Sir Philip Sidney (1554-86) was an English poet, courtier, scholar and soldier who is remembered as one of the most prominenet figures of the Elizabethan age. In 1572, aged 18, he was elected MP for Shrewsbury and the same year travelled to France as part of the embassy to negotiate a marriage between Elizabeth I and the Duc d'Alencon. He spent the next several years in mainland Europe and on these travels encountered a number of the foremost European intellectuals and politicians. On his return to England in 1575 he met Penelope Devereux, the future Lady Rich, who inspired his famous sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella. Many of the poems were circulated in manuscript form before the first edition was printed in 1591, five years after Sidney's death.