Elizabeth's Spymaster (42 page)

His first contact as a spy was a note to Walsingham concerning ‘the proceedings there, touching the Queen of Scotland’ in 1583. Berden was quickly suspected of treachery by the Catholic exiles and imprisoned in the papal castle of Sant Angelo in Rome. On swearing an oath of loyalty to Catholicism, he was freed and returned to England. He was soon spying again for Walsingham and in March 1585 was operating in London, tasked with observing the activities of Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, who was under suspicion of conspiracy.

From August 1585 to January 1586 he was sent to France to spy on the English Catholic communities in Paris and Rouen, using invisible ink for his reports. He was, in effect, a double agent, as he was being used to receive and deliver letters for them and also to circulate intelligence gathered in England amongst them. He proposed ‘to keep an entire correspondence with all the parties for the avowed purpose of communicating it to Walsingham’.

On his return to England, Berden vetted a list of names of priests and recusants imprisoned in London in advance of the Babington conspirators’ arrests in the midsummer of 1586. He told Phelippes:

I return his honour’s [Walsingham’s] note, which I have well perused, according to my knowledge and intelligence. Such persons as I have noted to be hanged are of most traitorous minds and dispositions. Such as I have marked for banishment are most meet for the said purpose, for that they are exceedingly poor and contentious. Such as I have marked for Wisbech [Castle] are well able to defray their
expenses, of the graver sort and best accounted for learning. And it might stand with the pleasure of his honour, it were meet they should all be hanged.

In 1588, the Catholic exile Charles Paget (signing himself ‘Nauris’) wrote to Berden bitterly complaining about ‘the knavery’ that caused the death of Mary Queen of Scots and that ‘Secretary Walsingham has been a great instrument therein’.
¹⁶

That same year, Berden decided to quit the exciting world of spying and adopt a ‘more public course of life’ after five years of service. He wrote to Walsingham seeking the post of Royal Purveyor of Poultry that he had performed for three years in ‘my father’s lifetime’. It was granted to him within a month, upon the Secretary’s recommendation.

‘Best’.
Agent disguised as a disaffected Englishman to discover the extent of the papal plans to overthrow Elizabeth. Best’s source was the secretary of the Spanish ambassador in Paris. Brutally killed in July 1580 in a suspicious street brawl in the French capital.

Bodenham, Roger.
English merchant based in San Lucar in Spain. In 1580, he reported that elaborate naval preparations were underway.

Boucher, Friar.
Provided information about English Catholics in Paris.

Bridges, Edward.
Alias of
Edmund Grateley.

Bruce, Robert.
Scottish gentleman, younger brother of the Laird of Binnie. Supplied information about Thomas Morgan and the other Catholic exiles in Paris through Stafford, the English ambassador in Scotland. The envoy told Walsingham in January 1585:

He promises and offers great things, but plainly he says that a ‘working man is worthy of his hire’ and will not put himself in danger without certainty of a reward.

He is in debt almost 200 crowns here. Because it is an extraordinary
reward I thought it good to advertise [tell] you that her majesty’s pleasure may be known as also what he shall trust to have while he does service to deserve it.

This man is a great Papist… in my judgement, 200 crowns were well ventured to get such a service, for I think he will be able and willing to discover matter of importance.
¹⁷

Bruno, Giordano,
alias
Henry Fagot.
Signed messages with the astrological sign for the planet Jupiter. Italian house guest in the French ambassador Castelnau’s home in Salisbury Court, off Fleet Street. Supplied information to Walsingham that led to the uncovering of the Throgmorton plot in late 1583.

Burnham, Edward.
Servant to Walsingham. In 1577, he was sent to Picardy and elsewhere in northern France to ‘see and learn what French forces were levied there to enter the Low Countries’. Later a watcher on the Duke of Parma’s military encampment in the Low Countries in the runup to the Armada.

Casey, Thomas
. Phelippes’ servant. Messenger and escort of captured priests and suspects.

Catlyn, Maliverny.
Signed himself ‘II’. A Puritan and former soldier with a burning religious hatred for actors and stage-plays. Worked for Walsingham in the Low Countries and, writing from Rouen on 22 April 1586, offered his services to spy on Catholic exiles in France. In July of that year, imprisoned in Portsmouth and deliberately transferred to the Marshalsea to spy on imprisoned priests. From August 1586, acted as an informer in the disaffected North of England and that autumn returned to London to spy on members of the nobility suspected of harbouring Catholic sympathies.

Cobrett, David.
Based in Dieppe.

Dunne, John.
English merchant in Coruna in north-west Spain. Reported on elaborate naval preparations for Philip IPs campaign against Portugal
in 1580. Later, disguised as a Catholic, he was told by a Spanish monk that an Irish bishop was organising an expeditionary force of twenty ships for an invasion of Ireland.
¹⁸

Fagot, Henry.
Alias of the Italian
Giordano Bruno.

Fowler, William.
Scottish poet and theologian. Arrived in England after being expelled from his studies in France in 1583 and was immediately imprisoned. In return for his freedom, Fowler agreed to spy for Walsingham. He persuaded the French ambassador Castelnau that he could supply intelligence on Scottish affairs, and in turn told the English government about Castelnau’s dealings with the Scots.

Foxley, John.
Alias of
Edmund Grateley.

Franchiotto, Captain Tomaso,
alias
Captain François.
Of Lucca in Tuscany. Tipped Walsingham off regarding a plot to kill Elizabeth by secreting poison in her bedding in August 1568. Had been in the pay of the French crown for forty years before.

François, Captain.
Alias of
Captain Tomaso Franchiotto.

Germin, Thomas.
His opinion was sought by Walsingham on 24 May 1584 regarding which people could be trusted for a secret channel of communication.
¹⁹

Gibbes, Richard.
Englishman based in Spain; while in Lisbon, posed as a Scotsman. He reported to Walsingham in 1587 that he had seen about 150 warships in various ports and was questioned by the Spanish about the suitability of various English harbours and rivers for use by the Armada ships.

Gifford, Gilbert.
Described as ‘young and without any beard’. Member of a Catholic family with a chequered career as a trainee priest. He had been expelled from the English College in Rome but had been allowed to join the Rheims establishment in 1582. After three years there, he became a deacon
and a reader in philosophy. He left France for England in early December 1585 with letters for Mary Queen of Scots from the Archbishop of Glasgow, Thomas Morgan and the fugitive Catholic Charles Paget and was arrested at Rye. He had an interview with Walsingham and became his agent provocateur in the Babington plot to entrap Mary Queen of Scots.

Back in France, he continued to spy for Walsingham. He was ordained a priest but was discovered in flagrante delicto in a brothel in Paris in December 1587. He was immediately imprisoned and an attempt to prosecute him for his treachery against the Catholic cause was launched unsuccessfully by the Papal Nuncio in France. He died in the bishop’s prison in Paris in November 1590.

Gilpin, Henry.
English merchant in Naples who reported Sir Thomas Stucley’s dealings with the Pope in 1575–6 regarding a possible invasion of England.

Grateley, Edmund,
alias
John Foxley,
alias
Edward Bridges.
Private chaplain to Philip, Earl of Arundel, who fled to France in the summer of 1584. Informant who led to the earl’s arrest and later involved on Walsingham’s behalf in intrigues against the Jesuit clergy. He told the spy master on 4 August 1586: ‘I remain a true born subject to her majesty and most affectionate to you and will not alter though you should change to me.’
²⁰
With Gifford, he completed a book in June 1586 defending Elizabeth’s policy towards the Catholics and the English military presence in the Low Countries. It was an unwise piece of writing – even Phelippes, Walsingham’s chief decipherer, called it a ‘mad book’ – and Grately spent five years in an Inquisition prison in Rome for penning it.

Gregory, Arthur.
Walsingham’s expert in opening and resealing letters. After Walsingham’s death, employed for similar work by Sir Robert Cecil, Burghley’s son.

Hart, John.
Jesuit priest. A prisoner in the Tower of London in 1581, he sought a pardon in return for spying on the Catholic community. He claimed that he enjoyed ‘intimacy with Dr Allen [the de facto leader of
English Catholic exiles]… [which would enable him] to discover all his designs and to know the very secrets of his whole heart’.
²¹
His confession was used as evidence against Philip Howard, Earl of Arundel, at his trial in Westminster Hall on 14 April 1589.

Holder, Botolphe.
English merchant in Lisbon who reported in 1578 that the Irish rebel James Fitzgerald, or Fitzmaurice, had loaded an eighty-ton vessel, recruited ‘100 tinkers and other rascals’ as soldiers and had bought 200 culverine or cannon.
²²
In 1580, he reported elaborate Spanish naval preparations.

Hunter, Mr.
Scottish merchant based in Lisbon. Arrested in 1587, tried as an English spy and supporter of heretics, and imprisoned.

Jernegan, John.
English agent at Calais in 1584 who spoke to the expelled Spanish ambassador to London, Bernardino de Mendoza, and confirmed Spain’s ‘malicious designs’ against England.

Jones, David.
Sought information for Walsingham on priests in London prisons in July 1574. Stony-broke and rapacious, he informed on a Mrs Cawkins, a ‘notorious Papist’ who had saved him from starvation.

Leclerc, Nicholas.
Seigneur de Courcelles, Secretary to Castelnau, the French ambassador in London. Suborned by Henry Fagot into spying for Walsingham and supplied copies of letters to the spy master.

Lewknor, William.
English merchant at Lyons who provided intelligence about Catholics in that French city.

Manucci, Jacomo.
Florentine. Worked for Walsingham in Lyons and elsewhere in France in 1573–4 but imprisoned by Catherine de Medici.
²³
He eventually returned to London, living in the parish of St Andrew Undershaft, to control part of the English network of agents in Europe and to act for Walsingham on sensitive missions, often passing on the Secretary’s instructions verbally rather than in writing.

Marlowe, Christopher
(1564–1593). Worked for Walsingham while a student in Paris and Rheims in 1586. Due to his espionage work, the award of his Master of Arts degree was placed in jeopardy, but the Privy Council told the Cambridge authorities in June 1587 that ‘he had done her majesty good service and deserved to be rewarded for his faithful dealing’. He almost certainly continued as an agent working against Catholic intrigues in London, in return for escaping state prosecution over his blasphemous drama
Tamhurlaine,
first produced in 1587. Murdered in a brawl in an eating house in Deptford on 30 May 1593. His death was witnessed by Walsingham’s spy Robert Pooley.

Maude, Bernard or Barnard.
Of Trinity College, Oxford. Formerly a member of the household of Edwin Sandys, the Archbishop of York; falsely accused the prelate of religious unorthodoxy and blackmailed him over allegations that he had had sex with the wife of William Sissons, landlord of the Bull Inn, Doncaster, in May 1582.
²⁴
Sandys had handed over £600 in cash to Maude and his friends to keep them quiet. After an inquiry, he was forced to repay the archbishop, as well as a £300 ‘fine’ to the queen, and served three years in the Fleet Prison, London, for blackmail. If he had not confessed, ‘his ears would have been slit as a common offender’. He was another miscreant who was freed early by Walsingham in return for agreeing to undertake clandestine work for Elizabeth’s government. Spied on the priest John Ballard in France and England.

Maude, Stephen.
Recognised the seminary priest John Ballard on a boat crossing the English Channel.

Milles, Francis.
One of Walsingham’s private secretaries, involved in controlling the spy network and interrogation of prisoners in London.

Moffett, Thomas.
An agent based in Rouen.
²⁵

Moody, Michael.
Former Catholic servant of Sir Edward Stafford, the English ambassador in Paris, probable agent provocateur in the ‘Stafford’
plot of early 1587 and a double agent. Later a prisoner in Newgate (by order of the Archbishop of Canterbury) and notoriously a ‘discontented man and one that would do anything for money’. Moody was well known to Walsingham – he paid him to carry letters between London and Paris in 1580–4. Jailed in London in January 1587 for three years. After 1591, worked for the Earl of Essex in the Low Countries.

Mulberry.
Informer or spy against recusants and fugitive priests in England.