In such parentage Mary Sidney could not but be blessed. Her father had been the close friend and companion of the youthful King, Edward VI., who had expired in his arms. He appears to have been as distinguished for his learning as for the virtues which marked his private life, and the rectitude which characterised the discharge of his public duties. Of the mother of Mary Sidney it has been said that "she was not less distinguished in her sphere; one indeed, if not of equal splendour and publicity with that in which her husband moved, yet to her children, and, through her example to the world at large, no less useful and honourable; for with abilities every way adequate to the task of instruction, and with a devotedness and sense of duty which rendered her exertions a never-failing source of gratification and delight, she gave up her time almost exclusively to the early education of her offspring, superintending not only their initiation into the principles of religion and virtue, but directing their studies, and regulating, and even partaking in, their sports and relaxations." Mary Sidney was born in or about the year 1557, at the historic castle of Penshurst, in Kent. It had been granted by King Edward VI. to Sir William Sidney, the grandfather of Mary. Ben Jonson has left a pleasant description of Mary's birth-place, in reference to which he says:-- "Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show Of touch or marble, nor canst boast a row Of polished pillars or a roof of gold: Thou hast no lantern whereof tales are told; Or stair, or courts; but standst an ancient pile; And these, grudged at, are reverenced the while. Thou joy'st in better marks of soil and air, Of wood, of water; therein art thou fair. Thou hast thy walks for health as well as sport Thy mount, to which thy dryads do resort, Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made, Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade; That taller tree, which of a nut was set, At his great birth where all the muses met; There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names Of many a Sylvan taken with his flames; And there the ruddy satyrs oft provoke The lighter fauns to reach thy lady's oak."