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
Thomas Walsingham Thomas Walsingham's literary pursuits. Walsingham was no relation to Sir Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth I. A modern edition of Walsingham's Chronica Maiora in: David Preest, "The" Chronica Maiora "of Thomas Walsingham 1376-1422", with Introduction and Notes by James G. Clark (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2005). Thomas Walsingham Thomas Walsingham (died c. 1422) was an English chronicler, and is the source of much of the knowledge of the reigns of Richard II, Henry IV and Henry V, and the careers of John Wycliff and Wat Tyler. Walsingham was a Benedictine monk who spent most of his life at St. Albans Abbey,