Francis Throckmorton
Sir Francis Throckmorton (1554 – 10 July 1584) was a conspirator against Queen Elizabeth I of England in the Throckmorton Plot.
For the Roman Catholic dissenter, see Sir Francis Throckmorton, 2nd Baronet.
Francis Throckmorton
1554
July 10, 1584 (aged 29–30)
University of Oxford, Inner Temple, London
Lawyer
John Throckmorton
- Sir John Throckmorton (father)
- Margery Puttenham (mother)
Conspiracy to overthrow Queen Elizabeth I[edit]
In 1580, Throckmorton, with his brother Thomas, travelled to the European continent and met leading Catholic malcontents from England in Spain and France.
It was in Paris that he met Charles Paget and Thomas Morgan, agents of Mary, Queen of Scots. His brother Thomas settled in Paris permanently in 1582.
Following Throckmorton's return to England in 1583, he served as an intermediary for communications between supporters of the Catholic cause on the continent, the imprisoned Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Spanish ambassador Bernardino de Mendoza.[9] The plot intended an invasion of England by a French force under command of the Duke of Guise, or by Spanish and Italian forces sent by Philip II of Spain for the purpose of releasing the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots and restoring the Catholic Church in England and Wales. Throckmorton occupied a house, on Paul's Wharf in London, which served as a meeting-place for the conspirators.[8]
Throckmorton carried Mary's letters to the French ambassador Michel de Castelnau, Sieur de Mauvissière and his secretary Claude de Courcelles, who resided at Salisbury Court near Fleet Street.[10] In 2023 coded letters from Mary to Castelnau were discovered in the Bibliothèque nationale de France and deciphered. The letters were probably put into cipher by Mary's secretaries Gilbert Curle, Claude Nau, and Jérôme Pasquier. In the ciphered texts Throckmorton was given the codename or alias Monsieur de la Tour.[11]
Throckmorton's activities raised the suspicions of Sir Francis Walsingham, Elizabeth I's spymaster and he was arrested in October 1583. A search of his house produced incriminating evidence and, after torture upon the rack, Throckmorton confessed his involvement in a plot to overthrow the Queen and restore the Catholic Church in England. An invasion led by Henry I, Duke of Guise, would have been coupled with an orchestrated uprising of Catholics within the country.[9]
Throckmorton was tried at the Guildhall on 21 May 1584.
In film and literature[edit]
Sir Francis Throckmorton is featured in the film Elizabeth: The Golden Age, where he is played by Steven Robertson. In the film, he is shown asking for help from his cousin, Elizabeth Throckmorton, one of Queen Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting and later the wife of Sir Walter Raleigh.
Throckmorton's recruitment to act as a courier to Queen Mary and the way he was discovered by Walsingham's agents are depicted in Ken Follett's historical novel A Column of Fire. As depicted in the book, Throckmorton was a minor member of the conspiracy, with the main organiser who recruited him managing to escape undetected.