Francis Walsingham Francis Walsingham Sir Francis Walsingham ( 1532 – 6 April 1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster". Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Walsingham attended Cambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on a career in law at the age of twenty. A committed Protestant, during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England he joined other expatriates in exile in Switzerland and northern Italy until Mary's death and the accession of her Protestant half-sister, Elizabeth. Walsingham rose
Walsingham (music) Walsingham (music) Walsingham was a popular Elizabethan ballad tune. There are various versions of the lyrics, which relate to a pilgrimage site, suppressed during the English Reformation. The tune provided inspiration for Elizabethan composers, notably William Byrd. Byrd wrote a set of keyboard variations called Have with Yow to Walsingame ("Be off to Walsingham"). In some sources it is called "As I went to Walsingham", the first line of the following quatrain. <poem style="margin-left:2em;">As I went to Walsingham, To the shrine with speed, Met I with a jolly palmer In a pilgrim's weed.</poem> Walsingham is a pilgrimage site in Norfolk,