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 1530, and his elder brother, Sir Edmund Walsingham, was Lieutenant of the Tower of London. After William's death, Joyce married the courtier Sir John Carey in 1538. Carey's brother William was the husband of Mary Boleyn, Anne Boleyn's elder sister. Of Francis Walsingham's five sisters, Mary married Sir Walter Mildmay, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for over 20 years, and Elizabeth married the parliamentarian Peter Wentworth. Francis Walsingham matriculated at King's College, Cambridge, in 1548 with many other Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for a degree. From 1550 or 1551, he travelled