There's something about the tutors that just screams secrecy.

Maybe it's all those candelic quarters and poisoned cups or, you know, the suspicious accidental falls from towers.

Whatever it is, the tutors were obsessed with knowing things they weren't supposed to know,

and making sure that you didn't know those things. So when we think about spying in the

tutor world, most people jump straight to Elizabeth I and her infamous spymaster Francis

Waldingham. And totally fair enough, he did create the sprawling web of informants that stretched

from Antwerp to the English countryside, catching plots and decoding ciphered letters like some

early MI6. But the Tudor's spy game didn't begin with Walsingham.

In fact, the Art of Intelligence gathering had been humming along quietly since the very first

tutor took the throne. Some Tudor spies looked exactly as you'd expect. Grim-faced diplomats in

somber black, whispering secrets in the shadows of French courts.

Others looked a little bit less the part.

They might be musicians passing through noble houses with a loot in one hand and a packet of

intercepted letters in the other.

Or heralds, technically just messengers in fancy outfits, who somehow knew everything about everyone.

Or even, as we'll see, a bumbling woodcutter who got wildly in over his head while trying to impress a pub landlord.

This week, we're going to go deep into the world of Tudor espionage, not just the polished spycraft

of the Elizabethan Golden Age, but the messy, improvisational, sometimes totally chaotic world

of Tudor secret keeping. So tuck that cipher key into your doublet and let's get started.

Hello, F, and welcome back to the Renaissance English History Podcast, a part of the

Agora Podcast Network.

I am your host, Heather, and I am delighted that you are here with me, spending this time

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