Simon Fernandes time and piracy was an offence punishable by hanging, but in practice Fernandes was engaged in exactly the sort of behaviour to which Queen Elizabeth I of England was inclined to turn a blind eye. However, the Portuguese ambassador Francisco Giraldi vigorously protested Fernandes's activities to the Queen's ministers, after the alleged murder of seven Portuguese sailors, and in 1577 the 39-year-old Fernandes was arrested in Cardiff and taken to London to face trial. However, far from being hanged for his crimes, Fernandes was released, apparently with the connivance of Queen Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, who appears to have
Francis Walsingham (Jesuit) He published "Search made into Matters of Religion, by F. W., before his change to the Catholike" (s. l. 1609; 2nd edit. St. Omer, 1615). The work was dedicated to James I, to whom the author states he had formerly submitted his religious difficulties. Down to the time of Alban Butler it was frequently commended to those showing an inclination to Roman Catholicism, and was often reprinted and abridged. In the controversial parts, and especially in the attack on the "falsities" of Matthew Sutcliffe, Walsingham perhaps worked with Parsons. In 1618 he published his "Reasons for embracing the Catholic Faith"