Frances Walsingham, Countess of Essex Frances Walsingham, Countess of Essex Frances Walsingham, Dowager Countess of Essex and Countess of Clanricarde (1567 – 17 February 1633) was an English noblewoman. The daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, she became the wife of Sir Philip Sidney at age 16. Her second husband was The 2nd Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, with whom she had five children. Shortly after his execution in 1601, she married her lover, The 4th Earl of Clanricarde, and went to live in Ireland. She was the only surviving child of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State for Queen
Francis Walsingham disrupted a range of plots against Elizabeth and secured the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots. Francis Walsingham was born in or about 1532, probably at Foots Cray, near Chislehurst, Kent. His parents were William and Joyce Walsingham. William was a successful, well-connected and wealthy London lawyer who died in 1534 and Joyce was the daughter of courtier Sir Edmund Denny and the sister of Sir Anthony Denny, who was the principal gentleman of King Henry VIII's privy chamber. William Walsingham served as a member of the commission that was appointed to investigate the estates of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in