Men of Kent and Kentishmen/Sir Francis Walsingham
Sir Francis Walsingham,
STATESMAN,
Was born at Chiselhurst, in 1536, of an ancient family, long settled in that place. He was educated at Cambridge and abroad, where he acquired such a knowledge of languages as commended him to Sir William Cecil, who employed him on several embassies to the Court of France. In 1573 he was appointed one of the Secretaries of State and knighted. He was subsequently Ambassador to James VI., in Scotland, and one of the Commissioners on the trial of Mary Queen of Scots. He died 6th April, 1590, and was buried in St. Paul's Cathedral. His only daughter, Frances, was married first to Sir Philip Sidney, secondly to Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, and thirdly to Richard, Earl of Clanricard and St. Albans. Many of Sir Francis's letters are preserved in the writings of Sir Dudley Digges and others, but it is doubtful whether any of his writings were otherwise published. He was a man of deep policy, and strongly tinctured with puritanical principles.
[See "Biographia Britannica," Lloyd's '"State Worthies," Melvil's "Memoirs," and Histories of the Period.]