WALSINGHAM, Sir Thomas II (c.1589-1669), of Scadbury, nr. Chislehurst, Kent

According to the historians of Chislehurst and his father’s inquisition post mortem, Walsingham was born in 1600. However, this would mean that he was six on his admission to university, and eight when George Chapman dedicated The conspiracie and tragedie of Charles, Duke of Byron to him and his father. Webb, Miller and Beckwith, 143-5; C142/467/71; STC, 4968. The historian of Rochester preferred the date 1594, F.F. Smith, Rochester in Parl. 108 but Walsingham was actually born in about 1589, for in 1602 his father, offering to compound for his wardship and marriage from the Court of Wards for £50, gave his age as 13. Staffs. RO, D593/S/4/60/17. The doc. is undated, but his fa. who was born in 1561, is said to have been 41. In November 1609, following the completion of his university education, Walsingham was licensed to travel abroad for three years. It is unclear whether he made the trip, as he may have been the Mr. Walsingham who served as a gentleman of the privy chamber to Prince Henry between 1610 and 1612. A keen huntsman, Webb, Miller and Beckwith, 149. he was knighted by James at Royston in November 1613.

Walsingham probably secured his election for Poole in 1614 through the influence of Bartholomew Man, a Rochester alderman whose brother Edward had represented the seat in the first Jacobean Parliament. For Bartholomew Man’s connection with Rochester, and his relationship to Edward, see Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. xlii), 157; Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. lxxv), 134. He made no recorded impact on the Commons. At the next general election he transferred to Rochester, which had previously been represented by his father. According to a later petition drafted by ‘divers citizens and freemen’, he and the recorder, Henry Clerke, were secretly chosen and elected by the mayor and a small group of freemen against the wishes of the majority, who were not warned in advance of the time of the election. Surr. Hist. Cent. LM 1331/28. Once again, he made no recorded contributions to the session.

In November 1623 Walsingham narrowly escaped heavy expense when Chancery released him from his obligations as surety for the late Sir Charles Howard. His bonds, worth £1,400 in total, were cancelled because Howard’s trustee had failed to pay off the debts despite receiving lands of sufficient value. C78/434/3. He represented Rochester again in 1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628-9. Apart from the 1628 session, when he was named to the committee for privileges and a single conference, he left no trace on the records of any of these assemblies. CJ, i. 873a, 874a. His electoral success may have owed much to the services he performed for the borough outside Parliament. Seeking election to the second Caroline Parliament in December 1625, he reminded Rochester that ‘all the towns and cities in Kent have had lately privy seals, (yourselves only excepted), which my father and myself have only endeavoured to keep you from’. Soc. Antiq. ms 199 ter. f. 3. As well as intervening on the borough’s behalf, Walsingham also kept it well informed. Shortly after his election in 1625, he wrote to the mayor ‘according to my promise’ warning that the king and queen intended to stay overnight in Rochester on their journey to London from Dover, and he added that he would continue to ‘advertise you especially’ of ‘anything that may concern you or the city’. F.F. Smith, Hist. Rochester, 343. It was not until 1629 that Walsingham, appointed vice-admiral of Kent in 1626, seriously offended the corporation by defending the Admiralty’s rights against its own claims when it sought to renew its charter. SP16/138/62.

Despite Walsingham’s usefulness to Rochester, his election may not always have been entirely assured. Writing from Scadbury on 23 Apr. 1625, he complained to the mayor that ‘I did expect I should have heard from you this week,’ having ‘stayed at home on purpose’. But despite urging him to ‘hasten the election as much as you can’, Gent. Mag. lxviii. 117. the election was not held until 7 May. Walsingham’s anxiety about his return ultimately proved misplaced, but at the following general election, a challenger to his position appeared. On 29 Dec. 1625 the duke of Buckingham, Rochester’s high steward, nominated Sir John Smythe III*, presuming upon his interest ‘not to be denied, nor to alter that assurance I have given him to rely upon that place and stand for no other’. Walsingham was so alarmed that he went to see Buckingham, who promised to recommend him for the second seat, but this was worthless, as the junior place was traditionally reserved for the borough’s recorder. Consequently Walsingham tried to undermine Smythe’s position. On 2 Jan. 1626 he wrote to the mayor that Smith was ineligible as he was not a freeman, that he ‘is but a stranger amongst you’, and that ‘the name of Smith can never deserve better of your city than my father and [my]self have done’. Soc. Antiq. ms 199 ter. ff. 5, 7. He also argued that since Buckingham had now endorsed his own candidacy as well as Smythe’s, the borough would not offend Buckingham if they now elected him. Ibid. f. 11. However, he clearly realized that he might not prevail, for by 6 Jan. it was rumoured that he would instead seek election as a knight of the shire, thereby pitting himself against another of the duke’s clients, Sir Edwin Sandys*. For Buckingham’s opponents in the county this was unwelcome news, as a Walsingham candidacy threatened to split the forces opposed to Sandys. Dorothea Scott (1883 edn.) ed. G.D. Scull, 132.

In the event, Walsingham channeled all his energies into the campaign at Rochester where, despite continued lobbying by Buckingham and Smythe himself, Soc. Antiq. ms 199 ter. ff. 13, 15, 17. he took the senior seat on the 19th. Buckingham, who found another seat for Smith, bore no grudge against Walsingham, but instead appointed him vice-admiral of Kent in the following August. For his part, Walsingham came to admire the duke, whose letters he kept under lock and key as ‘relics’ after the latter’s death. CSP Dom. 1633-4, p. 43.

Walsingham’s finances often seemed precarious. Indeed, in 1630 his father urged him to reduce his household costs. Webb, Miller and Beckwith, 384. In January 1625 the king granted him an annual pension of £200 in exchange for surrendering his claims to the arrears due to his late mother as keeper of Queen Anne’s Wardrobe, but it seems unlikely that this was paid regularly. CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 444. On the death in 1627 of his childless cousin, Sir Ralph Shelton, it seemed that Walsingham would inherit his mother’s Norfolk’s estates, but as late as 1640 he had not secured possession of these lands, whose rightful ownership he was obliged to dispute in Chancery. C2/Chas.I/W73/59. In August 1630 Walsingham finally entered into his inheritance, but a damaging dispute with a tenant Add. 29599, ff. 40-1. coincided with his father’s funeral, which cost around £420. In 1638 his finances deteriorated sharply. His debts rose in the space of a few months from just £960 to £7,140, yet his annual income amounted to just £1,700. By June 1642 they had increased to £9,000. Cent. Kent. Stud. U119/A2, unfol.

During the early 1630s Walsingham fought off an attempt by Sir Dudley Digges* to claim Admiralty jurisdiction in Faversham Hundred. CSP Dom. 1629-31, pp. 322, 357; 1634-5, p. 370. In 1637 he took legal advice after he was summoned to appear before the king and Privy Council for allegedly authorizing the buyers of a coppice in Croydon to destroy the wood. Ibid. 1636-7, pp. 381, 390, 401. During the First Civil War he publicly assisted the parliamentarian war effort while secretly conducting a correspondence with the royalist earl of Bristol (Sir John Digby*). He fell into disgrace during the mid-1650s, and perhaps also financial ruin, selling his Kentish estates. Webb, Miller and Beckwith, 146-8. In his will, drawn up on 1 Mar. 1656, his executors were instructed to sell his goods to settle his debts and legacies. He died in April 1669, and was buried in the chancel of Chislehurst church as he had requested. Ibid. 152, 385. No other member of his family subsequently sat in Parliament.