Sir Francis Walsingham | |
|---|---|
 Portrait attributed toJohn de Critz,c. 1585 | |
| Secretary of State | |
| In office 1573–1590 | |
| Monarch | Elizabeth I |
| Personal details | |
| Born | c. 1532[a] probablyChislehurst, Kent, England |
| Died | 6 April 1590 (agedc. 58) London, England |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 2, includingFrances |
| Parents |
|
| Education | King's College, Cambridge |
| Occupation | Statesman andspymaster |
Sir Francis Walsingham (c. 1532 – 6 April 1590) wasprincipal secretary to QueenElizabeth I of England from 20 December 1573 until his death and is popularly remembered as her "spymaster".
Born to a well-connected family ofgentry, Walsingham attendedCambridge University and travelled in continental Europe before embarking on a career in law at the age of twenty. A committedProtestant, during the reign of theCatholic QueenMary 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.
Walsingham rose from relative obscurity to become one of the small coterie who directed theElizabethan state, overseeing foreign, domestic and religious policy. He served asEnglish ambassador to France in the early 1570s and witnessed theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre. As principal secretary, he supported exploration, colonisation, the development of the navy, and theplantation of Ireland. He worked to bring Scotland and England together. Overall, his foreign policy demonstrated a new understanding of the role of England as a maritime Protestant power with intercontinental trading ties. He oversaw operations that penetrated Spanish military preparation, gathered intelligence from across Europe, disrupted a range of plots against Elizabeth and secured theexecution of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Francis Walsingham was born around 1532, probably atFoots Cray, nearChislehurst inKent,[2] the only son[3] of William Walsingham (died 1534), a successful and well-connected London lawyer who served as a member of the commission appointed to investigate the estates of CardinalThomas Wolsey in 1530.[4] William's elder brother was SirEdmund Walsingham,Lieutenant of the Tower of London.[5]
Francis's mother wasJoyce Denny, a daughter of the courtier SirEdmund Denny of Cheshunt in Hertfordshire, and a sister of the courtier SirAnthony Denny, the principalGentleman of the Privy Chamber to KingHenry VIII.[6] After the death of her first husband she married the courtier SirJohn Carey in 1538.[4] Carey's brotherWilliam was the husband ofMary Boleyn, the elder sister ofAnne Boleyn, thesecond wife of King Henry VIII.[7]
Of Francis's five siblings, Mary married SirWalter Mildmay, who wasChancellor of the Exchequer for over 20 years, and Elizabeth married the parliamentarianPeter Wentworth.[8]
Francis Walsingham matriculated atKing's College, Cambridge, in 1548 with many other Protestants but as an undergraduate of high social status did not sit for a degree.[4][9] From 1550 or 1551, he travelled in continental Europe, returning to England by 1552 to enrol atGray's Inn, one of the qualifying bodies for English lawyers.[10]
Upon the death in 1553 of Henry VIII's successor,Edward VI, Edward's Catholic half-sisterMary became queen. Many wealthy Protestants, such asJohn Foxe andJohn Cheke, fled England, and Walsingham was among them. He continued his studies in law at the universities ofBasel andPadua,[11] where he was elected to the governing body by his fellow students in 1555.[12]
Mary I died in November 1558 and was succeeded by her Protestant half-sisterElizabeth. Walsingham returned to England and through the support of one of his fellow former exiles,Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford, he was elected to Elizabeth's first parliament as the member forBossiney, Cornwall, in 1559.[13] At the subsequent election in 1563, he was returned for bothLyme Regis, Dorset, another constituency under Bedford's influence,[14] andBanbury, Oxfordshire. He chose to sit for Lyme Regis.[15] In January 1562 he married Anne, daughter of SirGeorge Barne,Lord Mayor of London in 1552–3, and widow of wine merchant Alexander Carleill.[16] Anne died two years later leaving her sonChristopher Carleill in Walsingham's care.[17] In 1566, Walsingham marriedUrsula St. Barbe, widow of Sir Richard Worsley, and Walsingham acquired her estates ofAppuldurcombe andCarisbrooke Priory on theIsle of Wight.[18] The following year, they had a daughter,Frances. Walsingham's other two stepsons, Ursula's sons John and George, were killed in a gunpowder accident at Appuldurcombe in 1567.[19]
In the following years, Walsingham became active in soliciting support for theHuguenots in France and developed a friendly and close working relationship withNicholas Throckmorton, his predecessor as MP for Lyme Regis and a former ambassador to France.[20] By 1569, Walsingham was working withWilliam Cecil to counteract plots against Elizabeth. He was instrumental in the collapse of theRidolfi plot, which hoped to replace Elizabeth with the CatholicMary, Queen of Scots.[21] He is credited with writing propaganda decrying a conspiratorial marriage between Mary andThomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk,[b] andRoberto di Ridolfi, after whom the plot was named, was interrogated at Walsingham's house.[24]
In 1570, the Queen chose Walsingham to support the Huguenots in their negotiations withCharles IX of France. Later that year, he succeeded SirHenry Norris as English ambassador in Paris.[25] One of his duties was to continue negotiations for a marriage between Elizabeth and Charles IX's younger brotherHenry, Duke of Anjou. The marriage plan was eventually dropped on the grounds of Henry's Catholicism.[26] A substitute match with the youngest brother,Francis, Duke of Alençon, was proposed but Walsingham considered him ugly and "void of a good humour".[27] Elizabeth was 20 years older than Alençon, and was concerned that the age difference would be seen as absurd.[28] Walsingham believed that it would serve England better to seek a military alliance with France against Spanish interests.[29] The defensiveTreaty of Blois was concluded between France and England in 1572, but the treaty made no provision for a royal marriage and left the question of Elizabeth's successor open.[30]
The Huguenots and other European Protestant interests supported the nascent revolt in theSpanish Netherlands, which were provinces ofHabsburg Spain. When Catholic opposition to this course in France resulted in the death of Huguenot leaderGaspard de Coligny and theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre, Walsingham's house in Paris became a temporary sanctuary for Protestant refugees, includingPhilip Sidney.[31] Ursula, who was pregnant, escaped to England with their four-year-old daughter. She gave birth to a second girl, Mary, in January 1573 while Walsingham was still in France.[32] He returned to England in April 1573,[33] having established himself as a competent official whom the Queen and Cecil could trust.[34] He cultivated contacts throughout Europe, and a century later his dispatches would be published asThe Complete Ambassador.[35]
In the December following his return, Walsingham was appointed to thePrivy Council of England and was made jointprincipal secretary (the position which later became "Secretary of State") with SirThomas Smith. Smith retired in 1576, leaving Walsingham in effective control of theprivy seal, though he was not formally invested asLord Privy Seal.[36] Walsingham acquired aSurrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian.[37] He was knighted on 1 December 1577,[38] and held thesinecure posts of Recorder of Colchester,custos rotulorum of Hampshire, and High Steward of Salisbury, Ipswich and Winchester.[39] He was appointedChancellor of the Order of the Garter from 22 April 1578 until succeeded by SirAmias Paulet in June 1587, when he becameChancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in addition to principal secretary.[40]
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The duties of the principal secretary were not defined formally,[41] but as he handled all royal correspondence and determined the agenda of council meetings, he could wield great influence in all matters of policy and in every field of government, both foreign and domestic.[42] During his term of office, Walsingham supported the use of England's maritime power to open new trade routes and explore the New World, and was at the heart of international affairs. He was involved directly with English policy towards Spain, the Netherlands, Scotland, Ireland and France, and embarked on several diplomatic missions to neighbouring European states.[35]
Closely linked to the mercantile community, he actively supported trade promotion schemes and invested in theMuscovy Company and theLevant Company.[43] He supported the attempts ofJohn Davis andMartin Frobisher to discover theNorthwest Passage and exploit the mineral resources ofLabrador, and encouragedHumphrey Gilbert's exploration ofNewfoundland.[44] Gilbert's voyage was largely financed byrecusant Catholics and Walsingham favoured the scheme as a potential means of removing Catholics from England by encouraging emigration to the New World.[45] Walsingham was among the promoters ofFrancis Drake's profitable 1578–1581 circumnavigation of the world, correctly judging that Spanish possessions in the Pacific were vulnerable to attack. The venture was calculated to promote the Protestant interest by embarrassing and weakening the Spanish, as well as to seize Spanish treasure.[46] The first edition ofRichard Hakluyt'sPrincipal Navigation, Voyages and Discoveries of the English Nation was dedicated to Walsingham.[47]
Walsingham advocated direct intervention in the Netherlands in support of the Protestant revolt against Spain, on the grounds that although wars of conquest were unjust, wars in defence of religious liberty and freedom were not.[48] Cecil was more circumspect and advised a policy of mediation, a policy that Elizabeth endorsed.[49] Walsingham was sent on a special embassy to the Netherlands in 1578, to sound out a potential peace deal and gather military intelligence.[50]
Charles IX died in 1574 and the Duke of Anjou inherited the French throne as Henry III.[51] Between 1578 and 1581 the Queen resurrected attempts to negotiate a marriage with Henry III's youngest brother, the Duke of Alençon, who had put himself forward as a protector of the Huguenots and a potential leader of the Dutch.[52] Walsingham was sent to France in mid-1581 to discuss an Anglo-French alliance, but the French wanted the marriage agreed first and Walsingham was under instruction to obtain a treaty before committing to the marriage. He returned to England without an agreement.[53] Personally, Walsingham opposed the marriage, perhaps to the point of encouraging public opposition.[54] Alençon was a Catholic and as his elder brother, Henry III, was childless, he was heir presumptive to the French throne. Elizabeth was past the age of childbearing and had no clear successor. If she died while married to him, her realms could fall under French control.[55] By comparing the match of Elizabeth and Alençon with the match of the ProtestantHenry of Navarre and the CatholicMargaret of Valois, which occurred in the week before theSt. Bartholomew's Day massacre, the "most horrible spectacle" he had ever witnessed, Walsingham raised the spectre of religious riots in England in the event of the marriage proceeding.[56] Elizabeth put up with his blunt, often unwelcome, advice,[57] and acknowledged his strong beliefs in a letter,[58] in which she called him "her Moor [who] cannot change his colour".[59][c]
These were years of tension in policy towards France, with Walsingham sceptical of the unpredictable Henry III and distrustful of the English ambassador in Paris,Edward Stafford.[35] Stafford, who was compromised by his gambling debts, was in the pay of the Spanish and passed vital information to Spain.[62] Walsingham may have been aware of Stafford's duplicity, as he fed the ambassador false information, presumably in the hope of fooling or confusing the Spanish.[63]
The pro-English Regent of ScotlandJames Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, whom Walsingham had supported, was overthrown in 1578.[64] After the collapse of theRaid of Ruthven, another initiative to secure a pro-English government in Scotland,[65] Walsingham reluctantly visited the Scottish court in August 1583, knowing that his diplomatic mission was unlikely to succeed.[66]James VI dismissed Walsingham's advice on domestic policy saying he was an "absolute King" in Scotland.[67] Walsingham replied with a discourse on the topic that "young princes were many times carried into great errors upon an opinion of the absoluteness of their royal authority and do not consider, that when they transgress the bounds and limits of the law, they leave to be kings and become tyrants."[68] According toJames Melville of Halhill, James VI intended to give Walsingham a valuable diamond ring as a parting gift, butJames Stewart, Earl of Arran, who Walsingham had ignored, substituted a ring of crystal.[69] A mutual defence pact was eventually agreed in theTreaty of Berwick of 1586.[70]
Walsingham's cousinEdward Denny fought in Ireland during therebellion of the Earl of Desmond and was one of the English settlers granted land inMunster confiscated from Desmond.[71] Walsingham's stepson Christopher Carleill commanded the garrisons atColeraine andCarrickfergus.[72] Walsingham thought Irish farmland was underdeveloped and hoped thatplantation would improve the productivity of estates.[73] Tensions between the native Irish and the English settlers had lasting effects on thehistory of Ireland.[74]
Walsingham's younger daughter Mary died aged seven in July 1580;[75] his elder daughter, Frances, married SirPhilip Sidney on 21 September 1583, despite the Queen's initial objections to the match (for unknown reasons) earlier in the year.[76] As part of the marriage agreement, Walsingham agreed to pay £1,500 of Sidney's debts and gave his daughter and son-in-law the use of his manor atBarn Elms inSurrey. A granddaughter born in November 1585 was named Elizabeth after the Queen, who was one of two godparents along with Sidney's uncle,Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester.[77] The following year, Sidney was killed fighting the Spanish in the Netherlands and Walsingham was faced with paying off more of Sidney's extensive debts.[78] His widowed daughter gave birth, in a difficult delivery, to a second child shortly afterward, but the baby, a girl, was stillborn.[79]
Walsingham was driven by Protestant zeal to counter Catholicism,[80] and sanctioned the use of torture against Catholic priests and suspected conspirators.[81]Edmund Campion was among those tortured and found guilty on the basis of extracted evidence; he washanged, drawn and quartered atTyburn in 1581.[82] Walsingham could never forget the atrocities against Protestants he had witnessed in France during the Bartholomew's Day massacre and believed a similar slaughter would occur in England in the event of a Catholic resurgence.[83] Walsingham's brother-in-lawRobert Beale, who was in Paris with Walsingham at the time of the massacre, encapsulated Walsingham's view: "I think it time and more than time for us to awake out of our dead sleep, and take heed lest like mischief as has already overwhelmed the brethren and neighbours in France and Flanders embrace us which be left in such sort as we shall not be able to escape."[84] Walsingham tracked down Catholic priests in England and supposed conspirators by employing informers,[85] and intercepting correspondence.[86] Walsingham's staff in England included thecryptographerThomas Phelippes, who was an expert in forgery and deciphering letters, and Arthur Gregory, who was skilled at breaking and repairingseals without detection.[87]
In May 1582, letters from the Spanish ambassador in England,Bernardino de Mendoza, to contacts in Scotland were found on a messenger by SirJohn Forster, who forwarded them to Walsingham. The letters indicated a conspiracy among the Catholic powers to invade England and displace Elizabeth with Mary, Queen of Scots.[88] By April 1583, Walsingham had a spy, identified asGiordano Bruno by historianJohn Bossy,[d] deployed in the French embassy in London. Walsingham's contact reported thatFrancis Throckmorton, a nephew of Walsingham's old friendNicholas Throckmorton, had visited the ambassador,Michel de Castelnau.[91] In November 1583, after six months of surveillance, Walsingham had Throckmorton arrested and then tortured to secure a confession[92]—an admission of guilt that clearly implicated Mendoza.[93] TheThrockmorton plot called for an invasion of England along with a domestic uprising to liberate Mary, Queen of Scots, and depose Elizabeth.[94] Throckmorton was executed in 1584 and Mendoza was expelled from England.[95] Walsingham is often mentioned - negatively - in coded letters from Mary, Queen of Scots, to the French ambassador.[96]
After the assassination in mid-1584 ofWilliam the Silent, the leader of the Dutch revolt against Spain, English military intervention in the Low Countries was agreed in theTreaties of Nonsuch of 1585.[97] The murder of William the Silent also reinforced fears for Queen Elizabeth's safety.[98] Walsingham helped create theBond of Association, the signatories of which promised to hunt down and kill anyone who conspired against Elizabeth. TheAct for the Surety of the Queen's Person, passed by Parliament in March 1585, set up a legal process for trying any claimant to the throne implicated in plots against the Queen.[99] The following month Mary, Queen of Scots, was placed in the strict custody of SirAmias Paulet, a friend of Walsingham.[100] At Christmas, she was moved to a moated manor house atChartley.[101] Walsingham instructed Paulet to open, read and pass to Mary unsealed any letters that she received, and to block any potential route for clandestine correspondence.[102] In a successful attempt to entrap her, Walsingham arranged a single exception: a covert means for Mary's letters to be smuggled in and out of Chartley in a beer keg. Mary was misled into thinking these secret letters were secure, while in reality they were deciphered and read by Walsingham's agents.[103] In July 1586,Anthony Babington wrote to Mary about an impending plot to free her and kill Elizabeth.[104] Mary's reply was clearly encouraging and sanctionedBabington's plans.[105] Walsingham had Babington and his associates rounded up; fourteen were executed in September 1586.[106] In October, Mary was put on trial under the Act for the Surety of the Queen's Person in front of 36 commissioners, including Walsingham.[107]
During the presentation of evidence against her, Mary broke down and pointed accusingly at Walsingham saying, "all of this is the work of Monsieur de Walsingham for my destruction",[108] to which he replied, "God is my witness that as a private person I have done nothing unworthy of an honest man, and as Secretary of State, nothing unbefitting my duty."[109] Mary was found guilty and the warrant for her execution was drafted,[110] but Elizabeth hesitated to sign it, despite pressure from Walsingham.[111] Walsingham wrote to Paulet urging him to find "some way to shorten the life" of Mary to relieve Elizabeth of the burden,[112] 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 shed blood without law or warrant."[113] Walsingham made arrangements for Mary's execution; Elizabeth signed the warrant on 1 February 1587 and entrusted it toWilliam Davison, who had been appointed as junior Secretary of State in late September 1586. Davison passed the warrant to Cecil and a privy council convened by Cecil without Elizabeth's knowledge agreed to carry out the sentence as soon as was practical. Within a week, Mary was beheaded.[114] On hearing of the execution, Elizabeth claimed not to have sanctioned the action and that she had not meant Davison to part with the warrant. Davison was arrested and imprisoned in theTower of London. Walsingham's share of Elizabeth's displeasure was small because he was absent from court, at home ill, in the weeks just before and after the execution.[115] Davison was eventually released in October 1588, on the orders of Cecil and Walsingham.[116]
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From 1586, Walsingham received many dispatches from his agents in mercantile communities and foreign courts detailing Spanish preparations for an invasion of England.[117] Walsingham's recruitment ofAnthony Standen, a friend of the Tuscan ambassador to Madrid, was an exceptional intelligence triumph and Standen's dispatches were deeply revealing.[118] Walsingham worked to prepare England for a potential war with Spain, in particular by supervising the substantial rebuilding ofDover Harbour,[119] and encouraging a more aggressive strategy. On Walsingham's instructions, the English ambassador in Turkey,William Harborne, attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the Ottoman Sultan to attack Spanish possessions in the Mediterranean in the hope of distracting Spanish forces.[120] Walsingham supportedFrancis Drake'sraid of Cadiz in 1587, which wrought havoc with Spanish logistics.[121] TheSpanish Armada sailed for England in July 1588. Walsingham received regular dispatches from the English naval forces,[122] and raised his own troop of 260 men as part of the land defences.[123] On 18 August 1588, after the dispersal of the armada, naval commanderLord Henry Seymour wrote to Walsingham, "you have fought more with your pen than many have in our English navy fought with their enemies".[124]
In foreign intelligence, Walsingham's extensive network of "intelligencers", who passed on general news as well as secrets, spanned Europe and the Mediterranean.[125] While foreign intelligence was a normal part of the principal secretary's activities, Walsingham brought to it flair and ambition, and large sums of his own money.[126] He cast his net more widely than others had done previously: expanding and exploiting links across the continent as well as inConstantinople andAlgiers,[125] and building and inserting contacts among Catholic exiles.[127] Among his spies may have been the playwrightChristopher Marlowe;[128] Marlowe was in France in the mid-1580s and was acquainted with Walsingham's kinsmanThomas Walsingham.[129]
From 1571 onwards, Walsingham complained of ill health and often retired to his country estate for periods of recuperation.[130] He complained of "sundrycarnosities", pains in his head, stomach and back, and difficulty in passing urine.[131] Suggested diagnoses include cancer,[132]kidney stones,[133] urinary infection,[134] and diabetes.[135] He died on 6 April 1590, at his house inSeething Lane.[136] HistorianWilliam Camden wrote that Walsingham died from "a carnosity growingintra testium tunicas [testicular cancer]".[137] He was buried privately in a simple ceremony at 10 pm on the following day, beside his son-in-law, inOld St Paul's Cathedral.[138] The grave and monument were destroyed in theGreat Fire of London in 1666. His name appears on a modern monument in the crypt listing the important graves lost.
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",[139] but the true state of his finances is unclear.[140] 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 theTower of London (now the site of a Victorian office building called Walsingham House), atBarn Elms inSurrey and atOdiham inHampshire. Nothing remains of any of his houses.[35] He spent much of his own money on espionage in the service of the Queen and the Protestant cause.[141] In 1586, he funded a lectureship in theology atOxford University for thePuritanJohn Rainolds.[142] He had underwritten the debts of his son-in-law, SirPhilip Sidney,[143] 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, SirJulius Caesar, ordered both sets of debts cancelledquid pro quo.[140] Walsingham's surviving daughter Frances received a £300 annuity,[139] and married theEarl of Essex. Ursula, Lady Walsingham, continued to live at Barn Elms with a staff of servants until her death in 1602.[144]
Protestants lauded Walsingham as "a sound pillar of our commonwealth and chief patron of virtue, learning and chivalry".[145] He was part of a Protestant intelligentsia that includedPhilip Sidney,Edmund Spenser andJohn Dee: men who promoted an expansionist and nationalist English Renaissance.[146] Spenser included a dedicatory sonnet to Walsingham in theFaerie Queene, likening him toMaecenas who introducedVirgil to the EmperorAugustus. After Walsingham's death,Sir John Davies composed anacrostic poem in his memory[147] and Watson wrote an elegy,Meliboeus, in Latin.[148] On the other hand,JesuitRobert Persons thought Walsingham "cruel and inhumane" in his persecution of Catholics.[149] Catholic sources portray a ruthless, devious man driven by religious intolerance and an excessive love for intrigue.[e] Walsingham attracts controversy still.[151] 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.[152] 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.[35] The fragments that do survive demonstrate his personal interest in gardening and falconry.[153]
Fictional portrayals of Walsingham tend to follow Catholic interpretations, depicting him as sinister and Machiavellian.[154] He features in conspiracy theories surrounding the death ofChristopher Marlowe,[35] whom he predeceased.Charles Nicholl examined (and rejected) such theories inThe Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe (1992), which was used as a source byAnthony Burgess for his novelA Dead Man in Deptford (1993).[155]
The 1998 filmElizabeth gives considerable, although sometimes historically inaccurate, prominence to Walsingham (portrayed byGeoffrey Rush). It portrays him as irreligious and sexually ambiguous,[35] merges chronologically distant events,[156] and inaccurately suggests that he murderedMary of Guise.[157] Rush reprised the role in the 2007 sequel,Elizabeth: The Golden Age. BothStephen Murray in the 1971BBC seriesElizabeth R andPatrick Malahide in the 2005Channel Four miniseriesElizabeth I play him as a dour official.[158]
Media related toSir Francis Walsingham at Wikimedia Commons
Quotations related toFrancis Walsingham at Wikiquote| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by SirHenry Norris | English Ambassador to France 1570–1573 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Secretary of State 1573–1590 With:Sir Thomas Smith 1573–1576 Thomas Wilson 1577–1581 William Davison 1586–1587 | Succeeded byas acting secretary |
| Preceded by SirRalph Sadler | Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster 1587–1590 | Succeeded by |
| Honorary titles | ||
| Preceded by | Custos rotulorum of Hampshire 1577–1590 | Succeeded by SirGeorge Carey |
| Preceded by | Chancellor of the Order of the Garter 1578–1587 | Succeeded by |
| Bishops of Salisbury (1477–1550) |  | |
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| Lay chancellors (1551–1671) | ||
| Bishops of Salisbury (1671–1837) | ||
| Bishops of Oxford (1837–1937) | ||
| Knights and Ladies Companion (since 1937) | ||
