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Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Francis Walsingham/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Ian Rose 01:46, 13 June 2012 [1].

Francis Walsingham

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Francis Walsingham (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views)

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Nominator(s): DrKay (talk) 18:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The spy master of Queen Elizabeth I; he constructed the means to entrap and eventually execute Mary, Queen of Scots. DrKay (talk) 18:53, 18 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Support. Comprehensive, well balanced, good prose, impressively referenced. Not all that many images, but perhaps no relevant ones are available. A few minor comments on the prose, none of which affect my support:

  • General
  • Rise to power
    • "she was succeeded by her half-sister Elizabeth I" – having called Mary " Edward's Catholic half-sister" in the previous para, it might be balanced to mention here that Elizabeth was a Protestant.
  • Secretary of State
    • "by embarrassing and weakening the Spanish, as well as to seize Spanish treasure." – ought this to read "seizing" instead of "to seize"?
    • "to both sound out a potential peace deal and gather military intelligence" – some people (not me) still cling to the superstition that splitting an infinitive is a sin.
    • "despite the Queen initially objecting" – gerund wanted here: "despite the Queen's initially objecting"
    • "was in Spanish pay" – unfamiliar idiom; perhaps "in the pay of the Spanish"?
  • Espionage
    • "was ever mindful" – a touch poetic?
  • Entrapment of Mary, Queen of Scots
    • "Paulet replied in disgust" – editorialising a bit, I think. His reply speaks for itself.
  • Spanish Armada
    • "Walsingham's near kinsman" – perhaps "Walsingham's close kinsman", thus avoiding the suggestion that Thomas was nearly a kinsman. (And is first cousin once removed really a close (or near) kinsman?)
  • Death and legacy
    • I can imagine some readers not much liking the phrase "Catholic apologists".

That's my lot. I enjoyed this article a good deal. – Tim riley (talk) 13:53, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thank you for the support and review. Changes on all points bar two. "to seize" is meant to mirror "to promote" rather than "by embarrassing". Cooper, Fraser and Hutchinson do characterise Paulet's reply with an appropriate adjective: "horrified", "most trenchant", "indignant [and] anguished"; and so I prefer to retain one as I think it helps set up the quote for the reader, particularly since the idiom of the quote is unfamiliar and may be difficult for younger readers or non-native english speakers. DrKay (talk) 15:29, 19 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support: My recent peer review comments are here; my view is still that the "In fiction" section is a distraction that adds nothing to a distinguished historical article and risks taking something away (by encouraging drive-by additions the next time Walsingham is portrayed on screen). I don't intend to press the point, however. In all other respects this is high quality work. Brianboulton (talk) 07:56, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, Brian. I do agree that generally "in fiction" sections are unwelcome, but there was some concern at my last FAC (Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Mary, Queen of Scots/archive1) that fictional portrayals were not covered within the nominated article. I also agree that drive-by additions that simply list portrayals should be discouraged, and reverted. DrKay (talk) 09:52, 20 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Images are fine; a long way out of copyright in most cases, and all properly sourced. J Milburn (talk) 19:20, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sources: (Spotchecks not done).

  • It may be worth separating your notes providing extra information from your notes providing references.
  • Check formatting on notes 37 ("Wilson, pp. 98 99, 127"), 93 ("Adams et al.; Cooper, pp. 209–211; Fraser, pp. 482–483; Hutchinson, p. 121: Wilson, p. 210") and 135 ("Thomas Watson quoted in Hutchinson, p. 261", comma after "Watson"?)
  • "(an exhaustive three-volume biography that is still valuable despite its age)" Very POV
  • I had to hide the footnote supporting this as it does not format properly. I don't know how to format footnotes that come after the reflist template. DrKay (talk) 20:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Why are some of those on the further reading not cited in the article?
  • The three main biographies used for the footnotes (Cooper, Hutchinson and Wilson) are the three most recent biographies; Read, Haynes and Budiansky are all older. I've included Bossy because his work is mentioned in the text (and in the text of Adams et al., Hutchinson and Cooper). The point made in the text though is that Bossy identifies Giordano Bruno as a spy, not that Bruno was a spy, so for the footnotes I'm using the sources that say "Bossy identifies Bruno as a spy", not Bossy directly. DrKay (talk) 20:12, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Sources seem completely appropriate. J Milburn (talk) 19:39, 21 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support, with comments, by Ling
    • "identified as Giordano Bruno by author John Bossy". Identified conclusively, or speculatively? In a novel, or in a serious analysis? Was Bossy a contemporary of Walsingham, or more modern (oh, I see 1991), or... oh wait, I see text about this above. If others have asked, then I too am confused about this little verb phrase. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 05:48, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • Bossy's analysis is taken seriously. The spy in the French embassy signed his letters "Henry Fagot", which is generally presumed to be a pseudonym. Bossy thinks Fagot is Bruno, but not everyone agrees with Bossy's view. However, the criticisms of Bossy's work are not of the directly challenging "Bossy is wrong" type; they are more of the sort "Bossy builds a circumstantial case; but there is no direct proof and problems of identifying Fagot remain." There are also those who are convinced by Bossy's analysis. So, to bring all this together into a simple phrase, I've chosen to say "Bossy identifies Bruno as the spy" (a fact on which everyone is agreed) rather than attempt to balance different viewpoints on whether Bossy is correct. If this is going to be problematic, I prefer to just ditch the clause entirely in favor of "Walsingham had a spy in the French embassy" and forget about trying to decipher who the spy might have been. DrKay (talk) 10:04, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • This is trivial and quite possibly regional, but to my AmerEng ears "Walsingham was mindful".. was a bit incongruous. "Mindful" is, in my exp., used for things that are less serious etc. But feel free to ignore this. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 05:53, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I'm reading from bottom to top, and so you may have said this previously, but in my opinion the "Secretary of State" section could use an organizing sentence or two at the top. Putting things in chronological order is of course quite acceptable, but without some text to indicate a plan of development, it reads a little too much like a timeline rather than prose. hard to put it together into a whole. This is admittedly minor, but not quite trivial. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 06:10, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
      • I've just put in one extra sentence at the top to explain the duties of the secretary, which does help set up the section. DrKay (talk) 19:25, 22 May 2012 (UTC) Added a two sentence summary of the section. DrKay (talk) 17:02, 25 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • trivial: Privy Seal or privy seal? – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 06:14, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "and he is credited with" and who is credited with? – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 06:19, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • I see a few references/wikilinks to "mercantile communities" etc., but no mention of Mercantilism. According to my philosophy on the function/purpose/value of wikilinks (which others disagree with in general), this is a case where the article would profit from an extra phrase somewhere relatively prominent that wls that topic. – Ling.Nut3 (talk) 06:30, 22 May 2012 (UTC)[reply]
    • "Walsingham acquired a Surrey county seat in Parliament from 1572 that he retained until his death, but he was not a major parliamentarian.[41]" Why is this in the SOS section?
    • "Elizabeth... moor" Why is this also in the SOS section?– Ling.Nut3 (talk)


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