A list compiled by spymaster Robert Cecil gives an insight into the beginnings of the secret service, says historian
For more than a century, it lay undisturbed in the National Archives: a single sheet of paper, headed The names of the Intelligencers, with the power to unveil a hidden network of secret Elizabethan spies.
Now, the 428-year-old secret dossier of Robert Cecil, spymaster to Elizabeth I and the man who discovered the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, has been pieced together using this key document. It reveals how Cecil set up and used a clandestine espionage network to spy on European monarchs for the English throne.
Continue reading…A list compiled by spymaster Robert Cecil gives an insight into the beginnings of the secret service, says historianFor more than a century, it lay undisturbed in the National Archives: a single sheet of paper, headed The names of the Intelligencers, with the power to unveil a hidden network of secret Elizabethan spies.Now, the 428-year-old secret dossier of Robert Cecil, spymaster to Elizabeth I and the man who discovered the 1605 Gunpowder Plot, has been pieced together using this key document. It reveals how Cecil set up and used a clandestine espionage network to spy on European monarchs for the English throne. Continue reading…