Product Details

Publishers Weekly

Rising from humble roots, Sir Francis Walsingham is a model of a certain type of Elizabethan figure, thriving at an innovative court that preferred service by men of talent rather than by the high nobility. As Queen Elizabeth's secretary of the Privy Council, Walsingham coordinated a number of official and unofficial spy networks, historian Budiansky relates in this fresh look at the Virgin Queen's reign. Corresponding equally with ambassadors and shadowy informants, supervising code breakers and couriers, teaching himself the rules of watching and waiting, Walsingham developed influential models for the roles of secretary and spymaster. Additionally, according to Budiansky, at a time when religion was very much intertwined with both internal and external politics, he proved an early example of the political mindset that put national devotion above religious sentiment. Diplomatic intrigue and attempted conspiracies are natural threads to weave through the stories of Elizabeth's marriage negotiations; her struggle to create a religious settlement; her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots; and the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Even readers who are already versed in Elizabeth's reign will find Budiansky's new angles on a much-examined era enlightening. (Aug. 22) Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

A staunch Puritan, sober in dress, Sir Francis Walsingham must, ironically, have stood out in the flamboyant court of Elizabethan England. What distinguished him was not only his dress; as Budiansky succinctly puts it, "he knew how to shut up." This narrative recounts Walsingham's growth from Protestant expatriate to English ambassador to France, principal secretary, privy councilor, and untitled spymaster for Elizabeth I, engaging in operations related to her rivalry with Mary, Queen of Scots, and to the Catholic countries of Spain and France. Walsingham's discretion was so complete that he took to his grave many of his intelligence-gathering methods, which had helped make England a major player on the world stage. Nonetheless, Budiansky (Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II), a correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, shows that this man was responsible for forging many espionage techniques that carry into our own era (e.g., codebreaking, double agents). Budiansky's prose is peppered with a wry wit that makes the book a pure joy to read. A chronology of events, a list of relevant names, and a brief discussion of the language, money, and calendar of the period make for helpful additions to the character-rich tale. Recommended for all libraries.-Tessa L.H. Minchew, Georgia Perimeter Coll. Lib., Clarkston Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Versatile nonfiction author Budiansky (Air Power, 2004, etc.) takes on the career of Elizabeth I's wily Puritan ambassador, in an occasionally clotted but ultimately riveting study. Walsingham was one of the new generation of university-educated laymen from the gentry (rather than nobility), men of the Renaissance Enlightenment whom Queen Elizabeth I sagely kept around her, the other two being William Cecil (Lord Burghley) and the Earl of Leicester. Promoted by Cecil as Elizabeth's ambassador to France, where he nearly lost his life during the ghastly Bartholomew Massacre of 1572, Walsingham quickly ascended to the position of Principal Secretary, a job he largely created himself. A polyglot and master of discretion, Mr. Secretary, as he was known, had to "understand the state of the whole realm" as well as take the blame from his irascible queen when something went wrong. Walsingham, whose motto was "Hear all reports but trust not all," built up a network of "paid scoundrels" to infiltrate Catholic circles, being faced continually with crisis after crisis involving the conniving Mary Queen of Scots and her sympathetic Catholic followers. Walsingham finally engineered a conspiratorial web around Mary that caused her to betray herself in correspondence, and the Babington plotters were caught. A hard-liner, Walsingham pushed for Mary's execution, and, despite Elizabeth's vacillation, the warrant was signed and Mary executed in 1587. Further, Walsingham warned of Spain's recalcitrance and, overcoming Elizabeth's "perfected art of tactical delay," saw the triumph of the English fleet over the Spanish Armada. Budiansky gets bogged down in detail at the start, as he opens his story in Pariswith the first attempted murder of the Huguenot leader Coligny just prior to Bartholomew Day, then stepping back to fill in the picture. The result is a satisfying and shrewd portrait of a key historical and very human figure. For both scholar and lay reader, a historical study that makes us wish for more like it on subjects too often only glanced at.