It was about two years later, when Sir Philip was yet only in the flower of his manhood and the height of his fame, that he received the appointment which led to his early death. The President of the Netherlands, having applied to the English Queen for help against the Duke of Alva, she sent an expedition under the Earl of Leicester, Sir Philip being appointed General of the Horses and Governor of Flushing. Thither he repaired in the month of November, 1585, leaving his young and devoted wife (who had only shortly before given birth to a daughter) in England. In his character as a soldier, Sir Philip was as conscientious and brave as he was distinguished as a scholar and diplomatist; but he was not therein so happy. Entering with marked zeal and energy upon his duties, he conducted the campaign with considerable success in spite of many difficulties. The year 1586 proved to be one of successive sorrows to the Countess of Pembroke. Her earliest affections had never waned. Blessed with such parents and brothers as she was, life without them could never be the same to her; and the rapidity with which the strokes of bereavement followed each other gave no room for Time's healing power to intervene. The first shock was sustained in the month of May by the death of her father. But three months later her mother finished her brave, devoted, and self-sacrificing life. However opinions may have differed as to her husband, no word seems to have been spoken or written of Lady Mary but in terms of the highest praise. "Born," says a competent authority, "of the noblest blood, surviving ambitious relatives who reached at royalty and perished, losing health and beauty in the service of an exacting Queen, suffering poverty at Court, supporting husband and children through all trials with wise counsel and sweet hopeful temper, she emerges with pale lustre from all the actors of that time to represent the perfect wife and mother in a lady of unpretending, but heroic, dignity."[1] This is the mother whom we find mirrored in her illustrious daughter. [1] "Sir Philip Sidney." By J. A. Symonds, p. 180.