations/paraphrasing of Psalms to complete a project begun by him. Her texts were published (through handwritten copies) and circulated to a limited degree in her lifetime. However, her influence faded and it was not until the 1820s that her work was re-published (in a limited edition of 250 copies) followed nearly a century later by a biography.

Project in development - Autumn 2026

L Stewart for MoV (c)MoV 2026