Francis Walsingham - Early Years

Early Years

Francis Walsingham was born in or about 1532, probably at Foots Cray, near Chislehurst, Kent. His parents were William and Joyce Walsingham. William was a successful, well-connected and wealthy London lawyer who died in 1534, and Joyce was the daughter of courtier Sir Edmund Denny and the sister of Sir Anthony Denny, who was the principal gentleman of King Henry VIII's privy chamber. William Walsingham served as a member of the commission that was appointed to investigate the estates of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530, and his elder brother, Sir Edmund Walsingham, was the lieutenant of the Tower of London. After William's death, his widow, 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, one married Sir Walter Mildmay, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer for over 20 years, and another 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 in continental Europe, returning to England by 1552 to enrol at Gray's Inn, one of the qualifying bodies for English lawyers.

Upon the death in 1553 of Henry VIII's successor, Edward VI, Edward's Catholic half-sister Mary I became queen. Many wealthy Protestants, such as John Foxe and John Cheke, fled England, and Walsingham was among them. He continued his studies in law at the universities of Basel and Padua, where he was elected to the governing body by his fellow students in 1555.