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
Edward Walsingham or the Life of ... Sir Henry Gage". Another work left in manuscript was "Hector Britannicus", on Sir John Digby (1605–1645), brother to Sir Kenelm Digby. These works have been described as hagiography, with the subjects having in common Catholicism, culture and a noble background and character. In 1651 he sent as a present to Ormonde his "Arcana Aulica, or Walsingham's Manual of Prudential Maxims for the Statesman and the Courtier." This work has been generally attributed to Sir Francis Walsingham, and other conjectures have been made as to its authorship. Its original was an anonymous French work, "Traité de