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
Francis Walsingham (Jesuit) 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 in