Thomas Walsingham (literary patron) Thomas Walsingham (literary patron) Sir Thomas Walsingham (c. 1561 – 11 August 1630) was a courtier to Queen Elizabeth I and literary patron to such poets as Thomas Watson, Thomas Nashe, George Chapman and Christopher Marlowe. He was related to Elizabeth's spymaster Francis Walsingham and the employer of Marlowe's murderer Ingram Frizer. This connection is one of the reasons offered for suggesting that Marlowe's death may have been linked with intelligence work, and not a dispute over a bill for food and accommodation, as in the coroner's verdict. Walsingham was the third son of Sir Thomas Walsingham (1526–1584), an important
Francis Walsingham invasion of England along with a domestic uprising to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Elizabeth. Throckmorton was executed in 1584 and Mendoza was expelled from England. After the assassination in mid-1584 of William the Silent, the leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain, English military intervention in the Low Countries was agreed in the Treaties of Nonsuch of 1585. The murder of William the Silent also reinforced fears for Queen Elizabeth's safety. Walsingham helped create the Bond of Association, the signatories of which promised to hunt down and kill anyone who conspired against Elizabeth. The Act for the