Simon Fernandes time and piracy was an offence punishable by hanging, but in practice Fernandes was engaged in exactly the sort of behaviour to which Queen Elizabeth I of England was inclined to turn a blind eye. However, the Portuguese ambassador Francisco Giraldi vigorously protested Fernandes's activities to the Queen's ministers, after the alleged murder of seven Portuguese sailors, and in 1577 the 39-year-old Fernandes was arrested in Cardiff and taken to London to face trial. However, far from being hanged for his crimes, Fernandes was released, apparently with the connivance of Queen Elizabeth's spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, who appears to have
Walsingham (music) Walsingham (music) Walsingham was a popular Elizabethan ballad tune. There are various versions of the lyrics, which relate to a pilgrimage site, suppressed during the English Reformation. The tune provided inspiration for Elizabethan composers, notably William Byrd. Byrd wrote a set of keyboard variations called Have with Yow to Walsingame ("Be off to Walsingham"). In some sources it is called "As I went to Walsingham", the first line of the following quatrain. <poem style="margin-left:2em;">As I went to Walsingham, To the shrine with speed, Met I with a jolly palmer In a pilgrim's weed.</poem> Walsingham is a pilgrimage site in Norfolk,