Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 59.djvu/245

 learning interested him. Spenser, in a sonnet prefixed to the ‘Faerie Queene,’ apostrophised him as   The great Mecænas of this age, As well to all that civil artes professe, As those that are inspired with martial rage. To him were dedicated Angel Day's ‘Life of Sir Philip Sidney’ in 1586, and many religious works of a puritan tendency, including Bright's abridgment of Foxe's ‘Actes and Monuments’ in 1589. In 1583 Henry Howard, earl of Northampton [q. v.], dedicated to him his ‘Defensative against the Poyson of supposed Prophecies’ (, Annals, i. 295). In 1586 he established a divinity lecture at Oxford, which was read by John Rainolds [q. v.], afterwards president of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, but it was not continued after Walsingham's death. To the library of King's College he gave a copy of the Antwerp Polyglot Bible (1569–73), which he seems to have purchased in Holland. To Emmanuel College, of which the founder was Sir Walter Mildmay, his brother-in-law, he gave the advowson of Thurcaston in Leicestershire.

Thomas Watson wrote a Latin eclogue on Walsingham's death which he entitled ‘Melibœus.’ He translated the poem into English under the title ‘An Eglogue upon the death of the Right Honorable Sir Francis Walsingham.’ Both the Latin and the English version were published in 1590, the Latin being dedicated to Walsingham's cousin, Thomas Walsingham, and the English one to Walsingham's daughter Frances, lady Sidney. In the poem Walsingham figures under the pastoral name of Melibœus, his daughter appears as Hyane, and his cousin Thomas Walsingham as Tityrus. Both Latin and English versions were reprinted, face to face on parallel pages, in Mr. Arber's edition of Watson's poems.

Walsingham was twice married. His first wife, by whom he had no children, was Anne, daughter of Sir George Barnes (lord mayor of London 1552), and widow of one Alexander Carleill. She died in the summer of 1564, possessed of a private fortune, and made many bequests by will (dated 28 July and proved 22 Nov. 1564) with Walsingham's consent. To him she gave the custody of her son by her first marriage, Christopher Carleill [q. v.], then under twenty-one years of age. About 1567 Walsingham married his second wife, Ursula, daughter of Henry St. Barbe, and widow of Sir Richard Worsley of Appuldurcombe. Her two sons by her first husband, John and George Worsley, were accidentally killed by an explosion of gunpowder in the porter's lodge at their late father's house at Appuldurcombe soon after her marriage to Walsingham. Although she never ingratiated herself with Elizabeth, she was frequently at court after Sir Francis's death, and exchanged new year's presents with the queen. She died suddenly at Barn Elms on 18 June 1602, and was buried the next night privately near her husband in St. Paul's Cathedral (, Letters, Camden Soc. p. 143). She left property at Boston and Skirbeck in Lincolnshire to her only surviving child by Walsingham, Frances, the wife successively of Sir Philip Sidney, Robert Devereux, second earl of Essex, and Richard de Burgh, earl of Clanricarde. Walsingham by his second wife had a daughter Mary, who died unmarried in June 1580.

In all contemporary pictures Walsingham's expression of countenance suggests the crafty disposition with which he was credited. Bust-portraits, in which he wears a tight-fitting black skull-cap, are at Hampton Court, and in the possession respectively of Mrs. Dent of Sudeley, of Lord Zouche, and Lord Sackville (at Knole Park). A similar picture, commonly stated to be at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, cannot be traced there. A portrait by Zucchero, formerly at Strawberry Hill, was sold in 1842 to Beriah Botfield for thirty-six guineas. This was engraved by Houbraken. According to Evelyn (Diary, iii. 443), the great Earl of Clarendon owned a full-length portrait of Walsingham, of which the whereabouts does not now seem known. The painting at Knole was engraved in Lodge's ‘Portraits’ in 1824 (, Catalogue of Pictures at Hampton Court, p. 208;, Portraits, vol. ii.; Portraits at Knole, 1795). An engraving by an unknown artist is in Holland's ‘Herωologia.’ Other engravings are by P. à. Gunst, Vertue, and H. Meyer. Miniatures of Walsingham are at Penshurst (the seat of Lord De L'Isle and Dudley) and in the possession of Mr. William de Vins Wade of Dunmow, Essex. A picture assigned to Sir Antonio More (now in the possession of Mrs. Dent of Sudeley), and including portraits of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, Philip II, and Elizabeth, is inscribed at the foot in gold letters with the distich: The Queene to Walsingham this Tablet sente, Marke of her peoples and her owne contente. Walsingham's official papers form an invaluable mine of historical information. Almost all the foreign state papers preserved at the Public Record Office which belong to the important period of Walsingham's