From the first Walsingham, equally with Cecil, Lord Burghley, was strongly hostile to Queen Mary of Scotland. By constant watchfulness and the skilful use of spies he succeeded in discovering the inmost secrets of her policy and plans. He permitted the Babington conspiracy to develop until letters passed between Babington and Mary which, if they are to be accepted as genuine, proved that the scheme for the assassination of Elizabeth had Mary’s full approval. Mary and her friends declared that Walsingham had counterfeited her ciphers; but that Babington sent her letters informing her of the assassination scheme is beyond denial. Mary’s friends, without any proof but her own asseveration, affirm that the letters never reached her, and that Mary’s letters in reply, the authenticity of which Babington to the last never doubted, were forged by the agents of Walsingham. The asseveration of Mary is, however, robbed of all value by the fact that, in addition to denying the authenticity of the letters, she denied all knowledge of the Babington conspiracy; for Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador, while the plot was in progress, wrote to Philip II. that Mary had informed him she was fully acquainted with it. The accusation against Walsingham, that he was an accomplice in bringing Mary to the block on false and forged evidence, cannot therefore be entertained, although there cannot be any doubt that he regarded her execution as a happy deliverance from a position of great political embarrassment. He was one of the commissioners on her trial, and on Mary hinting that the incriminating letters had been written by him, called God to witness that he “had done nothing unbecoming an honest man.”

By becoming surety for the debts of Sir Philip Sidney, Walsingham, on account of a flaw in the power of attorney left by Sidney, found himself on Sidney’s death unexpectedly involved in pecuniary ruin. But, although one of the ablest and wisest of Elizabeth’s councillors, his honesty had frequently ruffled her self-esteem, and she witnessed his embarrassments without deigning to lend him the smallest help. He died at his house in Seething Lane, London, 6th April 1590, in circumstances of so great poverty that his friends buried him in St Paul’s at night to save the expense of a public funeral. Walsingham was a Puritan in his religious principles, but was unable to obtain for the Puritans the consideration from Elizabeth he desired. He established in 1586 a divinity lectureship at Oxford; he was a general patron of learning; and he encouraged Sir R. Hakluyt and other navigators in their voyages of discovery. By Spenser he is described as

“The Great Maecenas of this age

As well to all that civil acts professe

As those that are inspired with martial rage.”

A large number of Walsingham's letters and state documents are in the library of the British Museum and State Paper Office. An account of his embassies to France with letters and despatches is contained in the Compleat Ambassador, edited by Sir Dudley Digges, 1655; the ‘‘Heads of a Conference between James VI. and Sir Frances Walsingham, September 1853,” is published in vol. i. of the Bannatyne Miscellany ; and his “Journal from December 1570 to April 15S3 " is published in vol. vi. of the Camden Miscellany (1871). The Arcana Aulica, or Walsingham’s Prudential Maxims for the Statesman and the Courtier, London, 1655, said to have been translated from the Spanish, was probably translated by another Walsingham than Sir Francis. In Sir Robert Cotton's Cottoni Posthuma is a short article entitled “Sir Francis Walsingham's Anatomizing of Honesty, Ambition, and Fortitude."