![]() These priests were arrested and put on trial.īetween 15, agents uncovered an alleged plot by the Queen’s own physician, Dr. The unravelling of the Babington plot was a dramatic success, but it was far from the only one. Several of the dreaded priest infiltrators were found by an agent named George Eliot, who had infiltrated Catholic households as a servant. This provided evidence that Mary was conspiring against Elizabeth, leading to Mary’s trial and execution. “Quite a lot of use of code and cypher, which to our eyes looks relatively unsophisticated, although it develops an increasing sophistication.”Ĭyphers became particularly important during the infamous Babington Plot, when Walsingham’s agents decrypted letters to and from Mary Queen of Scots. “They practiced secret inks,” explains Alford. The spies had a few special tricks up their sleeves. The letters of foreign ambassadors and nobles were copied by English agents while the names and movements of English rebels were carefully gathered. ![]() Walsingham’s men infiltrated Catholic circles at home and abroad. “Merchants and their factors and agents are used to moving around Europe relatively easily.” “Merchants were very useful in moving secret information about,” says Stephen Alford, professor of early modern British history at the University of Leeds. A man of incredible intelligence and cunning, Walsingham used merchants to gather intelligence from across Europe. Cecil’s agents tricked Story into searching their boat, trapped him onboard, and whisked him away.Īnother of Elizabeth’s advisors, Sir Francis Walsingham, built up an ongoing spy network. Sir William Cecil, one of Elizabeth’s chief advisors, ordered agents to kidnap Story and bring him home for questioning. An English Catholic, Story had fled to the Low Countries, where he plotted against Elizabeth while working for the Spanish. The first significant covert operation was the kidnapping of John Story in 1570. William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley and chief advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. went through with communism in the 1950s,” says Patrick Martin, historian and author of Elizabethan Espionage. To Elizabeth, they were secret agents stirring up treason.įear and anxiety riddled the English court. “It’s the same sort of thing that the U.S. To some, they were upholders of true faith. Catholic priests such as Edmund Campion were smuggled into England, where they preached to secret congregations. Some Catholics hoped to overthrow Elizabeth and replace her with Mary. Within England, meanwhile, Mary Queen of Scots, a rival for Elizabeth’s throne, was living under house arrest. The Spanish Armada ultimately failed, but it fueled paranoia about Spanish intrusions. As the Spanish King Philip II lost patience with his piratical neighbors, the English rightly feared invasion. In 1588, Spain dispatched a 130-ship naval fleet as part of a planned invasion of England. Decades of hostility between Spain and England were exacerbated by England’s provocative policy of letting privateers raid Spanish treasure fleets. The threats facing late Tudor England came from both home and abroad. ![]() Threats From Spain and Mary Queen of Scots In what would become England’s first great brush with espionage, spies and even kidnappers were deployed to keep the queen safe. They have other choices.In late 16th-century England, Queen Elizabeth was a Protestant royal who faced perpetual threats to her life and reign. Real enemies and exaggerated fears led to paranoia-and the royal court responded with a secret war. Usually male, their spymasters have double standards: a woman who sleeps with the enemy is labelled a whore, whereas James Bond in fiction or Sidney Reilly in real life used women’s bodies as toys or tools and were heroes.Īs Mathilde Carré, who betrayed her Resistance comrades to the Gestapo, said at her postwar trial, ‘It is different for the women. Women spies run all the risks of male agents, plus sexual violence. Yet, none of them had the right to vote for a government or open a bank account. In the Second World War, women of many nations fought the Nazis, risking the firing squad or decapitation by axe in a German prison. In occupied Belgium and northern France 1914-18 there were several thousand women actively working against the Kaiser’s troops. Forget the abundant spy fiction, espionage is not just a boys’ game.
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