I call God to witness that as a private person I have done nothing unbeseeming an honest man, nor, as I bear the place of a public man, have I done anything unworthy of my place.

He spent much of his own money on espionage in the service of the Queen and the Protestant cause. Bartholomew's Day massacre Walsingham's house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary for Protestant refugees including Philip Sidney. Walsingham wrote to Paulet urging him to find "some way to shorten the life" of Mary to relieve Elizabeth of the burden to which Paulet replied indignantly "God forbid that I should make so foul a shipwreck of my conscience or leave so great a blot to my poor posterity to Francis Walsinghamd blood without law or warrant.

A committed Protestant during the reign of the Catholic Queen Mary I of England he joined other expatriates in exile in Switzerland and northern Italy until Mary's death and the accession of her Protestant half-sister Elizabeth. Bartholomew's Day massacre. Born to a well-connected family of gentry Walsingham travelled in continental Europe after leaving university before embarking at the age of twenty on a career in the law.