All His Spies: The Secret World of Robert Cecil

Author Stephen Alford explores the life and work of Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster of the Tudor period.

About the event

Robert Cecil, statesman and spymaster, lived through a tumultuous period in English history when enemies, both external and internal, threatened to destroy England as a Protestant state, most notably with the Spanish Armada and the Gunpowder Plot. Cecil was a vital figure in managing the succession from Elizabeth I to James I & VI. Supremely skilled in the arts of power, he made many rivals and enemies.

Stephen Alford explores how these dramatic events could have turned out very differently. Cecil’s sureness of purpose, his espionage network and good luck all conspired to keep England uninvaded and to create a new ‘British’ monarchy which has endured to the present day.

About the speaker

Stephen Alford is the author of ‘The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth’. A Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he taught for 15 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.