Elizabethan Espionage: Plotters and Spies in the Struggle Between Catholicism and the Crown

In the wake of the 1588 destruction of the Spanish Armada, English Catholics launched an ingenious counterespionage effort to undermine the Tudor government's anti-Catholic machinations. This Jesuit-connected network secretly transmitted intelligence to Brussels, Antwerp, Madrid and Rome. Its central figure was William Sterrell, a brilliant Oxford philosopher. Sterrell moved at the highest levels of government, working for the ill-fated Earl of Essex and for the powerful 4th Earl of Worces...