Editing Francis Walsingham (section)

==Death and legacy==
From 1571 onwards, Walsingham complained of ill health and often retired to his country estate for periods of recuperation.<ref>Hutchinson, p. 248</ref> He complained of "sundry [[carnosity|carnosities]]", pains in his head, stomach and back, and difficulty in passing urine.<ref>Hutchinson, pp. 248–251</ref> Suggested diagnoses include cancer,<ref>Hutchinson, p. 250</ref> [[kidney stone]]s,<ref>Adams et al.; Wilson, p. 128</ref> urinary infection,<ref>Cooper, pp. 71, 107; Hutchinson, p. 251</ref> and diabetes.<ref>Cooper, p. 71</ref> He died on 6 April 1590, at his house in [[Seething Lane]].<ref>Adams et al.; Hutchinson, p. 253; Wilson, p. 239</ref> Historian [[William Camden]] wrote that Walsingham died from "a carnosity growing ''intra testium tunicas'' [testicular cancer]".<ref>Hutchinson, p. 254</ref> He was buried privately in a simple ceremony at 10 pm on the following day, beside his son-in-law, in [[Old St Paul's Cathedral]].<ref>Adams et al.; Cooper, p. 324; Hutchinson, p. 254</ref> 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.

[[File:Family of Henry VIII, an Allegory of the Tudor Succession.png|thumb|left|alt=Family group of the Tudors with the figures of War, Peace and Plenty|''An Allegory of the Tudor Succession'' was a gift from Elizabeth to Walsingham. The bottom of the picture is inscribed "The Queen to Walsingham this tablet sent; Mark of her people's and her own content."<ref name=h244/>]]

In his will, dated 12 December 1589, Walsingham complained of "the greatness of my debts and the mean state [I] shall leave my wife and heirs in",<ref name=h253>Hutchinson, p. 253</ref> but the true state of his finances is unclear.<ref name=h257>Hutchinson, p. 257</ref> He received grants of land from the Queen, grants for the export of cloth and leases of customs in the northern and western ports. His primary residences, apart from the court, were in Seething Lane by the [[Tower of London]] (now the site of a Victorian office building called Walsingham House), at [[Barn Elms]] in [[Surrey]] and at [[Odiham]] in [[Hampshire]]. Nothing remains of any of his houses.<ref name=adams>Adams et al.</ref> He spent much of his own money on espionage in the service of the Queen and the Protestant cause.<ref>Cooper, p. 310; Hutchinson, pp. 47–48, 101, 264; Wilson, pp. 101, 188</ref> In 1586, he funded a lectureship in theology at [[Oxford University]] for the [[Puritanism|Puritan]] [[John Rainolds]].<ref>Hutchinson, pp. 61, 348</ref> He had underwritten the debts of his son-in-law, Sir [[Philip Sidney]],<ref>Cooper, p. 310</ref> had pursued the Sidney estate for recompense unsuccessfully and had carried out major land transactions in his later years. After his death, his friends reflected that poor bookkeeping had left him further in the Crown's debt than was fair. In 1611, the Crown's debts to him were calculated at over £48,000, but his debts to the Crown were calculated at over £43,000 and a judge, Sir [[Julius Caesar (judge)|Julius Caesar]], ordered both sets of debts cancelled ''[[quid pro quo]]''.<ref name=h257/> Walsingham's surviving daughter Frances received a £300 annuity,<ref name=h253/> and married the [[Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex|Earl of Essex]]. Ursula, Lady Walsingham, continued to live at Barn Elms with a staff of servants until her death in 1602.<ref>Hutchinson, pp. 265–266</ref>

Protestants lauded Walsingham as "a sound pillar of our commonwealth and chief patron of virtue, learning and chivalry".<ref>[[Thomas Watson (poet)|Thomas Watson]] quoted in Hutchinson, p. 261</ref> He was part of a Protestant intelligentsia that included [[Philip Sidney]], [[Edmund Spenser]] and [[John Dee]]: men who promoted an expansionist and nationalist English Renaissance.<ref>Wilson, p. 242</ref> Spenser included a dedicatory sonnet to Walsingham in the ''[[Faerie Queene]]'', likening him to [[Maecenas]] who introduced [[Virgil]] to the Emperor [[Augustus]]. After Walsingham's death, [[Sir John Davies]] composed an [[acrostic]] poem in his memory<ref name="FriedmanFriedman2011">{{cite book|author1=William F. Friedman|author2=Elizabeth S. Friedman|title=The Shakespearean Ciphers Examined: An Analysis of Cryptographic Systems Used as Evidence that Some Author Other Than William Shakespeare Wrote the Plays Commonly Attributed to Him|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PcHJbsXOTMwC&pg=PA96|year=2011|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-14139-0|page=96}}</ref> and Watson wrote an elegy, ''Meliboeus'', in Latin.<ref>{{cite web |author=Thomas Watson |url=http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&textsid=104 |title=Thomas Watson: An Eglogue upon the Death of Sir Francis Walsingham |website=Spenserians.cath.vt.edu |access-date=6 August 2016 |archive-date=20 July 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160720012207/http://spenserians.cath.vt.edu/TextRecord.php?action=GET&textsid=104 |url-status=dead }}</ref> On the other hand, [[Society of Jesus|Jesuit]] [[Robert Persons]] thought Walsingham "cruel and inhumane" in his persecution of Catholics.<ref>Hutchinson, p. 63</ref> Catholic sources portray a ruthless, devious man driven by religious intolerance and an excessive love for intrigue.{{efn|[[William Camden]] wrote, "the Papists accused him as a cunning workman in complotting his business and alluring men into dangers, whilst he diligently searched out their hidden practices against religion, his prince and country."<ref>Quoted in Hutchinson, p. 260</ref>}} Walsingham attracts controversy still.<ref>Cooper, pp. 130–131</ref> Although he was ruthless, his opponents on the Catholic side were no less so; the treatment of prisoners and suspects by Tudor authorities was typical of European governments of the time.<ref>Hutchinson, pp. 261–264</ref> Walsingham's personal, as opposed to his public, character is elusive; his public papers were seized by the government while many of his private papers, which might have revealed much, were lost.<ref name=adams/> The fragments that do survive demonstrate his personal interest in gardening and falconry.<ref>Adams et al.; Cooper, p. 44</ref>

===Portrayal in fiction===
Fictional portrayals of Walsingham tend to follow Catholic interpretations, depicting him as sinister and Machiavellian.<ref>Cooper, p. 189; Wilson, p. 93</ref> He features in conspiracy theories surrounding the death of [[Christopher Marlowe]],<ref name=adams/> whom he predeceased. [[Charles Nicholl (author)|Charles Nicholl]] examined (and rejected) such theories in ''The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe'' (1992), which was used as a source by [[Anthony Burgess]] for his novel ''[[A Dead Man in Deptford]]'' (1993).<ref>Rozett, pp. 72–74</ref>

The 1998 film ''[[Elizabeth (film)|Elizabeth]]'' gives considerable, although sometimes historically inaccurate, prominence to Walsingham (portrayed by [[Geoffrey Rush]]). It portrays him as irreligious and sexually ambiguous,<ref name=adams/> merges chronologically distant events,<ref>Adams et al.; Spielvogel, p. 409</ref> and inaccurately suggests that he murdered [[Mary of Guise]].<ref>Spielvogel, p. 409</ref> Rush reprised the role in the 2007 sequel, ''[[Elizabeth: The Golden Age]]''. Both [[Stephen Murray (actor)|Stephen Murray]] in the 1971 [[BBC]] series ''[[Elizabeth R]]'' and [[Patrick Malahide]] in the 2005 [[Channel Four]] miniseries ''[[Elizabeth I (2005 TV series)|Elizabeth I]]'' play him as a dour official.<ref>Latham, pp. 203, 240</ref>