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 onwards; represented Poole in parliament in 1614, and Rochester in 1621, 1628, and in both the Short and Long parliaments; sold the family property of Scadbury about 1655; and was buried at Chislehurst on 10 April 1669, having married twice (Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Peter Manwood [q. v.], was his first wife). His son Thomas (1617–1690) married Anne, daughter of Theophilus Howard, second earl of Suffolk, and was buried at Saffron Walden. This Thomas's son James (1646–1728) was master of the buckhounds in 1670 and master of the beagles in 1693; he died, unmarried, and was the last male representative of the chief branch of the Walsingham family.

[Information for this article has been most kindly supplied by Mr. G. W. Miller and Mr. J. Beckwith, authors of the History of Chislehurst. See also Hasted's Kent; Archæologia Cantiana, xiii. 386–403, xvii. 390–1; History of Chislehurst, by E. A. Webb, G. W. Miller, and J. Beckwith, 1899.] 

WALSINGHAM, EDWARD (d. 1663), royalist author and intriguer, was, according to Lord Clarendon, ‘related to the Earl of Bristol’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1658–9, p. 387). He was probably a member of the Warwickshire family of Walsingham; with that county the Digbys were closely connected (, Memories of Malling, 1893, pp. 234–6). In the preface to the ‘Arcana Aulica’ Walsingham is described in 1652 as one who, ‘though very young, in a little time grew up, under the wings and favour of the Lord Digby [see, second ], to such credit with the late king that he came to be admitted to his greatest trusts, and was prevented only by the fall of the court itself from climbing there into an eminenter height.’ He became secretary to Lord Digby soon after the outbreak of the civil war, possibly in September 1643, when Digby himself was appointed one of the principal secretaries of state in Falkland's place. On 31 Oct. Digby was made high steward of Oxford University, and through his influence Walsingham was created M.A. (, Fasti, ii. 60).

While the court was at Oxford, Walsingham lodged in Magdalen College, and, in addition to his secretarial duties, busied himself with literary pursuits. In 1644 he published ‘Britannicæ Virtutis Imago, or the Effigies of True Fortitude expressed … in the … actions of … Major-generall Smith,’ Oxford, 4to [see, (1616–1644)]. This was followed in 1645 by ‘Alter Britanniæ Heros, or the Life of … Sir Henry Gage [q. v.]’, Oxford, 4to. Walsingham conducted much of the correspondence in Digby's various intrigues, and during the latter's absence from Oxford was in constant communication with him (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1644–5, passim). More than once important letters from Walsingham were intercepted by parliament and published (cf. Three Letters intercepted in Cornwall, 1646, 4to, p. 8; The Lord George Digby's Cabinet Opened, 1646, 4to, pp. 65–7).

He was at Oxford as late as 1645, but probably before its surrender in June 1646 he escaped to Henrietta Maria's court in France. There, perhaps under the persuasions of Sir Kenelm Digby [q. v.], he became an ardent Roman catholic, and henceforth his energies were devoted rather to the interests of that faith than to those of the royalist cause. In 1648 Digby was reported to have discarded him (Nicholas Papers, i. 94), and in the same year he was sent to Ireland; his object seems to have been either to induce Ormonde to grant freedom of worship and other Roman catholic claims, or to secure them by negotiating an understanding between the Roman catholics and the independents. His mission was therefore odious to the protestant royalists. Sir Edward Nicholas denounced him as ‘a great babbler of his most secret employments,’ and Byron described him as ‘a pragmatical knave’ (, Original Letters, i. 206, 217). He ‘went to General Preston as he was forming his army at Monsterevin before he came to the Curragh of Kildare, where he was cherished and received as an angel of peace (so he writ in his letters), and dismissed with assurance given that when the army came to Trim the matter should be concluded. This gentleman failed him not at the appointment, but, coming to Trim, he found a reception far different from that he had at Monsterevin, and he read in their countenance and their ambiguous expression the change of their resolution; so as upon his return to Dublin an end was put to their negotiation’ (, Irish Confederation, vii. 30). According to Carte ‘he might probably have done much mischief if the peace [between Ormonde and the Roman catholics] had not been concluded before his arrival’ (Life of Ormonde, iii. 424).

Walsingham now returned to Paris, where, Clarendon says, ‘he was very well known to all men who at that time knew the Palais Royal’ (Rebellion, bk. xiv. § 65). In April 1651 a correspondent wrote to Nicholas: ‘Lord Jermyn is so confident he shall not only be secretary, but first minister of state, that he has already bespoke your beloved friend Walsingham to be one of three secretaries’ (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1651, p.