Watchers

Product Description

The enthralling story of the dark side of Elizabethan rule
- its spies secret agents & informers
- from Stephen Alford dubbed the John le Carre of Tudor history Elizabeth I was a ruler who radiated a sense of power & purpose. Her long & successful reign was a Golden Age of wealth confidence creativity Shakespeares plays & Walter Raleighs adventures: the apotheosis of the Tudor dynasty. Across much of Europe however Elizabeth was viewed very differently. She was Jezebel the bastard offspring of Henry VIIIs illegal second marriage a woman & a Protestant heretic. The pope denounced her as a heretic schismatic tyrant & the most powerful rulers of Europe conspired to destroy her their plans most fully realized by the Spanish Armada. If Elizabeths reign was a golden age then it was also a precarious one that required constant anxious surveillance against sometimes overwhelming threats. The Watchers" is a beautifully written gripping account of the unflagging battle by spies codebreakers ambassadors & confidence-men to protect the queen. It was a reign that required endless watchfulness
- of the coasts of the Catholic seminaries of Elizabeths own subjects. The stakes could not have been higher: priests coming secretly ashore were hunted down & executed & assassination plots real & imagined sprung up everywhere. Drawing on extraordinary secret files Stephen Alford brings to life this shadow world where nobody could be trusted & where a single mistake could have changed Englands history drastically. This is a dark surprising & utterly compelling account of an extraordinary reign. Reviews: " Forget Le Carre Deighton & the rest
- this is more enthralling than any modern spy fiction". (Rupert Christiansen " Daily Telegraph"). " Fascinating... If you want to know the inside story of this struggle the dark heart of calculation & the fight for survival then this is the book to read. I know no better". (Alan Judd " Spectator"). " Alford paints a vivid & staggeringly well-researched portrait of the sinister side of Elizabethan Engl&... This is a spectacular book. It sheds new light on plots that most historians have ceased to explore & brings less famous conspiracies to the attention of the general reading public". (" Herald"). " An enthralling account of the murky shadow-world of Elizabethan espionage". (Helen Castor " Times Higher Education"). " Absorbing & closely documented... Alford vividly evokes this murky world of codes ciphers invisible ink intercepted letters aliases disguises forgeries & instructions to burn after reading.. .flowing narrative [and] crisp judments.. .engrossing". (Keith Thomas " Guardian"). " Stephen Alford has written a gripping account of these cruel & dramatic events proving that the survival of Protestant England was purchased at a very high price indeed". (" Sunday Express"). " Stephen Alfords gripping new book tells the story of [the Elizabethan] years through the eyes of the men he calls watchers... Alford brings these men their worlds & the unfortunate victims of their espionage vividly out of the shadows...[ Alford] has brought a dash of le Carre to the 16th century". (Dan Jones " The Times Book of the Week"). " Alford sets the scene perfectly... putting the reader in the mindset of the Virgin Queens paranoid ministers... a fascinating cast of characters.. .engaging & perfectly pitched narrative... Alford weaves together the bewilderingly complex threads of plots & counterplots so skilfully that as a reader you are never left floundering". (Tracy Borman "BBC History Magazine"). About the author: Stephen Alford is the author of the acclaimed biography " Burghley: William Cecil at the Court of Elizabeth I" & a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He taught for fifteen years at Cambridge University where he was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of History & a Fellow of Kings College. He is now Professor of Early Modern Briti"