Francis Walsingham - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

Mary I died in 1558, and she was succeeded by her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth I. Walsingham returned to England, and through the support of one of his fellow former exiles, Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament as the member for Bossiney, Cornwall, in 1559. At the subsequent election in 1563, he was returned for both Lyme Regis, Dorset, another constituency under Bedford's influence, and Banbury, Oxfordshire. He chose to sit for Lyme Regis. In January 1562 he married Anne, daughter of Sir George Barne, Lord Mayor of London in 1552–3, and widow of wine merchant Alexander Carleill. Anne died two years later leaving her son Christopher Carleill in Walsingham's care. In 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 Cecil to counteract plots against Elizabeth. He was instrumental in the collapse of the Ridolfi plot, which hoped to replace Elizabeth with the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots. He is credited with writing propaganda decrying a conspiratorial marriage between Mary and Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, and Roberto di Ridolfi, after whom the plot was named, was interrogated at Walsingham's house.

In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations with Charles IX of France. Later that year, he succeeded Sir Henry Norris as English ambassador in Paris. One of his duties was to continue negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and Charles IX's younger brother Henry, Duke of Anjou. The marriage plan was eventually dropped on the grounds of Henry's Catholicism. A substitute match with the next youngest brother, Francis, Duke of Alençon, was proposed but Walsingham considered him ugly and "void of a good humour". Elizabeth was 20 years older than Alençon, and was concerned that the age difference would be seen as absurd. Walsingham believed that it would serve England better to seek a military alliance with France against Spanish interests. The defensive Treaty of Blois was concluded between France and England in 1572, but the treaty made no provision for a royal marriage and left the question of Elizabeth's successor open.

The Huguenots, and other European Protestant interests, supported the nascent revolt in the Spanish Netherlands, which were provinces of Habsburg Spain. When Catholic opposition to this course in France resulted in the death of Huguenot leader Gaspard de Coligny and the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Walsingham's house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary for Protestant refugees, including Philip Sidney. Ursula, who was pregnant, escaped to England with their four-year-old daughter, and she gave birth to a second girl, Mary, in January 1573 while Walsingham was still in France. He returned to England in April 1573, having established himself as a competent official whom the Queen and Cecil could trust. He cultivated contacts throughout Europe, and a century later his dispatches would be published as The Complete Ambassador.

In the December following his return, Walsingham was appointed to the Privy Council of England and was made joint principal secretary (the position which later became "Secretary of State") with Sir Thomas Smith. Smith retired in 1576, leaving Walsingham in effective control of the privy seal, though he was not formally invested as Lord Privy Seal. Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian. He was knighted on 1 December 1577, and held the sinecure posts of Recorder of Colchester, custos rotulorum of Hampshire, and High Steward of Salisbury, Ipswich, and Winchester. He was appointed Chancellor of the Order of the Garter from 22 April 1578 until succeeded by Sir Amias Paulet in June 1587, when he became Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in addition to principal secretary.