Olejar Books

Elizabeth's Spy Master is a vivid narrative, based on new research, and set in a world of bloody intrigue, conspiracies and religious war. The England of Queen Elizabeth faced an implacable external enemy in the shape of Catholic Spain. Her realm was also menaced by an enemy within: a network of Catholic families that extended from remote regions to the capital and the court itself. The magnitude of the threat was illustrated over the Channel where Spanish armies sought to re-impose Catholicism on the Dutch by wholesale slaughter, rape and massacre. Only two things stood in their way: the English Channel and Sir Francis Walsingham.

Walsingham was in charge of the secret war in defence of Queen Elizabeth. His war was conducted in the shadows: blackmail, bribery, forgery and assassination were all in a day's work. He was not only the world's first recognisably modern 'spy master', but also the first 'secret policeman'. His world has uncomfortable resonances with ours: London was the target for religious fanatics who cheerfully accepted suicide missions to kill in the name of their faith. The Pope had branded Elizabeth a heretic and absolved her subjects of loyalty: an incitement to murder as powerful in its day as a fatwa. At the heart of this web of treason and conspiracy was the tragic figure of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Walsingham's ruthlessness is chilling, but commands respect, especially when the nature of his enemies is taken into account. He succeeded in getting informers into the Catholic houses and had spies at senior level within the Spanish Armada and even the Vatican itself. When Philip II of Spain heard of Walsingham's death in a report from his embassy in London, he wrote 'good news' in the margin. This book reveals why.