Edmund Walsingham

Sir Edmund Walsingham (c. 1480 – 10 February 1550) of Scadbury Hall, Chislehurst in Kent, was a soldier, Member of Parliament, and Lieutenant of the Tower of London during the reign of King Henry VIII.

Origins

He was the eldest son and heir of James Walsingham (1462–1540) of Scadbury by his wife Eleanor Writtle (pre-1465 – post-1540), the daughter and heiress of Walter Writtle of Bobbingworth in Essex. Sir Edmund, according to a monumental brass formerly in the church at Scadbury, had three brothers and seven sisters, including:

William Walsingham (died 1534), who married Joyce Denny (1506/7–1560), the daughter of Sir Edmund Denny, one of the Barons of the Exchequer, and his second wife, Mary Troutbeck (died 1507), the daughter of Robert Troutbeck of Bridge Trafford, Cheshire, by whom he was the father of Sir Francis Walsingham (c.1532–1590), Principal Secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, and five daughters, Elizabeth (died 1596), Barbara, Christian, Eleanor and Mary (1527/8–1577). After William Walsingham's death, Joyce (née Denny) married Sir John Carey, a younger brother of Sir William Carey, by whom she had two sons, Sir Wymond Carey and Sir Edward Carey.

Elizabeth Walsingham, who married Thomas Ayloffe, second son of William Ayloffe (died 1517), a Bencher of Lincoln’s Inn, by his wife Audrey Shaa, widow of John Writtle and daughter of Sir John Shaa, a London goldsmith and Lord Mayor in 1501. Thomas Ayloffe’s elder brother, William Ayloffe (died 1569), married Anne Barnardiston, the daughter of Sir Thomas Barnardiston (died 7 November 1542) of Ketton in Kedington, Suffolk, by whom he was the father of William Ayloffe (c.1535 – 17 November 1584).

Cecily Walsingham.

Margaret Walsingham.

Early origins

Although the Walsingham pedigree is said to date to the thirteenth century, the family is first recorded in the County of Kent in 1424, when Thomas I Walsingham purchased the manor of Scadbury. The descent was as follows:

Thomas I Walsingham (d.1457) a wealthy wine and cloth merchant in the City of London who served as a Member of Parliament for Wareham in 1410 and for Lyme Regis in 1413, both in Dorset.