The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I
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About this book
In a Europe aflame with wars of religion and dynastic conflicts Elizabeth I came to the throne of a realm encircled by menace. To the great Catholic powers of France and Spain England was a heretic pariah state a canker to be cut away for the health of the greater body of Christendom. Elizabeths government defending Gods true Church of England and its leader the queen could stop at nothing to defend itself. Headed by the brilliant enigmatic and widely feared Sir Francis Walsingham the Elizabethan state deployed every dark art: spies double agents cryptography and torture. Delving deeply into sixteenth-century archives Stephen Alford offers a groundbreaking chillingly vivid depiction of Elizabethan espionage literally recovering it from the shadows. In his company we follow Her Majestys agents through the streets of London and Rome and into the dank cells of the Tower. We see the world as they saw it-ever unsure who could be trusted or when the fatal knock on their own door might come. The Watchers is a riveting exploration of loyalty faith betrayal and deception with the highest possible stakes in a world poised between the Middle Ages and modernity.
