Elizabeth's Spymaster: Francis Walsingham and the Secret War That Saved England

by Robert Hutchinson

Book Overview

England in the time of Elizabeth was on the brink of disaster. On the continent, Catholic Spain sought to forcefully reimpose the Catholic Church on its Protestant neighbors. At home, a network of powerful Catholic families posed a real and serious threat to the Protestant queen. In this world, information was power: those closest to the Queen were there because they had the best network to gather it. "Elizabeth's Spymaster" is the story of the greatest...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312368224
• ISBN13: 9780312368227
• Release Date: August 2007
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Length: 399 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Great history, passable biography, makes sense out of Shakespeare

I walked away with the feeling that the author intended to write a history of Queen Elizabeth's intelligence operations, but the publisher forced him to make it a biography. This book is an excellent history of internal and external politics of England during Elizabeth's reign. As a biography, it's only OK; not bad, but not great. As an adjunct to Shakespeare, it is brilliant. I never really understood the events surrounding the detention of Mary Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada until reading this. Now it all makes perfect sense. Vignettes about the implications of over-aggressive operations against religiously based insurgents are rife. Read with a broad veiw of current events, this book is very relevant. As a bio, it's kind of flat. Walsingham was a character, and very good at what he did even if not appreciated by Elizabeth. He was a passionate intelligence professional, and ran some brilliant, if ethically dubious, operations. I think the material about Walsingham really got lost in the history. As an adjunct to Shakespeare, this is excellent. This book reviews what would have been recent history and current events at the time Shakespeare began writing. The tone and references from Shakespeare make a lot more sense after wrapping myself around the life and times of Walsingham. The treachery and conspiracy culture that permeated Elizabeth's court is described in detail, and especially in "Measure For Measure" and "Two Gentlemen of Verona", the reader can better appreciate the complexity and risks of court life. I really enjoyed and learned a lot from this book, and recommend it to any student of that period's history, intelligence history, or Shakespeare. E.M. Van Court

Elizabeth's Spymaster

A little dry in style, but with good information, and a good bibliography. I enjoyed reading it.