English statesman, born in Chislehurst, Kent, SE England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, became a diplomat, and was made a secretary of state to Elizabeth I (157390), a member of the Privy Council, and knighted. A Puritan sympathizer, and a strong opponent of the Catholics, he developed a complex system of espionage at home and abroad, enabling him to reveal the plots of Throckmorton and Babington against the Queen, and was one of the commissioners to try Mary at Fotheringay. In his last months he increasingly took up religious meditation.
Sir Francis Walsingham (c. An admirer of Machiavelli, Walsingham is remembered as one of the most proficient espionage-weavers in history, excelling in the use of intrigues and deception to secure the English Crown.
Early years
Francis Walsingham was born in Scadbury Park, Chislehurst, Kent in about 1532 to the family of William Walsingham and Joyce Denny.
Walsingham studied at King's College, Cambridge from 1548 with many Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for a degree.
Serving Elizabeth I
When Elizabeth I acceded to the throne, Walsingham returned to England and, through support of Sir William Cecil, was elected to the House of Commons for Banbury in 1559 and then Lyme Regis in 1563. He also married a widow, Ann Carteill, who died two years later leaving Walsingham the care of her two children.
In the following years, Walsingham became active in soliciting support for the Huguenots in France. In 1569, Sir William assigned Walsingham to unravel the Ridolfi plot, his first government role. Walsingham also had links to the earl of Leicester, to Nicholas Throckmorton and to the second tier of Protestant officials now serving the queen.
In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX.
Walsingham after his return was appointed joint principal secretary ("of state": the phrase was not used at this time in England) with Sir Thomas Smith, succeeding Sir William Cecil. Smith retired unexpectedly in 1576 leaving Walsingham in sole charge.
Elizabeth called him her "Moor", due to his small, dark frame and his preference to always dress in black.
On December 1, 1577, Walsingham received a knighthood. Walsingham was among the major promoters of the career of Sir Francis Drake and was a major shareholder in his 1578–1581 circumnavigation of the world. Walsingham's participation in this venture was calculated to promote the Protestant interest by provoking the Spanish and demonstrating the vulnerability of their Pacific possessions.
He was sent on special embassies to the Netherlands in 1578, and again in 1581 to the French Court, suggesting both the Queen's high confidence in his abilities, and also that she knew how to exploit his standing as a committed Protestant statesman to threaten the Catholic powers.
Between 1578 and 1581, Walsingham was at the forefront of debate on the attempt by a group at court to encourage the Queen to marry the Duke of Anjou, heir to the French throne. Walsingham passionately opposed the marriage, perhaps to the point of encouraging public opposition.
Walsingham would have preferred more direct English intervention in the Low Countries, and eventually, after the deaths of both Anjou and William of Orange in 1584, English military intervention was agreed at the treaty of Nonsuch, 1585.
From 1585 to his death, Walsingham was deeply engaged, working closely with Cecil (now Baron Burghley), in preparing England for the war with Spain that could no longer be avoided, and in preparing for the arrival of the Spanish Armada, in particular by victualling the navy, organising a domestic county militia, and fostering the Protestant aggression of the Bond of Association.
Walsingham secured in 1584 the overthrow of a dangerously non-aligned government in Scotland after years of reverses since the 1578 overthrow of the pro-English Regent Morton. Walsingham himself visited the Scottish court in 1583.
These were years of tension in policy towards France, with Walsingham sceptical of the unpredictable Henry III, while the flamboyant English ambassador in Paris, Edward Stafford, argued the case for building on Henry's good intentions. This too was a battle Walsingham won; Stafford found Walsingham's grip of the bureaucratic machine, the Queen's confidence in him, and Walsingham's network of contacts, too formidable.
Espionage
In the realm of counter-espionage, Walsingham was behind the discovery of the Throckmorton and Babington plots to overthrow Elizabeth I and return England to Catholicism (and in the case of Throckmorton, place Mary, Queen of Scots on the throne).
In November 1583, after months of surveillance, Walsingham had Throckmorton arrested.
Mary, Queen of Scots was not prosecuted. Walsingham became so concerned about Mary's influence that he became determined to hold her responsible for any further conspiracies. Walsingham drew deeply on his contacts and agents among the English Catholic community and abroad on whose divisions he was adept at playing. This led to the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots in 1587, for which Walsingham had worked since before his advent to power.
Prior to the attack of the Spanish Armada, he received a large number of dispatches from his agents from mercantile communities and foreign courts. Walsingham's recruitment of Anthony Standen in particular represented an intelligence triumph, and Standen's dispatches were deeply revealing. However the close security enforced by Philip II meant that Walsingham remained in the dark about the Spanish strategy and the planned destination of the Armada. The Cadiz raid in 1587 wreaked havoc on Spanish logistics, and Walsingham would have repeated this the following year if more cautious counsels had not prevailed.
In foreign intelligence, the full range of Walsigham's network of "intelligencers" (of news as well as secrets) will never be known, but it was substantial. While foreign intelligence was part of the principal secretary's duties, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition, and large sums of his own money. Among his more minor spies may have been the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who may have been one of the stream of false converts with which Walsingham annoyed the foreign seminaries .
Legacy
Walsingham was the first English statesman fully to embrace the challenges of the post-Reformation diplomatic world and the new European threats and alliances it offered.
In other affairs, Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament which he retained until his death, but he was not a major participant.
As an advisor on whom Elizabeth depended during the central part of her reign, Walsingham received large sums of money from the Queen over the years.
Francis Walsingham died on April 6, 1590, leaving considerable financial debt, in part arising from his having underwritten the debts of his son-in-law and colleague, Sir Philip Sidney. However, she married well, to the Earl of Essex, and Walsingham's widow lived in proper state until her death. It may be that Walsingham's short-term debts concealed substantial potential wealth, and had he lived a little longer the precise outcome of the Sidney debts would have been clearer.
Walsingham attracts controversy still. But at the time and in retrospect the close effective partnership around Queen Elizabeth of Burghley, Walsingham, Leicester, and Hatton defined the high Elizabethan age. Walsingham tends to be praised most highly by those critical of Elizabeth I's prevarications and changes of course. Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage.
Walsingham in fiction
The film Elizabeth gives considerable, although historically inaccurate, prominence to the espionage skills of Walsingham (portrayed by Geoffrey Rush). In the graphic novel Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman, Walsingham has been replaced or superseded (or even removed) by Sir Nicholas Fury.| Political Offices | ||
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Preceded by: Sir Thomas Smith |
Lord Privy Seal 1576–1590 |
Succeeded by: The Lord Burghley |
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Preceded by: Sir Ralph Sadler |
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1587–1590 |
Succeeded by: Sir Thomas Heneage |
| Honorary Titles | ||
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Preceded by: The Marquess of Winchester |
Custos Rotulorum of Hampshire bef. |
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