Christopher Carleill Christopher Carleill Christopher Carleill ( 15511593) was an English military and naval commander. Born about 1551, he was the son of Alexander Carleill, citizen and vintner of London, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir George Barne. After Alexander's death, Christopher's mother Anne married Francis Walsingham in January 1562; Walsingham was spymaster to Queen Elizabeth I of England. Anne died in 1564 and left her son Christopher in Walsingham's care. Christopher was educated in the University of Cambridge. In 1572 he went to Flushing (Vlissingen), and was present at the Siege of Middelburg. Lodewijk van Boisot, the Dutch admiral, had
Francis Walsingham 1566, Walsingham married Ursula St. Barbe, widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Walsingham acquired her estates of Appuldurcombe and Carisbrooke Priory on the Isle of Wight. The following year, she bore him a daughter, Frances. Walsingham's other two stepsons, Ursula's sons John and George, were killed in a gunpowder accident at Appuldurcombe in 1567. In the following years, Walsingham became active in soliciting support for the Huguenots in France and developed a friendly and close working relationship with Nicholas Throckmorton, his predecessor as MP for Lyme Regis and a former ambassador to France. By 1569, Walsingham was working with William