Barn Elms replaced the earlier one occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham, "Elizabeth's Spymaster". Queen Elizabeth I would visit Barn Elms to see her Spymaster. Barn Elms features in English literary history from the time the royalist poet Abraham Cowley moved to the house belonging to John Cartwright in 1663. In the 1660s Barn Elms became a fashionable destination for boating picnics. Samuel Pepys, who arranged many a Sunday afternoon or moonlit evening boating party to Barn Elms himself, recorded that on 26 May 1667: "I walked the length of the Elmes, and with great pleasure saw some gallant ladies and people come
Francis Walsingham Spanish logistics. The Spanish Armada sailed for England in July 1588. Walsingham received regular dispatches from the English naval forces, and raised his own troop of 260 men as part of the land defences. On 18 August 1588, after the dispersal of the armada, naval commander Lord Henry Seymour wrote to Walsingham, "you have fought more with your pen than many have in our English navy fought with their enemies". In foreign intelligence, Walsingham's extensive network of "intelligencers", who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean. While foreign intelligence was a normal part of