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
The Unfortunate Traveller corrected and augmented" edition of the text appeared later in the same year by the same publisher. No new editions appeared through the handpress era. In "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", Sir Jack Wilton (standing in for real-life Elizabethan spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham) was the "M" of the late 16th century. He led a group of special operatives called Prospero's Men shortly after the reign of "Good Queen Gloriana" of England. The Unfortunate Traveller The Unfortunate Traveller: or, the Life of Jack Wilton (published "The Unfortunate Traueller: or, The Life of Jacke Wilton") is a picaresque novel by Thomas Nashe