Frances Walsingham, Countess of Essex 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 became the wife of Sir Philip Sidney at age 16. Her second husband was The 2nd Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth's favourite, with whom she had five children. Shortly after his execution in 1601, she married her lover, The 4th Earl of Clanricarde, and went to live in Ireland. She was the only surviving child of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State for Queen
Francis Walsingham (Jesuit) Francis Walsingham (Jesuit) Francis Walsingham (baptised 7 February 1577 – 1 July 1647) was an English Jesuit priest, who assumed the name John Fennell. The son of Edward Walsingham of Exhall, near Alcester, Warwickshire, he was born in Hawick. Borders His father died before his birth, and his mother, who was a Roman Catholic, brought him to London. His uncle, Humphrey Walsingham, who was a relation of Sir Francis Walsingham, placed him at St Paul's School, London. As the part of his instruction there he read the Protestant divines John Foxe, John Jewell, John Calvin, and Theodore Beza, and in