Frances Walsingham
English countess (c.1567-1633)
Frances Burke, Countess of Clanricarde (née Walsingham, formerly Devereux and Sidney; 1567 – 17 February 1633) was an English noblewoman. The daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's Secretary of State, she became the wife of Sir Philip Sidney at age 16. Her second husband was Queen Elizabeth's favourite, Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex, with whom she had five children. Two years after his execution in 1601, she married Richard Burke, Earl of Clanricarde, and went to live with him in Ireland.
Family and first marriage
She was the only surviving child of Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State for Queen Elizabeth I, and Ursula St. Barbe. A lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, she married Philip Sidney in 1583, a match arranged by her father over the objections of the Queen, possibly because she did not like the prospect of two close councillors forming a power block (Sidney was nephew to Robert, Earl of Leicester). Sidney was appointed Governor of Flushing and left to attend his duties in the Netherlands, but pregnant with her first child, Frances waited until she had given birth. Her daughter was born in 1585 and named Elizabeth after the Queen, who had forgiven the couple and was one of the godparents. In June 1586 Frances left England for the Netherlands to meet her husband.
The public source identifies “Frances Walsingham” as english countess (c.1567-1633). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Frances, Walsingham and English.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1983356. VIAF identifies the subject as 88489341. The Library of Congress control number is no2009071519. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1567, 1633, 1601 and 1583.
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This entry incorporates text from “Frances Walsingham” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.