Her Majesty's Spymaster - Stephen Budiansky

Elizabethan England could boast of many things; it was the center of European trade, it produced Shakespeare, and it had begun to cultivate colonies in the New World.  But it had little military power and lived under the constant threat of invasion by Spain and France.  Unable to match her enemies at sea or on the battlefield, Queen Elizabeth was forced to engage them in a battle of wits.  Her secret weapon was Sir Francis Walsingham, who carried the modest title of Principal Secretary but was in fact her spymaster.  Walsingham trumped the Catholic nations with a force more formidable than Spain's armada: espionage. With the taut narrative of a spy novel, Her Majesty's Spymaster recounts how, in a time of terrific religious and political strife, Walsingham invented the art and science of modern espionage - and set Elizabethan England on the path of empire. Planting or recruiting agents in every foreign court in Europe, as well as deep within the conspiracies of domestic plotters, Walsi