Sir Francis Walsingham (4 page)

The university of the fens continued to lead the intellectual crusade
for reform. In the year that Francis went up to King’s, Cranmer secured one of the major international Protestant celebrities for the vacant post of Professor of Divinity. Martin Bucer was a veteran reformer who had been at the centre of religious change in Europe since the early 1530s. A Catholic backlash had ousted him from Strasbourg and he now arrived in Cambridge as an honoured refugee. Francis was among the undergraduates who eagerly sat at the great man’s feet. A contemporary described the experience thus: ‘Dr Bucer cries incessantly, now in daily lectures, now in frequent sermons, that we should practice penitence, discard the depraved customs of hypocritical religion, correct the abuses of fasts, be more frequent in hearing and having sermons, and constrain ourselves by some sort of discipline.’
³
Simplicity of life, self-discipline, regular religious devotion, rejection of empty externals – if we would know how Francis Walsingham acquired these lifetime habits we need look no further.

Another new appointment in 1548 was that of John Cheke as Provost of King’s. Cheke, one of the most prominent humanist scholars, was already Professor of Greek in the university but was often absent from Cambridge on royal business. He was tutor to the king and a member of the privy chamber. He was related by marriage to another ex-Cambridge student who, as secretary to the Duke of Somerset, was just beginning a remarkable political career. His name was William Cecil. As a fellow commoner Francis enjoyed, among other privileges, the right to sit at table with the fellows and to be a party to their conversation. When Cheke was in residence, therefore, the student would have listened to the wisdom coming from the lips of a man whom Ridley called, ‘one of Christ’s special advocates and one of his principal proctors’.

The reformers did not have everything their own way. Quite rightly in such a prominent seat of learning teachers and students were free to debate controversial theological issues. The reactionary faction had formidable champions, foremost among whom was Stephen Gardiner, Master of Trinity Hall and Bishop of Winchester. As well as demanding outward conformity to the reformed religion, the authorities were intent on winning minds. In May and June 1549
Nicholas Ridley arrived to preside over a series of disputations on the doctrine of the mass. The university church was packed to hear some of the best brains of the day locked in argument, citing Scripture and the Fathers in support of their competing opinions. It would be surprising if Walsingham had missed such an opportunity. Ridley, perhaps inevitably, proclaimed that the evangelical disputants had won the debate. Gardiner was not persuaded by this intellectual exercise but he had little opportunity to protest: within days he was a prisoner in the Tower of London.

At Michaelmas (29 September) 1550 Francis Walsingham left Cambridge without taking a degree, as was quite common among the student sons of noble and gentry families who were not bent on an academic career. It was his intention to continue his education at the inns of court and there can be little doubt that his ambition was directed towards a career at the royal court. Sir John Fortescue, the great fifteenth-century legist eulogized the kind of rounded education a young man received at these ‘finishing schools’:

[T]here is in these greater inns, yea and in the lesser too, beside the study of the laws, as it were a university or school of all commendable qualities requisite for noblemen. There they learn to sing, and to exercise themselves in all kind of harmony. There also they practise dancing, and other noblemen’s pastimes, as they use to do which are brought up in the king’s house. On the work days the most part of them apply themselves to the study of the law. And on the holy days to the study of the holy scripture: and out of the time of divine service to the reading of chronicles. For there indeed are virtues studied, and all vices exiled. So that for the endowment of virtue, and abandoning of vice knights and barons, with other states and noblemen of the realm place their children in those inns, though they desire not to have them learned in the laws, nor to live by the practice thereof.
⁴

Mastering the varied accomplishments fostered at Gray’s Inn, young Francis could be assured of a secure place in the establishment. With a legal training, friends and relatives in high places and an impeccable evangelical faith he could be reasonably confident of
promotion within the Edwardian regime. To add to his CV he decided to spend some months in foreign travel. Knowledge of European customs and languages would equip him well for diplomatic service. But there were other attractions on the continent for this eager young Protestant.

We do not know his itinerary during this ‘gap year’ but it seems more than likely that he was drawn to one or more of the leading Reformation centres such as Geneva, Basel or Zurich. Geneva was the strongest magnet for evangelicals at this time for it was here that John Calvin reigned supreme. Walsingham will have known of his teaching from
Institution of the Christian Religion,
a monumental, systematic manual of reformed doctrine which went through several editions and eventually extended to four books and eighty chapters. But Calvin was not content with theory. He wanted his city to be a shining example to the world of what a Christian commonwealth could be and organized its civic life, under the joint control of magistrates and ministers, in a way that would encourage the citizens to personal and corporate holiness. Ardent evangelicals flocked to Geneva from all over Europe to hear Calvin preach and learn how a truly godly political system could be established. Life in the Protestant cantons certainly made a lasting impression on Walsingham. In later years, amid the stresses and strains of government work, he sighed that he was ‘weary of the place I serve in and . . . wish myself among the true-hearted Swiss’.
⁵
Even at this stage of his life young Francis was developing earnest and sober character traits similar to those which came to be associated with the hardworking Swiss.

The prevailing regime in England had much in common with ruling establishments in the cantons. There were frequent exchanges between church leaders and scholars and theological opinion in England was moving steadily from Lutheranism to the more radical opinions which held sway in the Helvetian republics. The fact that Protestant states were in a minority in mainland Europe strengthened the bonds between them and the Tudor state. In 1552, when Walsingham returned to take up his studies at Gray’s Inn, Protestantism seemed more secure against the forces of Counter-Reformation
in the land which Shakespeare later described as being guarded by a ‘moat defensive’ than it was in some of the German and Swiss states.

There was much to encourage a young evangelical. The Reformation was proceeding apace and he was well placed to play his part in creating a godly commonwealth in his own country. But everything hung upon a very slender thread – the life of a teenage king.

The shock of Edward VI’s death, in July 1553, was profound to those who had believed that the Reformation in England was safe under the leadership of their young Josiah (the boy king who had revitalized the religious and national life of ancient Israel). The immediate aftermath was dramatic and confusing. Walsingham, in the legal community between Westminster and the City, was aware of the rumours about the king’s health. Edward had not been seen in public for several weeks. It was 8 July before the news broke that the boy king had died and that his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, had been proclaimed queen. Bemused crowds turned out to watch the young woman, her husband and leading courtiers who made their way by river and road to the Tower, where monarchs traditionally went to prepare for their coronation. Everything seemed set for an uncontested transfer of the crown. Edward’s half-sisters were nowhere to be seen. Elizabeth did not move from Hatfield and Mary was at the royal manor of Hunsdon – or so it was thought. Walsingham may have been among the first in the capital to hear from friends in the country that the elder princess had fled into East Anglia and was sending messages to urge the people to come to her aid.

Walsingham may have heard from his contacts at court that the nation’s leaders were divided. Some supported the late king’s wishes that his Catholic sister should be permanently disbarred from the succession, while others agreed with Sir Nicholas Throckmorton:

And, though I liked not the religion
Which all her life Queen Mary had professed,
Yet in my mind that wicked notion
Right heirs for to displace I did detest.
¹

Throckmorton probably spoke for the majority. In his manoeuvring to maintain the impetus of the Reformation the Duke of Northumberland had lost the moral high ground. People were suspicious of him and the young woman perceived to be his puppet and there was widespread sympathy for the ‘wronged’ Princess Mary. Those, like Walsingham, who feared what Catholic Mary might do if she came to the throne found themselves in the uncomfortable position of having to rely on the government’s show of naked force. On 14 July Northumberland set out with a mounted posse to apprehend the princess and bring her back to London. Days of confusion followed in the capital. Contradictory rumours flew around. Rival preachers ranted. Then the news spread from the Tower that Northumberland’s erstwhile supporters had changed sides. Two days later (20 July) information came from Cambridge that the duke had capitulated in the face of overwhelming military odds. The sudden change of fortune took everyone by surprise. ‘Not a soul imagined the possibility of such a thing . . . When the proclamation was first cried out the people started off, running in all directions and crying out, “the Lady Mary is proclaimed Queen!”.’
²
On 3 August Mary rode into her capital among scenes of general rejoicing.

General but far from universal. Convinced Protestants and people who had been closely connected with the previous regime had good cause for anxiety. That constituency certainly included Francis Walsingham. He continued quietly with his studies but kept a wary eye on the course of events. In order to quiet her confessionally divided nation Mary declared that she had no intention of forcing men’s consciences but those who knew her and her closest advisers were in no doubt that they were bent on a full restoration of the Catholic faith. For men like Stephen Gardiner, now appointed Lord Chancellor, Mary’s accession was just the latest phase in a struggle between true faith and heresy that had been going on for a quarter of a century.
A reluctant parliament was dragooned into repealing the ecclesiastical legislation of the previous reign. Cranmer, Ridley and other architects of religious change were imprisoned. Throughout the country churches were instructed to return to unreformed liturgy. Hard-pressed churchwardens, who had but recently paid for objects of superstition to be removed now had to pay for them to be put back again. The bulk of the queen’s subjects accepted all this with either relief or irritation. It was when Mary announced her intention to marry her Spanish first cousin once removed that she pushed her people too far.

England’s politicians and diplomats were extremely wary of the Habsburg Empire, a superpower the like of which had not been seen in Europe for seven centuries. Charles V ruled an empire that embraced Spain, the Netherlands, southern Italy and central Europe from Burgundy to the troubled Hungarian border region where Christian West faced Ottoman Muslim East. (The German lands acknowledged the overlordship of an
elected
Holy Roman Emperor but the Habsburgs had effectively annexed this title and position.) Added to this were Spain’s New World possessions, widely believed to be supporting Habsburg pretension with untold stores of gold and silver. Charles V, for political reasons, was eager for his son and heir Philip, soon to be invested with the crown of Spain, to marry Mary Tudor. To many Englishmen the thought of their country being absorbed by the monolithic Habsburg state was anathema.

But there was also a clash of ideologies. Charles saw himself as God’s appointed vicegerent, the latest in a line of Christian emperors whose prime duty it was to ensure the triumph of militant Catholicism. He was imbued with the spirit of the
reconquista,
which had seen the last Moors expelled from Spain. He vigorously defended his eastern boundary against the Turk. This crusading zeal extended to internal affairs. Ever since Innocent III, in the thirteenth century, had called on temporal rulers to launch the Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars of southern France, emperors had assumed the responsibility of extirpating heresy from their dominions – by force if necessary. Throughout most of his reign Charles fought – and finally lost – a war against the spread of Lutheranism in Germany, and his
Netherlands territories were so affected by the Reformation that the execution of over 2,000 martyrs failed to rid the region of heresy. The attraction of the English match for Charles was that it would guarantee his ships safe passage through the Narrow Seas, enabling him more effectively to defend the commercially important Low Countries from French expansionism and religious innovation.

Philip had been well trained in the duties of a Christian monarch. Lacking his father’s political acumen, he fell back on rigid dogma and narrow-minded obstinacy. For him heresy and treason were not just two sides of the same coin; they
were
the coin – completely mingled like metals to form the alloy of heinous offence to God and man. Referring to his problems in the Netherlands, Philip wrote:

Before suffering the slightest damage to religion and the service of God, I would lose all my estates, and a hundred lives if I had them, because I do not propose, nor do I desire to be the ruler of heretics. If it can be, I will try to settle the matter of religion without taking up arms, because I fear that to do so would lead to their total ruin. But if I cannot settle matters as I wish, without force, I am determined to go in person and take charge of everything, and neither the danger nor the destruction of those provinces, nor of all the rest I possess, can deter me from this end.
³