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
Francis Harvey (MP for Colchester) Francis Harvey (MP for Colchester) Francis Harvey was an English politician. He was born in 1534, the second son of John Harvey of Ickworth, Suffolk by Elizabeth, daughter of Henry Pope of Mildenhall, Suffolk. In 1571 and 1584–1587, he was the Member of Parliament for Colchester, Essex as the nominee of Sir Francis Walsingham. In 1589, he was elected MP for Knaresborough and in 1593 MP for Chippenham. He married, firstly, Mary, daughter and coheiress of Thomas Neville of Holt, Leicestershire and the widow of Sir John Smithand and, secondly, Camillia, the daughter of Vincent Guiccardini, Florentine merchant, who was