6 April – Sir Francis Walsingham: The Queen’s spymaster

Today is the anniversary of the death of Sir Francis Walsingham on 6th April 1590. Walsingham had an amazing career, serving Elizabeth I as a diplomat, secretary, adviser and spymaster.

Find out more about the man Elizabeth I called her "Moor" in today's video:

Also on this day in history:

• 1523 – Death of Henry Stafford, Earl of Wiltshire. Stafford had served Henry VII and was made a Knight of the Garter in his reign, and although he was imprisoned for a time due to his brother's plotting, he was a favourite of Henry VIII.
• 1523 – Death of Edward Stanley, 1st Baron Monteagle, soldier, peer and Knight of the Garter, at Hornby Castle.
• 1582 – Hanging of Nicholas Nugent, Solicitor General for Ireland, Baron of the Irish Court of Exchequer, and Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas, for treason after being implicated in the rebellion of his nephew, William Nugent.
• 1593 – Hanging of Henry Barrow and John Greenwood, religious separatists, after being condemned to death on 23rd March, for writing and publishing seditious literature.
• 1605 (5th or 6th) – Death of John Stow, historian and antiquary, in London at the age of eighty. He was buried in St Andrew Undershaft Church. Stow's works included his 1561 “The woorkes of Geffrey Chaucer, newly printed with divers additions whiche were never in printe before”, the 1565 “Summarie of Englyshe Chronicles” and his famous “Annales, or a Generale Chronicle of England from Brute until the present yeare of Christ 1580”.
• 1621 – Death of Edward Seymour, 1st Earl of Hertford, son of Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, and Anne Stanhope, and husband of Lady Katherine Grey (Lady Jane Grey's sister). He was aged eighty-one at his death, and had been married three times. His other wives were Frances Howard, gentlewoman of Elizabeth I's Privy Chamber, and widow Frances Prannell, who was the daughter of Thomas Howard, 1st Viscount Howard of Bindon. All three of his marriages were secret ones.