Frances Walsingham, Countess of Essex survived infancy with her second husband, these were named Frances, Robert and Dorothy. Robert became the third Earl of Essex. In 1603, she married her third husband Richard De Burgh (or Burke), Earl of St Albans and Clanricarde. They had one son, Ulick Burke, 1st Marquess of Clanricarde, and a daughter, Honora, who became the second wife of John Paulet, 5th Marquess of Winchester. 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
Francis Walsingham information to Spain. Walsingham may have been aware of Stafford's duplicity, as he fed the ambassador false information, presumably in the hope of fooling or confusing the Spanish. The pro-English Regent of Scotland James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, whom Walsingham had supported, was overthrown in 1578. After the collapse of the Raid of Ruthven, another initiative to secure a pro-English government in Scotland, Walsingham reluctantly visited the Scottish court in August 1583, knowing that his diplomatic mission was unlikely to succeed. James VI dismissed Walsingham's advice on domestic policy saying he was an "absolute King" in Scotland. Walsingham replied