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 promotion schemes and invested in the Muscovy Company and the Levant Company. He supported the attempts of John Davis and Martin Frobisher to discover the Northwest Passage and exploit the mineral resources of Labrador, and encouraged Humphrey Gilbert's exploration of Newfoundland. Gilbert's voyage was largely financed by recusant Catholics and Walsingham favoured the scheme as a potential means of removing Catholics from England by encouraging emigration to the New World. Walsingham was among the promoters of Francis Drake's profitable 1578–1581 circumnavigation of the world, correctly judging that Spanish possessions in the Pacific were vulnerable to attack. The venture was calculated