#robert sidney

"And when you get the chance to sit it out or dance / I hope you dance" - I Hope You Dance, Lee Ann Womack

The fireback is in place. Looks great, really completes the fireplace in the tavern.

A little research revealed that the symbol is called a phaeton (arrow head/spear head) and is representative of dexterity, nimble wit and readiness for battle. In this particular incarnation with the year 1606, the crown, and the wreath of laurels, it is the crest of Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester.

Leicester was a man of taste and a patron of literature.

Though the brother of one of the most famous poets in the English language, it was not suspected that Robert Sidney had himself been a poet until the 1960s, when his working notebook emerged (in a 19th-century binding) through the dispersal of the Library of Warwick Castle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sidney,_1st_Earl_of_Leicester

1606 marks the year Robert Sidney became Viscount Lisle.

In the back of the fireback there is a branding stamp that reads WM. H. JACKSON COMPANY, NEW YORK. Turns out that this company, which specializes in fireplace fixtures, is still in business. According to their website, they were established in 1827. Click here to visit their site. 

Update as of 11/4/2019

I have received a mysterious missive from a stranger on the internet (from San Diego) who has recently acquired one of these firebacks from a remodeled mansion and has asked me for more information on mine. He contacted the current Viscount de L’isle who has assured him no fireplaces /firebacks have gone missing from his estate, but it’s possible that some of the family’s assets may have wound up in the Jamestown colony in Virginia. 

The web is really a small place. I love making connections like this. 

Absence, I cannot say thou hid'st my light, Not darkened, but for ay sett is my sun; No day sees me, not when night's glass is run; I present, absent am; unseen in sight.

Nothing but I do parallel the night In whom all act of light and heat is done: She that did all in me, all hath undone; I was love's cradle once, now love's grave right.

Absence, I used to make my moan to thee; When thy clouds stayed, my joys they did not shine; But now I may say joys, cannot say mine.

1563-1621.  Wife of Robert Sidney, courtier and brother to the famous poet Sir Philip Sidney.

A Welsh noblewoman, Barbara was bilingual from childhood, probably able to read and write Welsh but barely literate in English.  She fell in love with Robert Sidney and married him without the Queen’s permission.  Elizabeth was offended, but since it was a viable match she eventually gave them her blessing.

Barbara gave birth to eleven children, several of whom did not survive to adulthood.  When Queen Elizabeth got small pox, Barbara stayed at court to tend her friend night and day, and as a result got small pox herself and was disfigured by it.  Upon recovery, the Queen iced her newly disfigured lady out of court, and Barbara retired to the Sidney family home at Penshurst, where she lived out the rest of her life shrewdly managing the huge and complex estate.