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Sir Thomas Wilkes letter to Sir Francis Walsingham

 Digital Record
Identifier: VMSS457_I25_O1
Image of Sir Thomas Wilkes letter to Sir Francis Walsingham
Image of Sir Thomas Wilkes letter to Sir Francis Walsingham

Dates

  • 1586 February 26

Creator

Biographical / Historical

Sir Francis Walsingham (1532-1590) was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster".

Born to a well-connected family of gentry, Walsingham attended Cambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on a career in law at the age of twenty. He served as English ambassador to France in the early 1570s and witnessed the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. As principal secretary to Elizabeth I, he supported exploration, colonization, the use of England's maritime strength and the plantation of Ireland. He worked to bring Scotland and England together. He oversaw operations that penetrated Spanish military preparation, gathered intelligence from across Europe, disrupted a range of plots against Elizabeth and secured the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Francis Walsingham died on 6 April 1590, at his house in Seething Lane. He was buried privately in a simple ceremony in Old St Paul's Cathedral. The grave and monument were destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. His name appears on a modern monument in the crypt listing the important graves lost.

Biographical / Historical

Sir Thomas Wilkes (approximately 1545–1598) was an English civil servant and diplomat during the reign of Elizabeth I of England. He served as Clerk of the Privy Council, Member of Parliament for Downton and Southampton, and English member of the Council of State of the Netherlands, and on many diplomatic missions for the English government.

Extent

1 folded sheet (3 pages) ; 33 x 44 cm folded to 33 x 22 cm

Language of Materials

English

General Note

Autograph letter signed by Wilkes, with address to Walsingham on second leaf. Written in English from The Hague, Netherlands, 26 February 1586. The third of 13 letters of Wilkes to Walsingham, reporting in great detail upon the affairs of the Netherlands during the English intervention there, and upon the conduct of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, commander of the English troops, who was elected Governor of the United Provinces. In this letter Wilkes refers to "the regiment of Zeland which Sir Philipp Sydney had in his lifetime..."

General Note

These important papers have been known hitherto only in part, from copies or drafts of only five of them in the Calendar of State Papers. Eight are entirely unknown. The other letters are nos. 23, 24, 28, 31, 33, 34, 35, 38, 39, 40, 41, 48. The cipher used is a simple substitution in a grid of nine, read left to right, top to bottom, with added single and double-dotted forms to continue the alphabet beyond "i". Leicester is disguised under the name of "Themistocles" in the correspondence.

Repository Details

Part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections Repository

Contact:
1130 HBLL
Brigham Young University
Provo Utah 84602 United States