The Watchers

to discover the lengths to which Elizabethan Englishmen were prepared to go to destroy their queen, or to defend her - and one of the surprises of a story full of dizzying twists is quite how many of them ended up attempting to do both ... In a bravura piece of counterfactual storytelling, Alford describes the moment in an imagined 1586 when one of the many plots to assassinate Elizabeth finally succeeded ... The heart of the Tudor state, as Alford compellingly shows, is entirely human in its darkness -- Helen Castor Times Higher Education A splendid exploration of the secret world of Elizabethan England ... a riveting study of the spies, informers and code-breakers who kept the Virgin Queen safe from Catholic conspiracies during an era that was much more paranoid than we remember Sunday Times Books of the Year The Watchers ... provides a genuine - and compelling - reappraisal of one of the most studied periods in English history: the reign of Elizabeth I. In exploring the world (or underworld) of Elizabethan espionage, Alford takes us on a darker, more disturbing and arguably more fascinating journey through the Elizabethan era than any other historian of the period ... [He] begins by taking the reader through a terrifyingly dramatic account of an assassination attempt in 1586, which leaves Queen Elizabeth mortally wounded ... It is an imaginary, but startlingly real scenario ... By telling it here, Alford sets the scene perfectly for the rest of the narrative, putting the reader in the mindset of the Virgin Queen's paranoid ministers ... a fascinating cast of characters ... engaging and perfectly pitched narrative ... Alford weaves together the bewilderingly complex threads of plots and counterplots so skilfully that as a reader you are never left floundering -- Tracy Borman BBC History Magazine Alford ... has delved deeply into 16th-century archives to unearth a history of the dark underside to the Elizabethan golden age - a page-turning tale of assassination plots, torture, and espionage Publishers Weekly An intimate and revealing exploration of the men who did the Elizabethan security state's dirty work. Lifting the lid on the Protestant-Catholic 'cold war' of the late sixteenth century, Stephen Alford sifts the sources with a forensic eye, bringing to life the motley collection of self-interested chancers and drifters, religious and political zealots who watched each other in the streets of London, Paris and Rome. Leading us into the dark corners, safe houses and interrogation chambers of this twilight world, The Watchers paints a fascinating picture of the vast and nebulous threat facing Elizabethan England - and its determination to deal with that threat by any means necessary -- Thomas Penn, Author Of Winter King [A] deep and convincing new study of the Elizabethan security services ... Previous attempts to understand the world of Tudor espionage ... have been hampered by the intractability of the source materials ... So it is greatly to the author's credit that he tells us much that is new about the diverse, and frankly bizarre, personalities who protected Elizabeth from an assassin's bullet and her realm from invasion ... Alford's mastery of the Elizabethan state papers delivers a detailed, believable and often compelling account of the strategies deployed by the state ... Alford is even-handed in his approach, not flinching from the grisly details of state-sponsored torture and execution, but also trying to see the situation from the government's point of view -- John Cooper Literary Review A compelling collection of small, painful, often pitiful stories, carefully and insightfully told Times Literary Supplement Detailed and diligently researched Sunday Times Stephen Alford has written a gripping account of these cruel and dramatic events, proving that the survival of Protestant England was purchased at a very high price indeed Sunday Express