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) (London). Francis Walsingham (Jesuit) Francis Walsingham (baptised 7 February 1577 – 1 July 1647) was an English Jesuit priest, who assumed the name John Fennell. The son of Edward Walsingham of Exhall, near Alcester, Warwickshire, he was born in Hawick. Borders His father died before his birth, and his mother, who was a Roman Catholic, brought him to London. His uncle, Humphrey Walsingham, who was a relation of Sir Francis Walsingham, placed him at St Paul's School, London. As the part of his instruction there he read the Protestant divines John Foxe, John Jewell, John Calvin, and Theodore Beza, and