Death of Sir Philip Sydney'. Philip Sidney (1554-1586) English soldier, statesman poet, and patron of poets: Governor of Flushing (1585): Mortally wounded in the thigh at the Battle of Zutphen in which the Dutch and English defeated the Spanish, 22 September 1586. Died at Arnhem 26 days later. Copperplate engraving c1815 showing Sidney being tended on the battlefield.