All His Spies

Alford triumphs… in recreating the historical moment. By immersing himself in Cecil’s vast archive, he draws the reader deep into his working environment, capturing the closeness of his study and the chaos of the court… this is turn-of-century England as it really was – dangerous, gritty, on a knife edge – Jessie Childs * The Times *A compelling portrait of a pivotal, yet often neglected, figure in Elizabethan and Jacobean politics. Alford’s account of Robert Cecil and his spy network bristles with narrative energy and succinctly wise judgement – Peter MarshallOne of the greatest biographies, a masterwork beautifully, intensely written and researched – Simon Sebag-Montefiore

Stephen Alford is the author of the highly acclaimed The Watchers- A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth and is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He taught for fifteen years at Cambridge University, where he was a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of History and a Fellow of King’s College. He is now Professor of Early Modern British History at the University of Leeds.