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
Walsingham Walsingham Walsingham is a village in North Norfolk, England, famous for its religious shrines in honour of the Virgin Mary. It also contains the ruins of two medieval monastic houses. The civil parish, including Little Walsingham and Great Walsingham, together with the depopulated medieval village of Egmere (), has an area of 18.98 km². At the 2011 census, it had a population of 819. Walsingham is a major centre of pilgrimage. In 1061, according to the Walsingham legend, a Saxon noblewoman, Richeldis de Faverches, had a vision of the Virgin Mary in which she was instructed to build a replica