Barn Elms replaced the earlier one occupied by Sir Francis Walsingham, "Elizabeth's Spymaster". Queen Elizabeth I would visit Barn Elms to see her Spymaster. Barn Elms features in English literary history from the time the royalist poet Abraham Cowley moved to the house belonging to John Cartwright in 1663. In the 1660s Barn Elms became a fashionable destination for boating picnics. Samuel Pepys, who arranged many a Sunday afternoon or moonlit evening boating party to Barn Elms himself, recorded that on 26 May 1667: "I walked the length of the Elmes, and with great pleasure saw some gallant ladies and people come
Edward Walsingham printed at London by James Young in 1652, 4to; a second edition appeared in 1655, and was reprinted in 1810, 12mo. In 1694 it was issued with Sir Robert Naunton's "Fragmenta Regalia" in 1722 an edition was published substituting "Instructions for Youth" for the first part of the title, and giving different renderings of various passages from classical authors (reprinted 1728). Edward Walsingham Edward Walsingham (died 1663) was an English royalist author, known for his verse of the First English Civil War and "Arcana Aulica", often wrongly attributed to Sir Francis Walsingham. According to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon,