Her Majesty's Spymaster

by Stephen Budiansky

  The parcel of Mary’s copied letters turned over to Walsingham in April 1584 are all mostly in BL Harley MS 1582; many of the important ones are also reprinted in Labanoff, ed., Lettres. Especially interesting are the Feb. 1584 letter from Mary expressing fears of a leak in the embassy, with the mole’s panicked postscript to Walsingham (BL Harley MS 1582 ff. 311-13), and Mauvissière’s reassuring reply, ff. 370-73. Walsingham’s order for the torture of Throckmorton is in PRO SP 12/163 no. 65. The list of charges against Mauvissière is reprinted in Bossy, Under the Molehill . The note from the leaker to Walsingham in Nov. 1584 reporting that no letters from Mary had been received for some time is in BL Cotton MS Nero B vi ff. 371-72. The translation and summary of Creighton’s seized papers, and the account of his capture, are in SP 12/173 no. 4 and SP 53/13 no. 61.

  Chérelles’s trick upon Stafford is documented in Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, vol. 6, no. 315. A number of letters in Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, refer to the deciphering work of Sainte-Aldegonde and others (e.g., vol. 10, nos. 714 and 768; vol. 13, no. 52); Sainte-Aldegonde’s career and the contemporary history of codes and decipherment is excellently covered in Kahn, Codebreakers.

  The key documents in the Babington case have been collected in Pollen, ed., Babington Plot; Poulet, Letter Books, and Labanoff, ed., Lettres. Nicholl, Reckoning, has an excellent study of Robert Poley. Poley’s reports to Walsingham on what he picked up from Morgan, Paget, and Châteauneuf are in PRO SP 53/6 no. 9 and SP 53/7 no. 2. His “confession” detailing his relations with Babington is in Calendar of State Papers, Scotland, vol. 8, no. 685.

  Copies of the ciphers used by Babington are in PRO SP 12/193 no. 54; the forged cipher postscript inserted by Phelippes is in SP 53/18 no. 55. Walsingham’s letter to Phelippes regretting the suspicion aroused by adding the forged postscript is in BL Cotton MS Appendix L f. 144. One of the several copies of Babington’s farewell letter to Poley is in BL Add. MS 33938 f. 22.

  1584-90: WAR, AT LAST

  MacCaffrey, Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy, and Read, Mr. Secretary Walsingham, cover in detail the negotiations leading to the Leicester expedition. The Declaration of the Causes is reprinted in Somers Tracts, vol. 1, pp. 410-19. Duncan-Jones, Sir Philip Sidney, is a solid work of modern scholarship on Sidney’s life that strips away much of the legends of centuries. Walsingham’s rapprochement with Burghley is discussed in Read, “Walsingham and Burghley.”

  The story of Stafford’s treason is well covered in Read, “Fame of Sir Edward Stafford,” and in Leimon and Parker, “Treason and Plot”; the latter builds an exceptionally powerful case against Stafford by matching the reports filed by Mendoza with details about Stafford’s activities and information he received. The full text of Berden’s report on Stafford is in Calendar of State Papers, Foreign, vol. 21 (pt. 1), pp. 34-36; his comment about reading the ambassador’s letters and supplying the Catholics with false reports is in PRO SP 12/187 no. 81.

  Drake’s expeditions are well covered in Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake. Walsingham’s “Plat for Intelligence out of Spain” is in PRO SP 12/202 no. 41.

  Many of the intelligence reports from Standen and Ousley are in BL Add. MS 35841. Parker, “Worst-Kept Secret,” is an excellent summary and analysis of the intelligence on Spanish preparations received in London. English preparations to resist invasion are detailed in Bruce, Report on the Arrangements.

  The events of the Armada have been told countless times; I found Kelsey, Sir Francis Drake; Rowse, Expansion of Elizabethan England; Martin and Parker, Spanish Armada; and Martin, Spanish Armada Prisoners, particularly useful.

  Walsingham’s will is reprinted in Webb, Miller, and Beckwith, History of Chislehurst.

  The fate of Standen, briefly discussed in Birch, Memoirs, is reconstructed in fascinating detail in Hammer, “Elizabethan Spy.”

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PRINCIPAL MANUSCRIPT SOURCES

  British Library (BL)

  Additional MSS

  Cotton MSS

  Harley MSS

  Stowe MSS

  Public Record Office, Kew, U.K. (PRO)

  SP 12 State Papers, Domestic, Elizabeth I

  SP 52 State Papers, Scotland, Series I, Elizabeth I

  SP 53 State Papers, Scotland, Series I, Mary Queen of Scots

  PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES

  Birch, Thomas. Memoirs of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth from the Year 1581 till Her Death. London, 1754.

  Bruce, John. Report on the Arrangements which Were Made, for the Internal Defence of these Kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada, Projected the Invasion and Conquest of England. London, 1798.

  Calendar of Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs, Preserved Principally in the Archives of Simancas, Elizabeth. London, 1892-99.

  Calendar of State Papers, Foreign Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth. 23 vols. London, 1863-1950.

  Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland and Mary, Queen of Scots, 1547-1603. 13 vols. Edinburgh, 1898-1969.

  Camden, William. The History of the Most Renowned and Victorious Princess Elizabeth. London, 1635.

  Challoner, Richard. Memoirs of Missionary Priests. Edited by John Hungerford Pollen. 1924. Reprint. Farnborough, U.K.: Gregg, 1969.

  Digges, Dudley, ed. The Compleat Ambassador. London, 1655.

  A Discoverie of the Treasons Practised and Attempted Against the Queen’s Majestie and the Realme, by Francis Throckmorton. 1584. Reprint. Harleian Miscellany, vol. 3. London, 1809.

  Faunt, Nicholas. “Discourse Touching the Office of Principal Secretary of Estate, &c. 1592.” English Historical Review, vol. 20 (1905), pp. 499-508.

  Fénélon, Bertrand de Salignac, seigneur de La Mothe. Correspondance diplomatique. 7 vols. Paris and London, 1838-40.

  “Journal of Sir Francis Walsingham from December 1570 to April 1583.” Camden Miscellany, vol. 6. London: Camden Society, 1870.

  Labanoff, Alexandre, ed. Lettres, instructions et mémoires de Marie Stuart, reine d’Écosse. 7 vols. London, 1844.

  Lloyd, David. State Worthies. 2 vols. London, 1766.

  Murdin, William, ed. Collection of State Papers … Left by William Cecill Lord Burghley. London, 1740-59.

  Naunton, Robert. Fragmenta Regalia; or Observations on Queen Elizabeth, Her Times & Favorites. Edited by John S. Cerovski. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1985.

  Pollen, John Hungerford, ed. Mary Queen of Scots and the Babington Plot. Publications of the Scottish History Society, third series, vol. 3. Edinburgh, 1922.

  Potter, David, ed. The French Wars of Religion: Selected Documents. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997.

  Poulet, Amias. The Letter Books of Sir Amias Poulet, Keeper of Mary Queen of Scots. Edited by John Morris. London: Burns and Oates, 1874.

  The Registers of St. Olave, Hart Street, London: 1563-1700. London, 1916.

  Somers Tracts. 13 vols. 1809-15.

  Stow, John. Survey of London; Reprinted from the Text of 1603. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971.

  Strype, John. Annals of the Reformation. 2 vols. London, 1725.

  ———. Ecclesiastical Memorials. 7 vols. London, 1816.

  Stubbs, John. The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf. Edited by Lloyd E. Berry. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1968.

  SECONDARY SOURCES

  Bossy, John. Giordano Bruno and the Embassy Affair. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991.

  ———. Under the Molehill: An Elizabethan Spy Story. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001.

  Duncan-Jones, Katherine. Sir Philip Sidney: Courtier Poet. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1991.

  Erlanger, Philippe. Saint Bartholomew’s Night: The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Translated by Patrick O’Brian. New York: Pantheon, 1962.

  Fraser, Antonia. Mary Queen of Scots. 1969. Reprint. New York: Dell, 1993.

  Guy, John. Tudor England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

  ———. Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuar
t. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

  Hammer, P.E.J. “An Elizabethan Spy Who Came In from the Cold: The Return of Anthony Standen to England in 1593.” Historical Research, vol. 65 (1992), pp. 277-95.

  Kahn, David. The Codebreakers. Revised edition. New York: Scribner, 1996.

  Kelsey, Harry. Sir Francis Drake: The Queen’s Pirate. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000.

  Kingdon, Robert M. Myths About the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacres, 1572-1576. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988.

  Knecht, R. J. The French Wars of Religion, 1559-1598. London: Longman, 1989.

  Layard, Henry Austen. The Massacre of St. Batholomew and the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. London, 1888.

  Leimon, Mitchell, and Geoffrey Parker. “Treason and Plot in Elizabethan Diplomacy: The ‘Fame of Sir Edward Stafford’ Reconsidered.” English Historical Review, vol. 111 (1996), pp. 1134-58.

  MacCaffrey, Wallace T. The Shaping of the Elizabethan Regime. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968.

  ———. Queen Elizabeth and the Making of Policy, 1572-1588. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981.

  ———. Elizabeth I. London: Edward Arnold, 1993.

  McGrath, Patrick. Papists and Puritans Under Elizabeth I. New York: Walker, 1967.

  McMillim, Scott, and Sally-Beth MacLean. The Queen’s Men and Their Plays. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

  Martin, Colin, and Geoffrey Parker. The Spanish Armada. New York: W. W. Norton, 1988.

  Martin, Paula. Spanish Armada Prisoners: The Story of the “Nuestra Señora del Rosario” and Her Crew, and of Other Prisoners in England, 1587-97. Exeter, U.K.: University of Exeter, 1988.

  Nicholl, Charles. The Reckoning. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1992.

  Noguères, Henri. The Massacre of Saint Bartholomew. Translated by Claire Elaine Engel. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

  Palliser, D. M. The Age of Elizabeth: England Under the Later Tudors, 1547-1603. Second edition. London: Longman, 1992.

  Parker, Geoffrey. “The Worst-Kept Secret in Europe? The European Intelligence Community and the Spanish Armada of 1588.” In Go Spy the Land: Military Intelligence in History, edited by Keith Neilson and B.J.C. McKercher. Westport, Conn.: Prager, 1992.

  Pollen, John Hungerford. The English Catholics in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth. New York: Longmans, Green, 1920.

  Pollitt, Ronald. “The Abduction of Doctor John Story and the Evolution of Elizabethan Intelligence Operations.” Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 14 (1983), pp. 131-56.

  Read, Conyers. “Walsingham and Burghley in Queen Elizabeth’s Privy Council.” English Historical Review, vol. 28 (1913), pp. 34-58.

  ———. “The Fame of Sir Edward Stafford.” American Historical Review , vol. 20 (1915), pp. 292-313; vol. 35 (1930), pp. 560-66.

  ———. Mr. Secretary Walsingham and the Policy of Queen Elizabeth . 3 vols. 1925. Reprint. Harwich Port, Mass.: Clock & Rose Press, 2003.

  ———. The Tudors: Personalities and Practical Politics in Sixteenth-Century England. New York: Henry Holt, 1936.

  ———. Mr. Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.

  ———. The Government of England Under Elizabeth. Washington, D.C.: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1960.

  Rowse, A. L. The England of Elizabeth. 1950. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

  ———. The Expansion of Elizabethan England. 1955. Reprint. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003.

  Soman, Alfred, ed. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew: Reappraisals and Documents. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974.

  Somerset, Anne. Elizabeth I. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

  Starkey, David. Elizabeth: The Struggle for the Throne. London: Chatto & Windus, 2000.

  Sutherland, N. M. The Massacre of St. Bartholomew and the European Conflict, 1559-1572. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.

  Webb, E. A., G. W. Miller, and J. Beckwith. The History of Chislehurst . London: George Allen, 1899.