Walsingham was a Benedictine monk who spent most of his life at St Albans Abbey, Hertfordshire where he was superintendent of the copying room (scriptorium).
His works include the Chronicon Angliæ, controversially attacking John of Gaunt, and theYpodigma Neustriæ (Chronicle of Normandy), justifying Henry V's invasion, and dedicated it to him in 1419.
He has no relation to the 16th century Francis Walsingham, spymaster to Queen Elizabeth I. Thomas became a monk at St Albans, where he appears to have passed the whole of his monastic life, excepting a period from 1394 to 1396 during which he was prior of Wymondham Abbey, Norfolk, England, another Benedictine house.
An inconclusive passage in his Historia Anglicana has been taken as evidence that he was educated at Oxford, and the abbey of St Albans maintained particularly close relations with Oxford, sending its novices to be trained at St Alban Hall and its monks at Gloucester College, lending further weight to the idea that Walsingham attended the university.
Bale makes his case worse by adding that Walsingham was the author of a work styled Acta Henrici Sexti.
The Peasants' Revolt of that year was formidable at St Albans, the abbey being besieged, many of its court rolls and other muniments burnt, and charters of manumission extorted.
Walsingham's admiration for Henry V, as the opposer of Lollardy, led him to follow with minute detail the progress of that king's campaigns in France.
It is intituled De Generatione et Natura Deorum, a title which suggests remoteness from Thomas Walsingham's literary pursuits.