Henry Sydney, 1st Earl of Romney

Henry Sydney (or Sidney), 1st Earl of Romney (8 April 1641 – 8 April 1704) was an English politician and army officer. Often dismissed as a mere flunkey and court favourite, he was nevertheless an expert Statesman, with an adroitness for manipulating men.

Born in Paris, a son of Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester, of Penshurst Place in Kent, England, and his wife, born Lady Dorothy Percy, a daughter of Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland and sister of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, Sydney was a brother of Philip Sidney, 3rd Earl of Leicester, who was born in 1619; Algernon Sydney, the Republican martyr, who was born at Penshurst Place in 1622 but was executed, having been found party to the "Rye House Plot" 1683; and Robert Sidney. Henry's sister was Dorothy Spencer, Countess of Sunderland.

Sydney entered Parliament in 1679. He was employed by Sunderland to negotiate with William of Orange in 1688, and was one of the signatories to, and the actual author of, the cipher sent to the Prince calling for the Glorious Revolution. In the upshot, when King James II & VII was deposed under legislation (from his brother Charles II's reign) intended to bar him from the succession, the new King created Sydney Baron Milton and Viscount Sydney in 1689.

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