“Under the pretty tales of Wolves and Sheep”: Sidney’s Ambassadorial Table Talk and Protestant Hunting Dialogues

Abstract

A discourse with which Sir Philip Sidney entertained Philip Camerarius and their fellow diners during Sidney’s service as ambassador to Emperor Rudolph II for Queen Elizabeth has generally been accepted as a straight-forward historical account of the elimination of wolves from England. However, significant differences between Sidney’s presentation of the matter and that of contemporary historians, as well as similarities between the treatment of beasts such as wolves, dogs, and sheep and of other details in his tale and in Protestant hunting dialogues and other reformist writing, indicate that Sidney’s narrative may well have been designed to galvanize his audience’s support for activist Protestant politcal policies. My article draws upon symbolism and conventions from the hunting dialogues to reinterpret the tale as a veiled warning that England’s present freedom from “papists” (wolves) is not a permanent condition that leaders may obliviously assume will endure indefinitely but a benefit secured and maintained only by prudent monarchial policies, together with continued vigilance by well-trained “dogs,” or clergy and other defenders of the Church.