Walsingham

“ Walsingham, in his history of the reign, describes with unction the King’s childish behaviour during his fits of ungovernable anger,31 his violent words on more than one occasion to his Parliaments, and his absurd extravagance in dress. With righteous indignation he relates how Richard, on his way to London, borrowed from the monastery a palfrey, which he never returned. ”

“ For three hours the struggle and carnage went on, every one fighting. Soot against Scot, Englishman against Englishman, with the fury of demons; the archers all the while pouring in their showers of arrows on their opponents, so that, as Walsingham says, "the dead lay thick as leaves in autumn;" and so encumbered were the ranks, that there was scarcely any advancing over them. Still, everywhere the forces of Percy and Douglas were carrying the day; yet, at length, Henry's fortune once more prevailed. He had fought everywhere with a gallantry not surpassed by any man in the field. ”

“ Among the numerous monasteries of Norfolk, none but Walsingham was more visited by strangers, and many of the pilgrims to Walsingham turned aside on their way homeward to visit the Rood of Bromholm. For this was a very special treasure brought from Constantinople two hundred years before, and composed of a portion of the wood of the true Cross. Many were the miracles recorded to have been wrought in the monastery since that precious relic was set up; the blind had received their sight, the lame had walked, and lepers had been cleansed; even the dead had been restored to life. ”

“ With all this machinery in his hands, Walsingham patiently awaited the progress of the correspondence, till it should have ripened into sufficient flagrancy to become fatal to his dupes. That it might speed the faster, he seems to have applied a strong stimulus through his agent Pooley. About Midsummer he had obtained a letter from Babington to Mary, proposing in plain terms the murder of Elizabeth, and the liberation of herself, on receiving her unequivocal sanction to those two measures. ”

“ Long lines of turreted and many-windowed walls, tall towers, and lofty arches, now rose in picturesque confusion on the green ascent where heretofore old Sir Walsingham had raised the fair and convenient dwelling, which he justly deemed might have served the purpose of a long posterity. The hall and chief staircase of the castle and a gallery alone were finished, and many a day had Sir Ferdinand passed in arranging the pictures, the armour, and choice rarities of these magnificent apartments. ”

“ Visitors have permission to see these ruins on Wednesdays and Fridays, by application at the lodge of the abbey.
Walsingham is a pretty village 5 miles from Wells-on-Sea. It possesses a noble church in the Perpendicular style, an ancient town pump, and two wishing wells, which were formerly believed to possess miraculous powers, for the legend is that they sprang from the ground at command of the Virgin. Walsingham was an important place for many centuries, for it contained the famous shrine of the Virgin, or, as it was called, "Our Lady of Walsingham." ”

“ WALSINGHAM, Sir EDMUND (1490?–1550) , lieutenant of the Tower of London, was elder son of James Walsingham (1462–1540) . The pedigree of the family, which is supposed to have originally come from Walsingham in Norfolk, has been conjecturally carried back to the thirteenth century. ”

“ Walsingham's the best rector in the whole world, and the holiest man and the noblest,' cried brave little Lily, standing like a deer at bay, with her wild shy eyes looking full in Aunt Becky's, and a flush in her cheeks, and the beautiful light of truth beaming like a star from her forehead. ”

“ Such an experience made Walsingham reluctant to undertake other diplomatic missions. The queen's indecision had allowed the king of Scotland to fall under the influence of the catholic party among his councillors; but when Elizabeth realised the danger in which a breach with Scotland would involve her, she bade Walsingham go to Edinburgh and judge at close quarters the position of affairs. James was to be dissuaded at all hazards from negotiating with Spain in behalf of his mother. Walsingham did not complacently face a repetition of the humiliation that he had suffered in France. ”

“ He is getting old. All the world was growing old, and all his contemporaries, in the phrase of the day, were “a little thing sickish.” The intrepid and laborious Walsingham is described as being “troubled with his old diseases: the tympany and carnosity,” and so is absent from Court. Letters still flowed in to the Earl, news of the Netherlands campaign, from the now depressed Lord Leicester, the Governor, news of the Queen’s movements, of Spain, of the legal strife of his contemporaries and friends. ”

“ It passed, after changing hands several times, to the Walsingham family, and in its manor-house was born Sir Francis Walsingham, the Puritan statesman who was so bitter an enemy of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots. Foot's Cray owns a very interesting old church—unfortunately a good deal spoiled by unskilful restoration—with traces of Saxon and Norman work, and a little to the north of it is a fine eighteenth-century mansion belonging to the Vansittart family. ”

“ England sprang to arms, ready to stand at bay against the united forces of France and Spain. If there was to be a life-and-death struggle between the religions, she would fight to the last gasp. The Englishmen in the French capital had been safeguarded on the night of the massacre, but it was some little time before they could be sure that their turn was not still to come. Yet Walsingham in Paris bore himself with the same lofty sternness that the English Queen and her Council displayed to the French Ambassador in London. ”

“ Weary suppliants, on the way to, or returning from, the road of Our Lady of Walsingham, far away on the road through and past Norwich, housed here, and misbehaved themselves in their mediæval way. It would, as already hinted, be the gravest [Pg 91] mistake to assume pilgrims to have been, quâ pilgrims, necessarily decorous; and, indeed, modern Bank Holiday folks, compared with them, would shine as true examples of monkish austerity.
HOUSE FORMERLY A PILGRIMS’ HOSTEL, COMPTON.
The shrine at Walsingham, very highly esteemed in East Anglia, drew crowds from every class, from king to beggar. ”

“ With more candor than courtiers usually exhibit in urging a suit which they suspect to be distasteful to their sovereign, Lord Burleigh, the Earl of Leicester, and Sir Francis Walsingham used every means of persuading the queen to decisive action. "My very good Lord," wrote Walsingham, on the fourteenth of May, 1571, "the Protestants here do so earnestly desire this match; and on the other side, the papists do so earnestly seek to impeach the same, as it maketh me the more earnest in furthering of the same. ”

“ And on hearing this, the said Walsingham changed color, and appeared somewhat astonished, as my lady and mother well perceived by his face; and on this he requested the Count of Worcester to mention the order which he knew the Queen his mistress had issued to prevent these people from assisting those of La Rochelle; but that in England, so numerous were the seamen and others who gained their livelihood by maritime affairs, and who would starve without the entire freedom of the seas, that it was impossible to interdict them. ”

“ A pious Norfolk lady caused a little wooden house to be built in imitation of the Holy House at Nazareth and invited her neighbours to join with her there in meditation on the mystery of the Immaculate Conception. With time and a great concourse of pilgrims came an elaboration of legend and a variety of foreign accessories, maybe exaggerated in the half satirical description given by Erasmus. But when the true unvarnished story of Walsingham comes to be written it will show that to the very end a degree of sober good sense controlled the authorities there. ”

“ In a short time Essex married the widow of Sir Philip Sidney, the daughter of Walsingham, which gave great offence to his Royal mistress, who never could endure that her favourites should show preference to another; but she soon appeared to forget it, and grew more absurdly fond of Essex than ever. In 1591 he endeavoured to get justice for the unfortunate secretary, Davison. Walsingham died on the 6th of April of that year, and Essex strongly recommended him as his successor; but Burleigh had long calculated on the office for his son Robert, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. ”

“ It became one of the richest in the world. From the very commencement there was an unceasing flow of pilgrims from all nations to it. Several kings and queens of England, and among them Henry VIII., paid their devotions there. Erasmus, who visited the priory in 1511, derided its enormous wealth. Parts of the road leading to this priory are known to this day as the "Walsingham Way" and the "Palmer's Way." It is said more pilgrims came to Walsingham than to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket at Canterbury. The monks taught the people that the "Milky Way" pointed to the shrine. ”

“ Trusting to the position into which he had thus stepped, he left it to the ministers at home to pacify the queen. He had so long ruled her that he appeared to think he could still do as he pleased. The great Burleigh and the cunning Walsingham were at their wits' end to satisfy Elizabeth: the only letter which they got from Leicester being one to Hatton, so insolent and arrogant that they dared not present it till they had remodelled it. ”

“ Secretary Walsingham has given you. You told me a while ago that Ballard was on the eve of going to France. Now Walsingham is no fool. I would to God he were! He has laid enough of our men by the heels already."
"By God!" cried Anthony, roused again. "I would not willingly call you a fool either, my man! But do you not understand that Walsingham believes me as loyal as himself? Here have I been at court for the last year, bowing before her Grace, and never a word said to me on my religion. And here is Walsingham has bidden me to lodge in his house, in the midst of all his spider's webs. ”

“ No documentary evidence exists before the fifteenth century, when the city of London archives show that Sir Edmund's great-great-grandfather, Alan Walsingham, was in 1415 a citizen and cordwainer, owning property in Gracechurch Street. Alan's son, Thomas Walsingham, a London citizen and vintner, was the earliest of the family to settle in Kent; in 1424 he purchased the estate of Scadbury at Chislehurst, and he added to the property much neighbouring land in 1433. ”

“ About the middle of the year 1576, Walsingham in a letter to sir Henry Sidney thus writes: "Here at home we live in security as we were wont, grounding our quietness upon other harms." The harms here alluded to,—the religious wars of France, and the revolt of the Dutch provinces from Spain,—had proved indeed, in more ways than one, the safeguard of the peace of England. ”

“ On the plains all waited for letters. Walsingham was no exception to the rule. Few came. He was too far away. Younger sons of impoverished noblemen are sent to far-off places purposely to be forgotten. He employed the intervals between such stray notes as he received in studying Cyclona. ”

“ In December 1570 Walsingham revisited Paris to take Norris's place. He believed in the wisdom of maintaining friendly relations with France in view of the irrevocable hostility of Spain, but he regarded it as essential to English interests for England to seek definite and substantial guarantees that the English queen's marriage with a catholic should not weaken the position of protestantism either in England or in France. ”

“ As the House was now to rise, and Captain Allen would, of course, be discharged, it was apprehended that he would challenge Meredith and Walsingham; to prevent which, the House enjoined them both to accept no challenge from him, but to lay before a justice of peace the information that had been given to the House of his conduct, that he might be bound over to his good behaviour. Captain Walsingham said, he would certainly obey their commands, but hoped they did not expect, if Allen should attack him in the street, that he would not defend himself. Allen was discharged ”

“ Walsingham, in a letter to the Lord Chancellor at the time, said, "I am sorry the Lord Admiral was forced to leave the prosecution of the enemy through the want he sustains. Our half doings doth breed dishonour, and leaveth the disease uncured." But the winds and waves did for the English what they themselves had left undone. A terrible tempest assailed the flying Armada to the north of Scotland, and scattered its unhappy ships amongst the iron-bound islands of the Orkneys and Hebrides. ”

“ According to Walsingham, the insurgents gave out that Richard himself was alive, and with them in the field to assist in avenging his own injuries.
Percy and Douglas, who had so often fought in opposition, now rushed on side by side, like two young lions, beating and bearing down all before them. Everywhere they sought out the king, determined to take him, alive or dead. But again the cunning Scottish Earl of March, who seemed to think of everything, had advised the king to take the field in the armour of a simple captain, and to dress up several captains in the royal garb. ”

“ He lamented his death in a Latin elegy in hexameters. This was dedicated to Sir Francis's cousin, Thomas Walsingham, under the title, ‘Melibœus Thomæ Watsoni sive, Ecloga in Obitum Honoratissimi Viri, Domini Francisci Walsinghami’ (London, 1590, 4to, Brit. Mus.) Mindful of the march that Fraunce had stolen on him in regard to his ‘Amyntas,’ Watson published an English translation of his new elegy under the title of ‘An Eglogue upon the Death of the Right Honorable Sir Francis Walsingham, late principall Secretarie to her Maiestie, and of her moste Honourable Privie Councell. ”