Francis Walsingham

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Francis Walsingham, oil painting by John de Critz (around 1587)

Sir Francis Walsingham (* 1532 in Scadbury Park, Chislehurst , Kent ; † April 6, 1590 in London ) led an espionage network and prevented several assassinations on Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603).

origin

Francis Walsingham was the son of lawyer William Walsingham and his wife Joyce Denny . His father died the year after his birth, his mother later married Sir John Carey, a relative of Elizabeth I.

education

Walsingham studied from 1548 at King's College in Cambridge with Protestant professors, but did not graduate. In 1550, as was the custom at the time, he went abroad. In 1552 he returned and enrolled at Gray's Inn ( law school ) in London. The death of King Edward VI. and the accession to the throne by the Catholic Queen Mary I made him leave England again, this time to study law in Padua . In 1555 he enrolled as "Francisus Walsinghamus nobilis ex Anglia" in Basel. He learned languages ​​and made connections with contacts who later formed the basis of his espionage network in Europe. From April 1556 to November 1558 he visited Switzerland .

Political career

William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I and Francis Walsingham (engraving by William Faithorne, 1655)

When Elizabeth I ascended the throne, Walsingham returned to England and was elected to the lower house of parliament, the House of Commons , first in the constituency of Banbury , then in Lyme Regis , with the support of Sir William Cecil . Sir William also hired him to solve the Ridolfi conspiracy .

Walsingham married the widow Anne Carleill, daughter of London Mayor George Barnes , in 1562 . She died two years later. After her death, he looked after his stepson Christopher , whom Anne had brought into the marriage. In 1566 he married Ursula St. Barbe , widow of Sir Richard Worsley , with whom he had two daughters, Frances and Mary. However, Mary died in early childhood.

In the following years Walsingham campaigned among the English clergy for support for the Huguenots in France and began to build up his later famous spy network. One of his spies was Christopher Marlowe , playwright and intellectual , and the cryptographer Thomas Phelippes was also in his service. The training of his agents included the interception and decryption of letters, the forging of handwriting, and the unnoticed breaking and resealing of seals.

In 1570, Walsingham was chosen by Sir William Cecil , first Secretary of State and later Lord Burghley, to help the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX. to support the Blois Treaty . Later that year he succeeded Henry Norris as ambassador to France . After Bartholomew's Night , his residence in Paris became a refuge for persecuted Protestants. In April 1573 he returned to England.

Walsingham was so successful that he was appointed 2nd Secretary of State in December 1573, initially exercising the office together with Sir Thomas Smith . On December 1, 1577, he was knighted . He spent the years from 1578 to 1583, among other things, expanding his network - he paid the expenses of at least 50 agents out of his own pocket. It was also during this period that he was involved in the extensive reconstruction of the port of Dover , supporting Martin Frobisher's attempt to discover the Northwest Passage and mainly promoting the career of Francis Drake .

He attended the Scottish court in 1583 and paved the way for the overthrow of the potentially dangerous Scottish government in 1584. This move towards Anglo-Scottish Protestantism was hesitant at first, but quickly became stable and later paved the way Jacob VI on the English throne .

His diplomatic achievements include exposing the Throckmorton Conspiracy and the Babington Conspiracy . The latter led to the beheading of Mary Stuart , Queen of Scotland , in 1587, in the trial of which he took an active part. Before the planned invasion of the Spanish Armada , he received extensive reports from his agents in foreign merchant communities and at European courts.

He had a seat in the House of Commons until his death. In 1584 he was a member of the committee that reviewed appointments pertaining to Sir Walter Raleigh . He brought some of his servants into public offices and received the honorary titles of 'Chancellor of the Order of the Garter ' and 'Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster '.

Although he was a devout Protestant and advisor to Elizabeth during the middle period of her reign, he received little material compensation from her. Although he was given land and the right to export beer and cloth , he used large sums of money to maintain his network on the continent. After 1579 he lived in Barns Elms in Barnes . From 1589 he also had to take responsibility for the debts of his late son-in-law Sir Philip Sidney .

On April 6, 1590, Walsingham died in London's Seething Lane leaving considerable debt. His daughter Frances received an annual pension of only £ 300 and in the same year married Elizabeth I's favorite Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex , who was executed for high treason in 1601.

literature

Web links

Commons : Sir Francis Walsingham  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b John E. Neale: Elisabeth I. (German edition) Munich 1967 ISBN 3-424-01226-2 p. 255
personal data
SURNAME Walsingham, Francis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Founder of the British Secret Service
DATE OF BIRTH 1532
PLACE OF BIRTH Scadbury Park, Chislehurst , Kent
DATE OF DEATH April 6, 1590
Place of death London