Elizabethan Secret Services

Elizabethan Secret Services

Author: Alan Haynes

Publisher: History Press (SC)

Published: 2009

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780752450469

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The England of Elizabeth was a nation under threat. This book challenges stale notions about espionage in Renasissance England and presents complex material so that the reign of Elizabeth I is shown in a compellingly light.


The Elizabethan Secret Services

The Elizabethan Secret Services

Author: Alan Haynes

Publisher: The History Press

Published: 2011-10-24

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0752473204

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The England of Elizabeth was a nation under threat, both from factions within and great powers without. Opposition to the Protestant establishment meant that the queen and her court constantly believe themselves menaces by subterfuge and plots. In this fragile climate, spies and spy networks were of cardinal importance. This is an unrivalled and impeccably detailed account of the 'secret services' operated by the great men of Elizabethan England. By stealthy efforts at home and abroad the Elizabethan spy clusters became forces to be feared. Kidnapping, surveillance, conspiracy, counter-espionage, theft and lying were just a few of the methods employed to defeat the ever-present threat of regicide. This book challenges many stale notions about espionage in Renaissance England and presents complex material in an absorbing way, so that the reign of Elizabeth I is shown in a compellingly new and bold light.


Elizabethan Espionage

Elizabethan Espionage

Author: Patrick H. Martin

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2016-04-27

Total Pages: 928

ISBN-13: 1476623597

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In the wake of the 1588 destruction of the Spanish Armada, English Catholics launched an ingenious counterespionage effort to undermine the Tudor government’s anti–Catholic machinations. This Jesuit-connected network secretly transmitted intelligence to Brussels, Antwerp, Madrid and Rome. Its central figure was William Sterrell, a brilliant Oxford philosopher. Sterrell moved at the highest levels of government, working for the ill-fated Earl of Essex and for the powerful 4th Earl of Worcester, secret sponsor of the Jesuits. This is the story of Sterrell’s secret network—undetected for 400 years—brought to life in vivid detail, based on close examination of hundreds of original letters and documents never before transcribed or published.


The Watchers

The Watchers

Author: Stephen Alford

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2012-11-13

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 1608193624

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In a Europe aflame with wars of religion and dynastic conflicts, Elizabeth I came to the throne of a realm encircled by menace. To the great Catholic powers of France and Spain, England was a heretic pariah state, a canker to be cut away for the health of the greater body of Christendom. Elizabeth's government, defending God's true Church of England and its leader, the queen, could stop at nothing to defend itself. Headed by the brilliant, enigmatic, and widely feared Sir Francis Walsingham, the Elizabethan state deployed every dark art: spies, double agents, cryptography, and torture. Delving deeply into sixteenth-century archives, Stephen Alford offers a groundbreaking, chillingly vivid depiction of Elizabethan espionage, literally recovering it from the shadows. In his company we follow Her Majesty's agents through the streets of London and Rome, and into the dank cells of the Tower. We see the world as they saw it-ever unsure who could be trusted or when the fatal knock on their own door might come. The Watchers is a riveting exploration of loyalty, faith, betrayal, and deception with the highest possible stakes, in a world poised between the Middle Ages and modernity.


The Queen's Agent

The Queen's Agent

Author: John Cooper

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-11-15

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 1639361154

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Elizabeth I came to the throne at a time of insecurity and unrest. Rivals threatened her reign; England was a Protestant island, isolated in a sea of Catholic countries. Spain plotted an invasion, but Elizabeth's Secretary, Francis Walsingham, was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her. He ran a network of agents in England and Europe who provided him with information about invasions or assassination plots. He recruited likely young men and 'turned' others. He encouraged Elizabeth to make war against the Catholic Irish rebels with extreme brutality and oversaw the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The Queen's Agent is a story of secret agents, cryptic codes, and ingenious plots, set in a turbulent period of England's history. It is also the story of a man devoted to his queen, sacrificing his every waking hour to save the threatened English state.


Her Majesty's Spymaster

Her Majesty's Spymaster

Author: Stephen Budiansky

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 2006-07-25

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 9780452287471

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Sir Francis Walsingham’s official title was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, but in fact this pious, tight-lipped Puritan was England’s first spymaster. A ruthless, fiercely loyal civil servant, Walsingham worked brilliantly behind the scenes to foil Elizabeth’s rival Mary Queen of Scots and outwit Catholic Spain and France, which had arrayed their forces behind her. Though he cut an incongruous figure in Elizabeth’s worldly court, Walsingham managed to win the trust of key players like William Cecil and the Earl of Leicester before launching his own secret campaign against the queen’s enemies. Covert operations were Walsingham’s genius; he pioneered techniques for exploiting double agents, spreading disinformation, and deciphering codes with the latest code-breaking science that remain staples of international espionage.


God's Secret Agents

God's Secret Agents

Author: Alice Hogge

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2005-06-14

Total Pages: 463

ISBN-13: 0060542276

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One evening in 1588, just weeks after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, two young men landed in secret on a beach in Norfolk, England. They were Jesuit priests, Englishmen, and their aim was to achieve by force of argument what the Armada had failed to do by force of arms: return England to the Catholic Church. Eighteen years later their mission had been shattered by the actions of the Gunpowder Plotters -- a small group of terrorists who famously tried to destroy the Houses of Parliament -- for the Jesuits were accused of having designed "that most horrid and hellish conspiracy." In an unusual turn of events, the future of every Catholic they had hoped to save would soon come to depend on the silence of one Oxford carpenter, a man being tortured in the Tower of London for building priest holes, those bunkers in which the Catholic clergy hid from English authorities. Using contemporary documents, Alice Hogge's brilliant new book pieces together a deadly game of cat-and-mouse between priests and government spies, as Queen Elizabeth and her ministers fought to defend the state, and English Catholics fought to defend their souls. It follows the priests -- God's Secret Agents -- from their schooling on the Continent, through their perilous return journeys and their lonely lives in hiding, to the scaffold, where a gruesome death awaited them. To their government they were traitors; to their fellow Catholics they were glorious martyrs. It was a distinction that the Gunpowder Plot would put to the test. Ultimately God's Secret Agents is the story of men who would die for their cause undone by men who would kill for it.


The Secret World

The Secret World

Author: Christopher Andrew

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-09-04

Total Pages: 1019

ISBN-13: 030024052X

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“A comprehensive exploration of spying in its myriad forms from the Bible to the present day . . . Easy to dip into, and surprisingly funny.” —Ben Macintyre in The New York Times Book Review The history of espionage is far older than any of today’s intelligence agencies, yet largely forgotten. The codebreakers at Bletchley Park, the most successful WWII intelligence agency, were completely unaware that their predecessors had broken the codes of Napoleon during the Napoleonic wars and those of Spain before the Spanish Armada. Those who do not understand past mistakes are likely to repeat them. Intelligence is a prime example. At the outbreak of WWI, the grasp of intelligence shown by US President Woodrow Wilson and British Prime Minister Herbert Asquith was not in the same class as that of George Washington during the Revolutionary War and eighteenth-century British statesmen. In the first global history of espionage ever written, distinguished historian and New York Times–bestselling author Christopher Andrew recovers much of the lost intelligence history of the past three millennia—and shows us its continuing relevance. “Accurate, comprehensive, digestible and startling . . . a stellar achievement.” —Edward Lucas, The Times “For anyone with a taste for wide-ranging and shrewdly gossipy history—or, for that matter, for anyone with a taste for spy stories—Andrew’s is one of the most entertaining books of the past few years.” —Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker “Remarkable for its scope and delightful for its unpredictable comparisons . . . there are important lessons for spymasters everywhere in this breathtaking and brilliant book.” —Richard J. Aldrich, Times Literary Supplement “Fans of Fleming and Furst will delight in this skillfully related true-fact side of the story.” —Kirkus Reviews “A crowning triumph of one of the most adventurous scholars of the security world.” —Financial Times Includes illustrations