46 Facts About Francis Walsingham

Francis Walsingham rose from relative obscurity to become one of the small coterie who directed the Elizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy.

Francis Walsingham served as English ambassador to France in the early 1570s and witnessed the St Bartholomew's Day massacre.

Francis Walsingham oversaw operations that penetrated Spanish military preparation, gathered intelligence from across Europe, disrupted a range of plots against Elizabeth and secured the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Francis Walsingham was born around 1532, probably at Foots Cray, near Chislehurst in Kent, the only son of William Walsingham, a successful and well-connected London lawyer who served as a member of the commission appointed to investigate the estates of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530.

Francis Walsingham's mother was Joyce Denny, a daughter of the courtier Sir Edmund Denny of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and a sister of the courtier Sir Anthony Denny, the principal Gentleman of the Privy Chamber to King Henry VIII.

Francis Walsingham matriculated at King's College, Cambridge, in 1548 with many other Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for a degree.

Many wealthy Protestants, such as John Foxe and John Cheke, fled England, and Francis Walsingham was among them.

Francis Walsingham continued his studies in law at the universities of Basel and Padua, where he was elected to the governing body by his fellow students in 1555.

In 1566, Francis Walsingham married Ursula St Barbe, widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Francis Walsingham acquired her estates of Appuldurcombe and Carisbrooke Priory on the Isle of Wight.

Francis Walsingham was instrumental in the collapse of the Ridolfi plot, which hoped to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots.

Francis Walsingham is credited with writing propaganda decrying a conspiratorial marriage between Mary and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and Roberto di Ridolfi, after whom the plot was named, was interrogated at Walsingham's house.

Francis Walsingham believed that it would serve England better to seek a military alliance with France against Spanish interests.

Francis Walsingham cultivated contacts throughout Europe, and a century later his dispatches would be published as The Complete Ambassador.

Francis Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian.

Francis Walsingham was involved directly with English policy towards Spain, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and France, and embarked on several diplomatic missions to neighbouring European states.

Francis Walsingham supported the attempts of John Davis and Martin Frobisher to discover the Northwest Passage and exploit the mineral resources of Labrador, and encouraged Humphrey Gilbert's exploration of Newfoundland.

Gilbert's voyage was largely financed by recusant Catholics and Francis Walsingham favoured the scheme as a potential means of removing Catholics from England by encouraging emigration to the New World.

Francis Walsingham advocated direct intervention in the Netherlands in support of the Protestant revolt against Spain, on the grounds that although wars of conquest were unjust, wars in defence of religious liberty and freedom were not.

Francis Walsingham was sent on a special embassy to the Netherlands in 1578, to sound out a potential peace deal and gather military intelligence.

Francis Walsingham was sent to France in mid-1581 to discuss an Anglo-French alliance, but the French wanted the marriage agreed first and Francis Walsingham was under instruction to obtain a treaty before committing to the marriage.

Personally, Francis Walsingham opposed the marriage, perhaps to the point of encouraging public opposition.

The pro-English Regent of Scotland James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, whom Francis Walsingham had supported, was overthrown in 1578.

James VI dismissed Francis Walsingham's advice on domestic policy saying he was an "absolute King" in Scotland.

Francis Walsingham thought Irish farmland was underdeveloped and hoped that plantation would improve the productivity of estates.

Francis Walsingham was driven by Protestant zeal to counter Catholicism, and sanctioned the use of torture against Catholic priests and suspected conspirators.

Francis Walsingham's staff in England included the cryptographer Thomas Phelippes, who was an expert in forgery and deciphering letters, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairing seals without detection.

Francis Walsingham is often mentioned - negatively - in coded letters from Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French ambassador.

Francis Walsingham helped create the Bond of Association, the signatories of which promised to hunt down and kill anyone who conspired against Elizabeth.

Francis Walsingham instructed Paulet to open, read and pass to Mary unsealed any letters that she received, and to block any potential route for clandestine correspondence.

From 1586, Francis Walsingham received many dispatches from his agents in mercantile communities and foreign courts detailing Spanish preparations for an invasion of England.

Francis Walsingham's recruitment of Anthony Standen, a friend of the Tuscan ambassador to Madrid, was an exceptional intelligence triumph and Standen's dispatches were deeply revealing.

Francis Walsingham worked to prepare England for a potential war with Spain, in particular by supervising the substantial rebuilding of Dover Harbour, and encouraging a more aggressive strategy.

Walsingham supported Francis Drake's raid of Cadiz in 1587, which wrought havoc with Spanish logistics.

Francis Walsingham received regular dispatches from the English naval forces, and raised his own troop of 260 men as part of the land defences.

Francis Walsingham cast his net more widely than others had done previously: expanding and exploiting links across the continent as well as in Constantinople and Algiers, and building and inserting contacts among Catholic exiles.

From 1571 onwards, Francis Walsingham complained of ill health and often retired to his country estate for periods of recuperation.

Francis Walsingham complained of "sundry carnosities", pains in his head, stomach and back, and difficulty in passing urine.

Historian William Camden wrote that Francis Walsingham died from "a carnosity growing intra testium tunicas [testicular cancer]".

Francis Walsingham was buried privately in a simple ceremony at 10 pm on the following day, beside his son-in-law, in Old St Paul's Cathedral.

Francis Walsingham's name appears on a modern monument in the crypt listing the important graves lost.

Francis Walsingham received grants of land from the Queen, grants for the export of cloth and leases of customs in the northern and western ports.

Francis Walsingham spent much of his own money on espionage in the service of the Queen and the Protestant cause.

Francis Walsingham had underwritten the debts of his son-in-law, Sir Philip Sidney, had pursued the Sidney estate for recompense unsuccessfully and had carried out major land transactions in his later years.

Ursula, Lady Francis Walsingham, continued to live at Barn Elms with a staff of servants until her death in 1602.

Francis Walsingham was part of a Protestant intelligentsia that included Philip Sidney, Edmund Spenser and John Dee: men who promoted an expansionist and nationalist English Renaissance.

Fictional portrayals of Francis Walsingham tend to follow Catholic interpretations, depicting him as sinister and Machiavellian.