by Lee Miller
Burghley’s only possible motive, therefore, would have to be professional: Did Roanoke threaten English security? Would unprovoked attacks against Spanish shipping result in war for England? Would the venture drain the treasury? Opposed to piracy in principle, Burghley could hardly be expected to approve of a military base on Roanoke that encouraged assaults on Spanish vessels.35 But White’s colony wasn’t military. Burghley himself considered North America fair game.
There is something in Burghley’s character, too, that would make his sabotage of the Roanoke venture unlikely. Burghley is a survivor. He has weathered the storms of rapidly changing politics many times before: serving first the Protestant Edward VI; then the Catholic “Bloody” Mary, who condemned hundreds of Protestants to death; and now the Anglican Elizabeth.36 Burghley is a statesman capable of accommodation. Aware that the position of favorites is short-lived, he is more likely to use Raleigh to advantage rather than exert the effort to oust him. And so he does. Unless further evidence presents itself, we will eliminate Burghley.
Sir Francis Walsingham
We are running short of suspects. The investigation is taking an ominous turn, one we would rather avoid. We are entering very dangerous waters indeed and, alarmingly, find ourselves swept toward one inescapable conclusion. There is only one individual who could have commanded Fernandez to sabotage the Roanoke voyage. Only one individual who could have ordered him to maroon 117 innocent people on a remote island halfway around the world, far from home and without help. Only one individual who had the right combination of power, method, means, motive, and opportunity: it was Walsingham. And he got away with murder.
Surely this cannot be! Walsingham is Elizabeth’s most powerful official. Principal Secretary. Secretary of State. He and Burghley control the top echelon of government. Before he is through, his political career will span seventeen years. The tentacles of his power are so far-reaching that he is undeniably the most influential figure in Elizabethan England. If we are to accuse him, we had better be able to produce hard evidence.
When we open Walsingham’s file and read its contents, we find that he was born about the year 1532.37 He graduated from Cambridge and studied law at the Inns of Court. A solid beginning. During Queen Mary’s reign, he went to Italy. To Venice. Studied Roman civil law at Padua University. Padua! We may have something here. Red flag! Venice was a hotbed for the new Machiavellian statecraft, and the university its training ground. Students from across Europe flocked there to study its practices. Very interesting, for if Walsingham were a Machiavellian, his methods would be well defined. Political power is everything. The end justifies the means. However unscrupulous, attain the upper hand even if that means deception, treachery, and lies.
For the true Machiavellian, every action relates to this goal: all associations, all conversations, all friendships and activities are devoted to accomplishing this end. The old notions of chivalry and trust are dead. Enemies are defeated not by force but by a thorough understanding of their weaknesses. It is a world of betrayal. Of catching an opponent off guard, of false promises and adroit dealing. The key to the system is information. Through spy networks and espionage, it is obtained at all costs and by any method. As Walsingham once said, intelligence is never too dear?38
Lacking the normal avenues to power — nobility of birth, wealth and connection — Walsingham might very well have sought to achieve it through Machiavellian means. For achieve it he did, and rapidly. 1568: enters government service as an aide to Burghley in the collection of foreign intelligence. 1570: Ambassador to France. 1573: assumes Burghley’s position as Principal Secretary, the equivalent of Secretary of State. Five short years: he has reached the top.
Walsingham shapes the office to his own ends. His government policy will mold England into a world power, provided Elizabeth acts as a forceful leader of Protestantism. It is a course that will set her at direct odds with Philip of Spain. To a cunning political analyst like Walsingham, the trend is clear. Protestantism is a rising ideological force; the old Catholic order is crumbling.39 To oppose Spain is merely to abandon a leaking ship.
Leicester, taking his cue, supports Walsingham. Mendoza decries them both as extremely self seeking, conducting state business under cloak of preserving their religion. As James VI observed of Walsingham’s Protestant fervor, notwithstanding that outward profession, he is a very Machiavelli, and he counselled James to use religion for his people’s obedience40
Secret Service
To serve his needs, Walsingham constructs the most elaborate spy system in the world. Far greater, even, than Burghley’s. They note him, says Naunton, to have had certain curiosities and secret ways of intelligence above the rest.41 His intricate network of surveillance is a veritable underworld; mysterious circles of intrigue and espionage, secrecy and conspiracy. Dextrous was he in finding a secret, noted William Winstanley, close in keeping if.42 Rumor has it that he maintains hundreds of spies on his payroll; in 1582 they number at least five hundred.43
He was, remarked Camden, a diligent searcher out of hidden secrets, and one who knew exactly well how to win men’s affections to him and to make use of them for his own purposes, insomuch as in sagacity and officious services he surpassed the Queens expectation, and the Papists found fault with him as cunning and subtle in close carrying on his designs and enticing and decoying men into dangers44
No one knows who is a spy. Agents within Walsingham’s network are unaware of each other’s identity. On occasion, multiple and redundant espionage systems are used as additional security, spies spying on spies.45 On Leicester, on Burghley. And, most certainly, on Sir Walter Raleigh. Walsingham employs master code-breakers and encoders, such as the experts John Somers and Thomas Phelippes, along with handwriting specialists and forgers, like Arthur Gregory. Spies are planted in people’s homes, along the roads, in the workplace. In prisons. Quiet observers in Walsingham’s pay. Family members betray each other; servants spy upon their masters.
Sensitive material passes back and forth across the country from clusters of agents, penned in invisible ink concocted of milk and lemon juice, disguised in cipher and crypt. Messages are intercepted. Smuggled documents are ripped out of the lining of clothing, the pages of books, the false bottoms of trunks, the soles of shoes. Walsingham posts searchers at every English port and along mail routes. Agents report to him from Rome, Venice, Milan, and Florence. The Vatican and the Spanish Court. The Low Countries, France, and Germany. Constantinople, Algiers, and Tripoli.
In Walsingham’s Debt
Many of Walsingham’s spies are in debt to him for their lives. It is his policy of conscripting such people that finds Egremont Radcliffe, in the Tower for conspiracy, released to become an assassin and a spy. That makes agents of priests and seminary students branded as traitors, like Gilbert Gifford. That creates confidants of men like Bernard Mawde, in prison for extortion. That rescues pirates about to be hanged … such as Simon Fernandez.46
Fernandez first came to Walsingham’s attention at the height of his career as a pirate, operating out of south Wales in association with the notorious John Challice.47 The Secretary of State quietly observed the Azorean’s activities but did nothing, despite the vehement protest of the Portuguese ambassador, Francisco Giraldi, who accused Fernandez of murdering seven Portuguese sailors. 1577: following an incident involving Challice, the thirty-nine-year-old Fernandez is arrested in Cardiff and hauled to London on charges of piracy. A furious Giraldi promising evidence enough to hang him.48
After an inquest, Fernandez is mysteriously released. So is Challice. Giraldi excoriates Walsingham, demanding justice. Yet, in light of Spain’s secrecy, Fernandez is valuable. Maps of American waters are restricted, Iberian pilots strictly licensed, and foreigners banned from Spanish vessels, even as passengers. Fernandez once worked for them; he knows their routes well. Piracy is a capital offense. But instead of greeting the hangman’s noose, both Fernandez and Challice are found a year later piloting Gilbert’s 15
78 expedition to America. What sort of deal was worked out? Fernandez is identified as Walsingham’s man.49
Manipulation
As relations with Spain deteriorate, Walsingham entrenches himself in a cold-war policy sharply at odds with the peace efforts of Burghley and the Queen. Alarmed at his army of spies and political maneuvering, both distrust him. Spain declares Walsingham to be the archenemy. This Walsingham, exclaims an impassioned de Guaras, is of all heretics the worst. He is the right hand of [the Prince of] Orange and, he warns, any evil may be expected from him.50
Walsingham is engrossed in a great game of chess. The board pieces are Elizabeth, Burghley, Leicester, Mary Queen of Scots. He served himself of factions as his mistress did. Philip II, the French House of Guise, Catherine de Medici, the Pope. This Spanish proverb was familiar with him: Tell a lie, and find a Truth. William of Orange. Don Antonio, the Portuguese pretender. And this, speak no more than you may safely retreat from without danger.51 Walsingham’s strategy is nothing less than to checkmate the Catholic League.
Walsingham’s dexterity in employing and instructing his spies goes far toward promoting England’s interests, which he certainly has at heart.52 The diligence and care that both he and Burghley take in exposing the daily attempts and conspiracies against Elizabeth have saved her life on more than one occasion.53
Yet Walsingham is a dangerous man. He is known to pursue his own policy independent of the Queen’s. This is treason. Any lesser person would have been hanged. 1576: he goes too close to the edge. While Elizabeth is pursuing detente with Spain, Walsingham promotes rebellion in the Low Countries. The Spanish Governor of Antwerp warns the Queen that aid to the rebels will be regarded as an act of war. She, in turn, calls on the Prince of Orange to submit. Despite this, and while peace negotiations continue, Walsingham, Leicester, and their supporters in the Privy Council conduct clandestine meetings with Dutch rebels. Indeed, Walsingham continues to support Protestant insurgents throughout Europe, advising the Prince of Orange to make overtures to France in order to goad Elizabeth into action.54
For the love of God, madam, Walsingham once exploded at the Queen, let not the cure of your diseased state hang any longer on deliberation. Diseased states are no more cured by consultation, when nothing resolved on is put into execution, than unsound and diseased bodies by only conference with physicians, without receiving the remedies by them prescribed.55 Burghley and the Queen negotiate, Walsingham acts.
Walsingham also laid the foundation of the civil wars in France and the Low Countries…. Upon which occasion he told the Queen at his return from his embassy to France, “That she had no reason to fear the Spaniard; for though he had a strong appetite and a good digestion, he had given him such a bone to pick as would take him up twenty years at least, and break his teeth at last: so Her Majesty had no more to do but to throw into the fire he had kindled some English fuel from time to time to keep it burning.”56
A Master of Deception
While Elizabeth prevaricates on important issues, assassination attempts against her multiply at a furious rate. Occurring too often to be coincidental. Some, incredibly, are staged by Walsingham himself—as a means of forcing her hand.57 The Jesuit instigator Robert Parsons charges the Secretary with selectively reporting to the Queen, fabricating news, and fomenting wars and unrest in neighboring nations.58
Everywhere, it seems, Walsingham is mistrusted. The followers of the Prince of Orange express such deep suspicion about his character that the Secretary of State is forced to confront the Prince.59 March 1575: after English merchant vessels are seized by Orange as part of a blockade of Spanish-held Antwerp, Elizabeth flies at Walsingham, accusing him of inciting the incident.60
A Free Agent
1578. The case against Walsingham mounts. At a time when the Queen is promoting peace in the Low Countries, Egremont Radcliffe claims under torture that he was hired by Walsingham to assassinate the Governor of the Netherlands.61 Walsingham calls it slander. He was ranked among the Togati, William Winstanley reports, chief of those that laid the foundation of the Dutch and French wars, which was another piece of his fineness, and of the times.62 Walsingham might have been compared to the fiend in the Gospel that followed his tares in the night; so did he his seeds of division in the dark.63
The same year, Walsingham infuriates Elizabeth by advancing the Dutch a loan £5,000 thick, with the expectation that the royal treasury will make it up. It does not, and the Queen’s rage at Walsingham is as at some notorious offender. He, in turn, cautions her to beware, for it standeth not with her Majesty’s safety to deal so unkindly with those that serve her faithfully.
1581 finds Walsingham privy to a plot with Henry of Navarre, future king of France, to attack Spain directly. Henry would regain the occupied territory of Navarre, overrun by Spain. What concessions Walsingham would receive from France are unknown. Nothing comes of the negotiation, and it is unlikely that the Queen ever heard of it.65 This in itself is revealing. It should come as no surprise, then, that Walsingham instructed Sir Edward Stafford, ambassador to France, to send the Queen information containing only the bare essentials. But let me, he added, know all.66
That same year, aboard ship, pilot Simon Fernandez shocks the fleet’s chaplain, Richard Madox of Oxford, by declaring / am at war with the King of Spain. When the astonished priest asks how this could be, since he is now an English subject and Spain and England are at peace, Fernandez coolly responds that he has a free pardon from five Privy Councillors for carrying on war with Spain.61
Cunning as a Fox
Walsingham is indeed a master of Machiavellian politics. His vision for England is such that he is willing to pursue it at all costs, even when in direct opposition to merchant interests, the old Catholic nobility, Burgh-ley, and the Queen herself. He has been accused, rightly or wrongly, of manipulating even the heads of European states to his ends. What would happen, then, if someone were to get in his way?
1578. The Duke of Alengon, son of Catherine de Medici and heir to the French throne, is in the way. To cement an alliance with France, a match is proposed between Elizabeth and the Duke, whom the Queen affectionately terms her Frog.68 Outcry from the London populace is immediate. A flurry of pamphlets denouncing the match suddenly appears, inflaming talk of revolution should the marriage proceed, creating such a furor that it is called off. In Paris, the authorities angrily identify Walsingham as the agent behind the agitation.69
1585. Burghley is in the way, opposed to sending the military into the Netherlands. More significantly, a suit put forward by Walsingham for income from farming of the customs is strenuously opposed by Burghley — a matter I found did greatly touch me in credit, Walsingham informs him, having waded so far therein as I had done. … And thereupon I did plainly resolve with myself that it was a more safe course for me to hold you as an enemy than as a friend.70
To counter Burghley’s influence over the Queen, slanders are spread that he is the enemy of the Huguenots and the Dutch, that he lives too luxuriously, and that he controls the Queen. It is said that he keeps the country in a stranglehold. Walsingham is responsible for the smear campaign, although he adroitly allows Burghley to suspect Leicester.71 Both men know the Lord Treasurer’s sensitivity to slander: in 1572 the Treatise of Treasons was published in Antwerp, a stinging attack against Burghley which upset him tremendously. It is no coincidence that these libels are now dredged up and reused. / confess, Walsingham later admitted to Burghley, / sought up such information as heretofore (unsought for) have been given unto me, that might any way touch your L.72
Burghley asked him to name his informants and Walsingham declined. If I might do it with the credit of an honest man, I would not fail to satisfy your Lordship therein. Besides it might reach to such persons as are not to be called in question. Privileged, powerful sources. Walsingham denied Burghley’s charge that he had directed one of his agents to an exchequer to search of some matter that might touch you. In the end, Walsingham shifted to outr
ight entrapment, employing no less a person than Herllie, Burghley’s own spy, to try to bribe him into aiding the Dutch!73
The Greatest Intrigue of All
But of all the individuals in Walsingham’s way, none was more so than Mary Queen of Scots. Her case is very instructive. Ultimately it will involve the Lost Colonists themselves, however indirectly. 1586: Walsingham uncovers Babington’s Conspiracy, a plot to assassinate Elizabeth, and Mary Stuart’s hand plays out. Her complicity will lead to her execution.74
The plot takes shape at the instigation of one Anthony Babington, a young gentleman of good birth, rich, ripe-witted, and learned above most of his years.15 Gilbert Gifford, a recusant, joins them, along with another man — Robert Poley. If caught, neither will be convicted: both are Walsingham’s agents. And although Babington thinks that the very sun was a stranger to their plans, the Secretary of State is following their every move.76
The Setup
The conspirators meet in St. Giles’ Fields and in crowded places, at St. Paul’s and the Three Tuns Tavern. A method of communication is devised with the imprisoned Scottish Queen whereby a local brewer smuggles notes to her in an ale cask. Babington immediately sends her a letter, revealing their plans with the assurance that the Pope, Spain, the Duke of Guise, and the Prince of Parma are all poised for invasion. Mary responds enthusiastically.