Francis Throckmorton of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's spymaster. A search of his house produced incriminating evidence and, after torture on the rack, Throckmorton confessed his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England. An invasion led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, would have been coupled with an orchestrated uprising of Catholics within the country. Although Throckmorton later retracted his confession, he was convicted of high treason and executed in 1584. Sir Francis Throckmorton is featured in the film "", where he is played by Steven Robertson. In the film, he is shown asking
Walsingham Priory shrine dismantled, and the priory destroyed, its site was sold by order of Henry VIII to one Thomas Sidney for 90 pounds, and a private mansion was subsequently erected on the spot. The Elizabethan ballad, "A Lament for Walsingham," expresses something of what the faithful felt at the loss of their glorious shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham. On the other hand, the ballad literature suggests that some pilgrims sought non-religious encounters: Ophelia in "Hamlet" quotes from lyrics about Walsingham in which a woman asks about her pilgrim lover. Walsingham Priory Walsingham Priory was a monastery of Augustinian Canons regular