Fulke Greville, First Lord Brooke, supplied a structure for his own biography by having an epitaph
engraved on his tomb at Warwick Castle that sums up his life in exemplary brevity: “Fulke
Greville/ Servant to Queen Elizabeth,/ Councillor to King James,/ And Friend to Sir Philip
Sidney,/ Trophaeum Peccati [Trophy of Sin].” His father, also named Fulke, married Anne Neville,
who came from a family with landed wealth and a titled past. The relationship to which Greville
gave most prominence on his tombstone, his friendship with Sidney, began when they entered
ShrewsburyGrammar school on the same day, October 00, 0000. Before he was fourteen, Greville
matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge. Sidney went to Oxford, but they were reunited when
they were introduced to Elizabeth’s court in the late 0000’s. Both young men joined the political
party of Robert Dudley, the earl of Leicester, Sidney’s uncle and an old friend of the Greville
family.