Sir Francis Walsingham

by Derek Wilson

  Good Mr Secretary, This Lady’s tailor, Jukes, yet with much ado is [dismissed], and she loth to let him depart. Desiring to retain still all that come to her, she caused him to make sundry things for her, which hath been [the reason for] his stay. I made him to be truly looked unto. Yet, can I not answer but that they might use some [secret] practice with him. I know them so well and their cunning dealings [that] I cannot be of other opinions.9

  So Shrewsbury reported in April 1581, but for all his vigilance and the beavering of Walsingham’s agents nothing seriously incriminating came to light.

  This was frustrating for the secretary. Scraps of intelligence coming into his office offered glimpses of fresh plots, plans and alliances directed against England but no coherent pattern emerged and certainly nothing that would tie the Queen of Scots to a conspiracy against Elizabeth. Ironically it was those very events that encouraged England’s enemies which provided Walsingham with more valuable information. The fire beneath the pot of Catholic conspiracy was fanned by indignation at Drake’s piracy (Mendoza was so angry about Elizabeth’s support for her corsair that he refused to attend her court after November 1580), by d’Aubigny’s success in Scotland and by the fate of Campion and other priests. Throughout the Catholic world there was an accelerating optimism; a sense that God was about to bring the defiant heretic nation to its knees. Serious plans were discussed at the highest levels. Conspiracies abounded and more and more people were brought into them. This was Walsingham’s opportunity. The increasing number of chains being forged meant that there were certain to be weak links.

  While he was in France, in the autumn of 1581, Walsingham probed the Guise circle to discover what he could about how their Scottish connections worked and what their plans were. He observed a worrying euphoria amongst the ultra-Catholics at court. Guise policy which, during the early wars of religion had been a flexible mix of dynastic, religious and political interests, had now settled into a determined crusade, not only to exterminate Huguenots, but also to carry the papal offensive abroad, at swordpoint if necessary. They had formed a national Catholic League and were in cahoots with Philip II. This was the collusion Walsingham had always feared. With d’Aubigny in place in Edinburgh the conspirators regarded the re-conversion of Scotland as virtually a done deal. Their plans were both detailed and ambitious. The principal couriers were the Jesuit Robert Persons, who had recently escaped from England following Campion’s arrest, and William Crichton, a Scottish Jesuit. Persons was in the process of setting up another English seminary on Guise’s estate at Eu in Normandy, about which Elizabeth soon protested in the strongest terms. She instructed her ambassador to demand the closure of the college and not to be fobbed off with assurances that the establishment was for purely educational purposes.

  . . . her Highness certainly knoweth that the foundation of the same seminaries and houses is only to instruct such young persons as may be cunningly allured thither, from whence afterwards they are returned with charge to seduce her majesty’s subjects from their true allegiance, due unto her, unto the obedience of such as by bulls and censures have sought and do seek her Majesty’s deprivation and ruin; as may be verified by the examinations of sundry of them which have been taken in this realm, and by such writings and instructions as have been taken with them, and therefore her Majesty can in no wise repute them in the number of her good subjects.10

  Persons was despatched to Lisbon to meet Philip with a request for 8,000 troops. Crichton would return to Scotland with a view to receiving the young king into the Catholic church. Those who knew James well believed that his conversion might be achieved on the offer of a suitably large financial inducement. If necessary, the king was to be brought into France. Mendoza, meanwhile, was in touch with malcontent English nobles in the north, who were to join with a Scottish army once a Catholic regime had been established north of the border. An intercepted letter from Mary Stuart to James Beaton, her representative in Paris, revealed that she was apprised of the general outline of the plot.

  This information reaching Walsingham in bits and pieces over the weeks and months led to frenzied and diverse activity. For her part, Elizabeth preferred to deal with her fellow royals. She sent Beale to Sheffield Lodge where Mary was currently being held to see whether it might be possible to reach an accommodation. The Queen of Scots offered a deal: she would recognize Elizabeth as lawful occupant to the English throne and forswear all discussion with foreign powers if she were allowed to return to Scotland to rule jointly with her son. When Beale reported back his royal mistress was disposed to give Mary the benefit of the doubt. Partly to please Anjou, she authorized some lessening of Mary’s confinement and assured her of her goodwill. Walsingham, meanwhile, was at his wit’s end with Elizabeth’s inability or unwillingness to recognize the Scottish queen’s duplicity. By now he had a good idea of what was brewing and of Mary’s involvement in it. Confirmation came with an important surveillance coup in May. One of the couriers being used by Mendoza was an agent posing as an itinerant tooth-puller. He aroused the suspicion of Sir John Forster, Warden of the Middle March. The messenger was arrested and though he escaped (probably through bribery) he left some of his belongings behind. Concealed in the back of a mirror Forster discovered Mendoza’s letters to Crichton. These told Walsingham virtually all he needed to know about the ominous league of forces operating against England. It must have been with an I-told-you-so air that the secretary reported to the queen on the machinations of her enemies and insisted that she intervene in the affairs of young King James and grasp the nettle of dealing with his mother. But any such action struck at the heart of Elizabeth’s conviction that the persons of anointed sovereigns were inviolable. She would not countenance encouraging Scottish subjects to defy their king. Walsingham’s frustration knew no bounds. Since Elizabeth seemed determined to be her own worst enemy, he now took the policy initiative of personally intriguing with his allies among the Scottish nobility.

  As the international situation grew more and more tense and dangerous through the 1580s we find Walsingham increasingly acting alone in his concern for the safety of his queen, his country and his religion. In his official letters he was at pains to indicate to ambassadors and foreign correspondents that he was conveying the instructions of the queen or the ‘lords of the Council’ but often he was keeping his superiors in the dark and pursuing his own courses. He was at the centre of the widest and most effective intelligence web. He possessed the best overview of international affairs. Therefore he felt he knew better than anyone else the appropriate action that should be taken. The next step, if he could not win his argument in debate, was to go it alone. The temptation to act independently is one that faces many guardians of national secrets. The name J. Edgar Hoover comes very readily to mind. Like the FBI chief, Walsingham was impatient with his political leaders. He regarded the queen as being incapable of consistent action, Burghley as being too cautious and deferential towards Philip II, and the rest of the Council as being too often distracted by factions and personality clashes. Accordingly, he played his cards close to his chest, letting out information to his colleagues, and even his mistress, on a need-to-know basis. Thus, for example, he instructed the English ambassador in France to write certain elements of his report in a ‘by-letter and not in your general letter, which I must needs show to divers of my lords, and so either make them privy to the contents of the cipher or vex them if I send it undeciphered’.11 When Walsingham discovered that the ambassador in Scotland, Robert Bowes, was reporting to Burghley, as well to him, he remonstrated. He ordered Bowes to communicate directly to him, in cipher, so that no one at court could open his letters and read them whenever he was not there. Another diplomat, Edward Stafford, ambassador to France, was so worried by Walsingham’s methods that he complained to Burghley:

  I write to you, my lord, as the only friend upon whom I repose trust, to know your advice upon a letter Mr Secretary writ me yesterday . . . he would have me write to him secretly. I know
that by his means the Queen has had false advertisements of preparations here from his factors and has been incensed that news of importance should come from others.12

  As we shall see, Walsingham was keeping a close watch on the ambassador, who had aroused his suspicions. Three years later Stafford was known to be selling information about English naval movements to Guise and Philip. But his dealings with the ambassador are further evidence that Walsingham was a control freak. His unilateral activity was risky and he certainly could not have indulged in it without the support of the Earl of Leicester.

  It was clear to him that the key to the Scottish situation was the young king and his bedazzlement with d’Aubigny. Walsingham was in close contact with the anti-French caucus in Scotland and with the fugitive Earl of Angus who was their ally in England. Angus went to Elizabeth and asked for money to fund a coup. Inevitably the queen declined to be involved. Walsingham, therefore, advanced some of his own capital and helped to organize the plot. All was going well until the secretary heard from Paris that his plans were discovered. He sent messengers galloping northwards to Robert Bowes, who urged the conspirators to accelerate their arrangements. The result was the kidnapping of a king. When James was hunting close to Perth on 7 August a party of horsemen intercepted him and carried him off to the nearby castle of Ruthven, a stronghold of the Earl of Gowrie.

  It was round two to the Protestant lords but the match was far from over. D’Aubigny was still at large. He planned a counter-kidnap, which failed. French intrigues were still afoot. Their party was still strong and loyalties on both sides were mutable; that is to say they could be bought. Walsingham urged Elizabeth to open her purse. He received the old answer. In the name of King James his new minders ordered the favourite out of the country. Desperately, d’Aubigny prevaricated. After the counter-kidnap failed he tried to organize support among some of the northern English nobles but his letters were intercepted. Meanwhile, Henry III and the Guises sent a new ambassador, La Mothe Fénélon, to Scotland. He arrived in London en route to take up his assignment, his luggage including chests of French gold. He presented himself at Elizabeth’s court and requested a passport to travel overland to Scotland. At all costs it was vital to prevent the diplomat enabling d’Aubigny to turn the tables by financing his cause and assuring him of military aid. There now ensued an almost comic situation. The queen’s councillors devised stratagem after stratagem to detain Fénélon, while urging their Scottish confederates to eject d’Aubigny with all possible haste. Eventually the impatient ambassador told Elizabeth that, if his passport was not forthcoming, he would create a diplomatic incident by packing his bags and going home. The passport was duly produced and the diplomat, William Davison, was assigned to accompany Fénélon on his journey – with secret instructions from Walsingham to do everything possible to slow him down. When every means to detain the Frenchman had been exhausted he left London at the end of December. And still no word had been received about d’Aubigny’s departure from Scotland. In fact the exiled favourite set out from Dalkeith about the same time that Fénélon quit London. It had been a close call.

  But the constantly changing cloudscape of Scottish events allowed the English government no opportunity to relax. In June 1583 King James was snatched out of Gowrie’s custody. This time the kidnap was engineered by the captain of the royal guard whom Walsingham had been instrumental in putting in place. This is yet one more indication that in the intricate world of national and international factions almost anyone could be bought. French influence was once more in the ascendant north of the border. Walsingham was driven to distraction by the worsening situation. What he learned from his latest intelligence source only added to his alarm.

  He had discovered that the French embassy was the clearing house for the secret correspondence reaching Mary from France and Spain. The ambassador, Michel de Castlenau, Sieur de la Mauvissière was a charming, friendly man whom, on a personal level, Walsingham liked. However he was not very astute and had no inkling that the secretary was soon running two spies in his household. The first, Giordano Bruno, a guest under Castlenau’s roof, offered his services to the English government without prompting. Many would-be informants resorted to Walsingham because they knew that he was a willing paymaster hungry for intelligence, and we cannot know to what extent greed and idealism motivated most occupants of the seamy diplomatic underworld. Bruno, however, was in a different category. A Neapolitan scholar, poet and philosopher of distinction, he enjoyed Europewide literary and political connections. In religious matters he was a fence-sitter, opposing the pretensions of the papacy without embracing Protestantism. He enjoyed London’s intellectual scene because of its atmosphere of free debate and was particularly attracted to the Dudley-Sidney circle. He was a well-informed and also a witty correspondent. For instance the nom de guerre he chose for himself suggested that in the opinion of Catholic reactionaries he was a heretic; a brand for the burning. He signed his reports ‘Henry Fagot’.

  The second agent was a Scottish theologian and poet, William Fowler, who had found himself in an English jail. The price of his freedom was to be Walsingham’s mole in the French embassy. So now there were two government spies in Castelnau’s palatial residence, Salisbury Court, close by the notorious Bridewell house of correction, among whose inmates were both Puritan and Catholic undesirables. Neither knew of the other’s activities and the situation bordered on the comic when Bruno warned Walsingham that Fowler was not all he seemed. In fact, Fowler obviously overplayed his hand and this was actually useful to Walsingham, for, while Castelnau was keeping an eye on Fowler, he was oblivious to Bruno’s activities. And Bruno was a real danger to him.

  The Italian was a remarkable spy with a real talent for the work. In the summer of 1583 he bribed no less a person than Castelnau’s secretary, Nicolas Leclerc, Sieur de Courcelles, to betray his master’s secrets. Was it jealousy that prompted Leclerc to turn against his employer? Did he hope to elbow the aged ambassador aside and take his job? Leclerc was certainly ambitious and went on to higher diplomatic service. Whatever the truth of the matter, Walsingham was now receiving a steady supply of reports and copied confidential documents from Salisbury Court. From them he learned how Mary Stuart’s communication system worked. Her couriers included Henry Howard, brother of the Duke of Norfolk who had been executed after the Ridolfi plot, and Francis Throckmorton, nephew of the diplomat, Sir Nicholas Throckmorton. Bruno particularly disliked Howard and made him the victim of a savagely witty literary attack. Both men were covert Catholics and Howard was already under surveillance. It was now revealed that they made frequent nocturnal visits to the embassy. Everything was now going well for Walsingham. He was carefully accumulating evidence and had high hopes of being able to secure the big prize – incontrovertible evidence against Mary that would lead to her trial and execution. All he had to do was wait for the appropriate moment to strike.

  Then came the bombshell. In late July Elizabeth ordered him to go to Scotland and sort out in person English relations with the king. Walsingham was furious. He did not want to be away from London at such a crucial time and he was convinced that the Scottish mission was a fool’s errand. According to Mendoza he actually prostrated himself before the queen, begging her to rescind the order and vowing that he would not drive north even if she threatened to hang him for disobedience. Of course, he did go. It was left for his deputy, Robert Beale, to confide mournfully to England’s man in Paris:

  Mr Secretary is to be this day at Berwick. The king goes very violently on with the late change of noblemen, and ‘cannot be entreated to stay’ by her Majesty’s letter praying him not to proceed further until Mr. Secretary’s coming. So I doubt whether he will be able to do any good therein. ‘I fear we have lost too many good occasions of settling that realm for the general quietness of the whole Isle, which will be hard to bring so well to pass hereafter, if things go outward as they have lately begun. The Lord’s will be done.’13

  Events turned out j
ust as the brothers-in-law feared. In Scotland the sixteen-year-old king was flexing his intellectual muscles. Understandably suspicious of those who sought to manipulate him, he asserted his right to choose for himself whom to trust. At the moment this did not include the emissaries of his ‘cousin’ Elizabeth. Walsingham was certainly not the wisest of choices as an appropriate person to win over an impressionable, teenage prince. When he was granted an audience he did not hesitate to deliver what, in abstract, reads like a Calvinist sermon. James cannot have enjoyed being told ‘that young princes were many times carried into great errors upon an opinion of the absoluteness of their royal authority and do not consider, that when they transgress the bounds and limits of the law, they leave to be kings and become tyrants.’14

  The Earl of Arran, who now held the reins in Edinburgh, complained to Elizabeth of her envoy’s heavy-handedness. This played into the hands of Walsingham’s conciliar opponents and exposed the divisions within government. Walsingham was all for plotting yet another coup with his Scottish allies. Elizabeth still hoped to achieve a compromise by direct talks with Mary. Burghley, Hunsdon and the appeasement group favoured doing a deal with Arran. When Walsingham discovered that other approaches were running concurrently with his own he was, understandably, piqued. It confirmed his impression that all his efforts were so much wasted time and energy. Months later he wrote to William Davison in Scotland very frankly describing the state of affairs within the Council. We are fortunate in having the first draft of his letter as well as the finished version, which was toned down. What Walsingham first wrote, and obviously felt deeply, was: