Throughout Elizabeth I's reign England was in constant danger both from external and internal threats. Spain and France looked north and regarded the country as heretical and a potential enemy to their expanding empires. At home, the supporters of Mary Tudor, the late Queen, looked to another Mary, the Queen of Scots, as a Catholic heir to replace the Protestant Elizabeth. In times of crisis a government needs good, accurate and reliable intelligence. That came from one man, Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in British Heritage magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

Walsingham was the only son of William Walsingham of Footscray in Kent, by his wife Joyce, Daughter of Sir Edmund Denny, William died the year following Francis' birth and his mother married Sir John Carey, a distant relation by marriage of Anne Boleyn's family. Francis went to King's College, Cambridge, in 1548, but left two years later having failed to take his degree.

From 1550 to 1552 he traveled abroad and succeeded in becoming fluent in both French and Italian. Soon after he returned to England, Mary Tudor ascended throne and Francis found himself on the wrong side of the religious tracks. Fearing arrest for his outspoken Protestant views, he decided it prudent to return abroad. His mother's family were strong Protestants and most of his tutors at Cambridge were of the same denomination, so he was a natural target for Mary and an equally natural supporter of her sister, Elizabeth. He is even thought to have been involved in a minor way in the anti-Catholic plots of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne.

Over the next nine years he traveled extensively in Italy and central Europe, studying law and politics. The methods he learned at the various Italian Courts served him well in the years to come.

By 1560, with Elizabeth as Queen, he was back in England and in 1562 was returned as Member of Parliament for Lyme Regis. That same year he married a widow, Ann Carteill but she died two years later, leaving him without children. In 1566 he married the widow of Sir Richard Worsley and by her he had a daughter, Frances. She later married Sir Philip Sydney and, after his death, Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

At the age of 36, Francis came to the attention of Elizabeth's first minister, William Cecil, who offered him a position at Court. He took charge of the small network of secret agent Cecil had established and so started 22 years of loyal, unswerving service to the Queen. Elizabeth nicknamed him her 'Moor' because of his swarthy complexion and habitual black clothing. She was occasionally his guest at his home in Surrey and although they did not always agree on policy, she trusted him implicitly.

In 1570 Cecil sent him as ambassador to Paris where he was involved with the negotiations for several treaties. He was in the city when the Hugenots were murdered in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew on 24th August 1572, which reinforced his hatred of foreign Catholic regimes. He was recalled from Paris in 1573 and appointed Secretary of State, a post he held until his death. The modern-day equivalent would be Foreign Secretary and head of MI5 and 6. He was the Elizabethan 'M.' Walsingham's two great hates were Spain and Mary, Queen of Scots; Spain as a threat to his country and Mary as a threat to his Queen. He was convinced that England could only be safe with the complete defeat of Spain and the removal of Mary.

To this end he expanded the network of spies to more than 50 agents, many of them paid out of his own pocket. He soon had agents in the courts of France, Spain, the Low Countries, Germany, the United Provinces, and even Turkey. He was like a black spider at the center of a great web. Elizabeth was reluctant to move against her cousin, but Walsingham had no such qualms.

Late in 1585 a trainee priest named Gilbert Gifford was intercepted coming from France through the port of Rye. He was taken to Walsingham who learned that Gifford was to act as messenger between Mary and her supporters on the Continent. Walsingham turned Gifford and persuaded him to work for the Government. He was to tell Mary that a system for smuggling letters and papers between her and Europe had been set up. In fact, the spymaster himself constructed this route so that all correspondence passed through his hands before it crossed the Channel. Walsingham's secretary, Thomas Phelipps, was an expert code breaker so all Mary's communications were monitored.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to