» Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage

Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: Royal intrigue at its best!
Comment: Her Majesty's Spymaster: Elizabeth I, Sir Francis Walsingham, and the Birth of Modern Espionage is an interesting nonfiction book about the use of modern-day spy techniques in the time of Queen Elizabeth, Mary Queen of Scots, and the bloody wars between the Catholics and the Protestants during the mid 1500's. It was England Vs. France and Spain and the book proves beyond any doubt that all's fair in love and war. And this little book is filled with both.

Queen Elizabeth occupied the throne of England and Mary and her backers launched a sinister campaign to take it from her by any means possible and return the Protestant realm to Catholic control. In this dark upheaval of hypocritical holiness gone amuck gossip mongers were everywhere and trust worthy friends were impossible to find. Indeed, in the historic words of Charles Baillie, Mary's messenger who was arrested and imprisoned in 1571 for carrying secret information, "Be friend to no one. Be enemy to none." The price of culpability was high: long prison sentences, torture on the rack, and beheading were as common as modern day traffic tickets. So the only way to get the absolute straight skinny on anybody was to invent a strategy of covert operations, double agents, disinformation and secret codes that could reveal the unaltered truth. Knowledge was power, and there was one man who knew just how to go about getting it and using it - Elizabeth's own brilliant ambassador to France - Sir Francis Walsington, a.k.a. The Spy Master. Do you think you have a tough job? His job was to set the course of history. Exactly what did he do, and how did he go about it? I recommend you read the book and find out. You won't be disappointed.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Slim; skim it or skip it
Comment: Tipoff at that start that this was not going to be anything but an exhaustive first draft of history: a 4-page list of names at the beginning of a small book that barely topped 200 pages. And author Budiansky proceeds to use them all in journalistic style, with no summary, narrative, or placing of Walsingham in the context of modern espionage as the subtitle claims.

I ended up skimming the last 100 pages.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Espionage, Black Propaganda and Covert Action in Elizabethan England. Learn how a brilliant master did it.
Comment: A short, yet comprehensive study of Sir Francis Walsingham. A brilliant spy master. He coordinated espionage activities against Spain and France and internal enemies (both real and unfortunately imagined) of Queen Elizabeth I.

This history shows black operations and black propaganda, influence operations, the acquisition of foreign intelligence, the recruitment of agents, covert action, mail intercept, etc. It's about the figurative "puppet master" - the Privy Councillor - that affected and influenced the course of history. He influenced the events surrounding Elizabeth's contest for power with Mary Queen of Scotts, etc.

As a bonus, you will also learn about how the Spanish King Phillip managed his correspondence and managed his Empire.

The study of an intelligence and political master in the context of Elizabethan England, the times of the Spanish Armada's attack on England, etc.

An excellent book that I highly recommend for the serious student.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: OK in its way
Comment: I found the book interesting, but not absorbing. The writer jumps from subject to subject and event to event. The writing is good, but it could be more chronological.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: espionage and treachery under Elizabeth I
Comment: This is a popular history of events in the reign of Elizabeth I, focused on the life of Sir Francis Walsingham, a senior member of the privy council who was responsible for a wide array of cloak-and-dagger work. It includes many details of the intricate and treacherous world of spies and double agents of the period, including the intercepted letters that eventually led to the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

It is sometimes a little light, but it is very readable. It helped me better understand the connections between events such as the St Bartholomew's massacre of the protestant nobility in Paris, the Spanish Armada, the conspiracies around Mary, and the distinctly paranoid atmosphere of Elizabeth's court. It isn't surprising that the protestant leadership of England were highly alarmed after what they had seen happen to their coreligionists in Paris and amidst the various rumoured conspiracies around Mary.

Elizabeth herself is portrayed as continually vacillating. Sometimes by intent, to stall and delay her enemies or to allow events to unfold, but sometimes out of mere habit and apparently sometimes out of alarming genuine indecisiveness.

This is by no means a complete history of Elizabeth I's times. But it sheds some interesting light and reminds us of the long dark history of spies and double-dealing between nations.

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