Algernon Sidney - English Civil War and Republic

English Civil War and Republic

Despite having earlier vowed that only "extreame necessity shall make me thinke of bearing arms in England", he served in the Army of the Eastern Association, becoming Lieutenant Colonel of the Earl of Manchester's regiment of horse (cavalry). He fought at the Battle of Marston Moor in 1644, where an observer wrote: "Colonel Sidney charged with much gallantry in the head of my Lord Manchester's regiment of horses, and came off with many wounds, the true badges of his honour". He was later appointed Colonel of the regiment when it was transferred to the New Model Army, but relinquished the appointment due to ill health.

In 1645 he was elected to the Long Parliament as Member of Parliament for Cardiff where he opposed compromising with the King, Charles I, and in 1648 opposed the purge of moderates which formed the Rump Parliament. Despite being a commissioner for the trial of Charles, Sidney also opposed the decision to have him executed due to the questionable lawfulness and wisdom of the decision. This led to the famous exchange:

First, the King could be tried by noe court; secondly, that noe man could be tried by that court. This being alleged in vaine, and Cromwell using these formall words (I tell you, wee will cut off his head with the crowne upon it) I...immediately went out of the room, and never returned.

However by 1659 Sidney had changed his opinion, declaring the king's execution as "the justest and bravest act...that ever was done in England, or anywhere".

In 1653 when Cromwell's army entered Parliament to dissolve it after a Bill was introduced that would have made elections freer, Sidney refused to leave the House until threatened with physical removal. He regarded Cromwell as a tyrant. In retirement, Sidney was bold enough to outrage the Lord Protector by allegedly putting on a performance of Julius Caesar, with himself in the role of Brutus. He was for a time the lover of Lucy Walter, later the mistress of Charles, Prince of Wales. However Sidney regarded the Republic as vigorously pursuing England's national interests (in contrast to the Stuart's record of military failure), writing in his Discourses Concerning Government:

...such was the power and wisdom and integrity in those that sat at the helm, and their diligence in chusing men only for their merit was blessed with such success, that in two years our fleets grew to be as famous as our land armies; the reputation and power of our nation rose to a greater height, than when we possessed the better half of France, and the kings of France and Scotland were our prisoners. All the states, kings and potentates of Europe, most respectfully, not to say submissively, sought our friendship; and Rome was more afraid of Blake and his fleet, than they had been of the great king of Sweden, when he was ready to invade Italy with a hundred thousand men.