A short life of the author
Algernon Sydney (14 or 15 January 1623 – 7 December 1683), also spelled Sidney, was an English politician, soldier, and political theorist who was executed for treason by Charles II — martyred, in the eyes of later republicans, for his defence of the right of the people to resist tyrannical government. His major work, Discourses Concerning Government (written in the early 1680s, published posthumously in 1698), is one of the foundational texts of republican political philosophy and was a direct and acknowledged influence on the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson named Sydney, alongside John Locke, as one of the two primary intellectual sources for the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Sydney’s life and death — the aristocratic republican who chose execution rather than submission — made him an icon of resistance to arbitrary power for two centuries.
Life
Sydney was born into one of England’s great aristocratic families — the Sidneys of Penshurst, Kent. His great-uncle was Sir Philip Sidney, the Elizabethan poet, soldier, and exemplar of Renaissance virtue. His father, Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, was a political figure of moderate importance. Sydney grew up in an atmosphere of privilege, political engagement, and classical learning.
He fought on the Parliamentary side during the English Civil War, serving with distinction at the Battle of Marston Moor (1644), where he was wounded. He was a committed republican — he sat as a member of the Council of State during the Commonwealth — but he opposed Cromwell’s assumption of personal power and withdrew from public life under the Protectorate.
After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, Sydney lived in exile on the Continent for nearly two decades, moving between France, the Netherlands, Italy, and other countries, engaged in various political intrigues and diplomatic missions. He returned to England in 1677 and became involved in opposition politics against the Stuart monarchy.
In 1683, he was arrested in connection with the Rye House Plot — a conspiracy to assassinate Charles II and his brother James, Duke of York. The evidence against Sydney was thin: his conviction rested largely on the unpublished manuscript of the Discourses Concerning Government, which the prosecution argued constituted treasonous writing. Sydney denied that writing could constitute an overt act of treason and argued that his manuscript was a private philosophical work. He was convicted and beheaded on Tower Hill on 7 December 1683.
His execution was widely regarded as a judicial murder, and his case became a rallying point for opponents of Stuart tyranny. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688, his attainder was reversed and he was officially recognised as having been unjustly executed.
Discourses Concerning Government (1698)
The Discourses was written in the early 1680s as a systematic refutation of Sir Robert Filmer’s Patriarcha (1680), which argued that royal authority derived from God’s grant of dominion to Adam and was therefore absolute, hereditary, and beyond challenge. Sydney demolished Filmer’s argument with a combination of biblical criticism, classical learning, and political philosophy.
Sydney’s central arguments are: that government exists by the consent of the governed; that the people have the right to choose their form of government and to change it when it ceases to serve the public good; that no one has a natural right to rule over others; and that resistance to tyranny is not only a right but a duty. These arguments parallel Locke’s Two Treatises of Government (also written in the early 1680s, published in 1689), and the two works together constituted the intellectual foundation of Whig political theory and, ultimately, of American revolutionary thought.
The Discourses is a long, learned, and sometimes repetitive work — Sydney was a man of action rather than a polished writer — but its central arguments are stated with power and conviction. The book was widely read in the American colonies and was cited by Jefferson, Adams, and other Founders as a primary authority for the principles of self-government.
Legacy and Influence
Sydney’s influence on the American Founding is direct and documented. Jefferson listed him, with Locke, Bacon, and Newton, as one of the thinkers whose portraits should hang in Monticello. The state of New South Wales took its name from Sydney (via Lord Sydney, a descendant). His political martyrdom gave his ideas an emotional force that pure philosophical argument could not have provided.
Collecting Sydney
The first edition of Discourses Concerning Government (1698, London) is a major rarity in political philosophy collecting — fine copies bring $5,000–$15,000. The 1704 edition is more commonly available and brings $1,000–$3,000. Eighteenth-century American editions are collected as documents of Revolutionary-era intellectual life. Modern scholarly editions are readily available and inexpensive.