The Queen's Agent
Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England
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Narrated by:
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James Adams
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By:
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John Cooper
About this listen
A captivating true story that chronicles the exploits of Sir Francis Walsingham - the first great English spymaster and the man who saved Elizabeth's regime and the country's independence. Elizabeth I came to the throne at a time of insecurity and unrest. Rivals threatened her reign; England was a Protestant island, isolated in a sea of Catholic countries. Spain plotted an invasion, but Elizabeth's Secretary, Sir Francis Walsingham, was prepared to do whatever it took to protect her. He ran a network of agents in England and Europe who provided him with information about invasions or assassination plots. He recruited likely young men and 'turned' others. He encouraged Elizabeth to make war against the Catholic Irish rebels, with extreme brutality, and oversaw the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. The Queen's Agent is a story of secret agents, cryptic codes and ingenious plots, set in a turbulent period of England's history. It is also the story of a man devoted to his queen, sacrificing his every waking hour to save the threatened English state.
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Long before James Bond, England had a real-life spymaster in Sir Francis Walsingham. John Cooper compiled this thorough depiction of the man and his time. As an agent for Elizabeth, Sir Francis looked for Catholic uprisings at home and abroad. Dedicated to protect her at all costs, he became a master cryptographer and an expert at turning his enemies into double agents. This exciting, real-life story of intrigue is performed by James Adams with gusto and class. Adams' voice is similar in quality to Alan Rickman’s, giving the impression that he’d be as comfortable delivering oration on the Shakespearian stage of Elizabeth’s time as delivering this engaging audiobook about her most trusted and daring agent.
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Starting AD 400 (around the time of their invasion of England) and running through to the 1100s (the 'Aftermath'), historian Geoffrey Hindley shows the Anglo-Saxons as formative in the history not only of England but also of Europe. The society inspired by the warrior world of the Old English poem Beowulf saw England become the world's first nation state and Europe's first country to conduct affairs in its own language, and Bede and Boniface of Wessex establish the dating convention we still use today.
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A very dry history of the Ethels
- By Neil Chisholm on 07-23-13
By: Geoffrey Hindley
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The Tudors
- The Complete Story of England's Most Notorious Dynasty
- By: G. J. Meyer
- Narrated by: Robin Sachs
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first time in decades, here, in a single volume, is a fresh look at the fabled Tudor dynasty, comprising some of the most enigmatic figures ever to rule a country. Acclaimed historian G. J. Meyer reveals the flesh-and-bone reality in all its wild excess.
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OUTSTANDING!
- By The Louligan on 03-15-10
By: G. J. Meyer
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Crown & Sceptre
- A New History of the British Monarchy, from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II
- By: Tracy Borman
- Narrated by: Tracy Borman
- Length: 20 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Since William the Conqueror, duke of Normandy, crossed the English Channel in 1066 to defeat King Harold II and unite England’s various kingdoms, 41 kings and queens have sat on Britain’s throne. “Shining examples of royal power and majesty alongside a rogue’s gallery of weak, lazy, or evil monarchs,” as Tracy Borman describes them in her sparkling chronicle, Crown & Sceptre.
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Great book for those new to the monarchy
- By Chris Corsini on 04-05-22
By: Tracy Borman
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The Bad Popes
- By: E.R. Chamberlin
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 11 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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The papal tiara has been worn by a number of infamous men through the course of its history. Some have been accused of murder, many have had mistresses, while others sold positions in the church to their followers or gave land and wealth to their illegitimate children. E. R. Chamberlin examines the lives of eight of the most controversial popes, from the reign of Pope Stephen VI, who had his predecessor exhumed, put on trial and thrown in the Tiber, in the ninth century, through to Pope Clement VII, whose failed international policy led to the Sack of Rome in 1527.
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Complete trash.
- By George on 07-16-21
By: E.R. Chamberlin
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The Sultan and the Queen
- The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam
- By: Jerry Brotton
- Narrated by: Ralph Lister
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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When Queen Elizabeth was excommunicated by the Pope in 1570, she found herself in an awkward predicament. Now England's key markets would be closed to her Protestant merchants. To complicate matters, the staunchly Catholic king of Spain was determined to destroy her, bolstered by the gold pouring in from the New World. In a bold decision with far-reaching consequences, Elizabeth set her sights on the East.
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Essential for understanding our own era
- By marwalk on 07-21-19
By: Jerry Brotton
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The Anglo-Saxons
- A History of the Beginnings of England: 400 - 1066
- By: Marc Morris
- Narrated by: Roy McMillan
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Sixteen hundred years ago Britain left the Roman Empire and swiftly fell into ruin. Grand cities and luxurious villas were deserted and left to crumble, and civil society collapsed into chaos. Into this violent and unstable world came foreign invaders from across the sea, and established themselves as its new masters. The Anglo-Saxons traces the turbulent history of these people across the next six centuries. It explains how their earliest rulers fought relentlessly against each other for glory and supremacy, and then were almost destroyed by the onslaught of the vikings.
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"Pretty Good"
- By Stephen on 05-30-21
By: Marc Morris
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Ravenna
- Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe
- By: Judith Herrin
- Narrated by: Phyllida Nash
- Length: 19 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. For three centuries, the city attracted scholars, lawyers, craftsmen, and religious luminaries, becoming a true cultural and political capital.
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Worthy book, stingy production.
- By Stephen Chakwin on 12-13-20
By: Judith Herrin
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Emperor
- A New Life of Charles V
- By: Geoffrey Parker
- Narrated by: Nigel Patterson
- Length: 26 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The life of Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), ruler of Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and much of Italy and Central and South America, has long intrigued biographers. But the elusive nature of the man (despite an abundance of documentation), his relentless travel and the control of his own image, together with the complexity of governing the world's first transatlantic empire, complicate the task.
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Amazing.
- By bigdjunta on 10-21-19
By: Geoffrey Parker
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The Most Powerful Women in the Middle Ages
- Queens, Saints, and Viking Slayers, From Empress Theodora to Elizabeth of Tudor
- By: Melissa Rank, Michael Rank
- Narrated by: Anne Day-Jones
- Length: 3 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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The idea of a powerful woman in the Middle Ages seems like an oxymoron. Females in this time are imagined to be damsels in distress, trapped in a high tower, and waiting for knights to rescue them, all while wearing traffic-cones for a hat. After rescue, their lives improved little. Their career choices were to be either docile queens, housewives, or be burned at the stake for witchcraft. But what if this image of medieval women is a complete fiction? It turns out that it is. Powerful female rulers fill the Middle Ages.
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Wonderfully empowering
- By Teresa Carter on 01-29-23
By: Melissa Rank, and others
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Thomas Cromwell
- A Revolutionary Life
- By: Diarmaid MacCulloch
- Narrated by: David Rintoul
- Length: 26 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Since the 16th century we have been fascinated by Henry VIII and the man who stood beside him, guiding him, enriching him, and enduring the king's insatiable appetites and violent outbursts until Henry ordered his beheading in July 1540. After a decade of sleuthing in the royal archives, Diarmaid MacCulloch has emerged with a tantalizing new understanding of Henry's mercurial chief minister, the inscrutable and utterly compelling Thomas Cromwell.
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Not about the Tudors
- By J.Brock on 09-18-19
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The Venetians
- A New History: From Marco Polo to Casanova
- By: Paul Strathern
- Narrated by: Derek Perkins
- Length: 13 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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The Republic of Venice was the first great economic, cultural, and naval power of the modern Western world. After winning the struggle for ascendency in the late 13th century, the Republic enjoyed centuries of unprecedented glory and built a trading empire which at its apogee reached as far afield as China, Syria, and West Africa. This golden period only drew to an end with the Republic's eventual surrender to Napoleon. The Venetians illuminates the character of the Republic during these illustrious years by shining a light on some of the most celebrated personalities of European history.
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Mesmerizing
- By Gary R. Frank on 08-24-15
By: Paul Strathern
What listeners say about The Queen's Agent
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kelsey Ingram
- 10-08-17
This is alright.
Less a book about Walsingham and more a book about a time in which he lived. I was disappointed that I didn’t even get a sense of the rise of espionage. Still entertaining though.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Rhiannon
- 10-14-16
Fascinating man
History out performs fiction in a narrative with just enough left unknown that the imagination goes wild with theories.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Graciela G.
- 08-26-24
What a life
lovely book, well written and over all well read. The life of Sir Francis Walsingham is indeed one worth of a great book, for what a life he had. Worthy of praise, admiration and honor. My only wish is that the narrator would yawn less, if he's bored or tired go take a nap and come back. His constant yawning is very annoying and an insult for the writer, audience and for the man who's life he's relating.
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- Troy
- 02-21-15
The Power Behind the Throne
Much has been written of Sir Francis Walsingham, both as a hero to the realm and as a Machiavellian puppet master. As with anything in history, the truth is usually somewhere in the middle, and this book does a fine job of navigating the waters of statecraft and espionage that were virtually uncharted at the time. John Cooper paints a nuanced picture of Elizabethan England, explaining how it developed to what we know it to be and what particular threats were faced at the time, and then maps out exactly what Walsingham felt he had to do and why. The end result is that we get a complex look at something that's usually painted as two-dimensional, and Walsingham himself comes across as both hero and villain within the subtext of his era. It's fascinating to see how this compares to other spy/torture setups across other times and places in history as well as how the ramifications continue to affect our modern world.
Champions of Elizabeth may have problems with the notion that the events and attitudes described in this book make the queen look weaker than modern perception might paint her otherwise. I think that assessment is to be expected considering Walsingham's operating procedure was that he only had to be wrong once for Elizabeth to be assassinated, whereas the outside forces had many opportunities to plan and attempt. Personally, I think this fits perfectly with my own understanding of how flighty and prone to tantrums Elizabeth could be at times, which is one of the aspects Walsingham had to work around when positioning his network. But that's just my perception. Regardless of how you want to perceive the queen, the fact remains, she had enemies a-plenty, both within and without, both religious and secular. To protect her was a Herculean job by any standard of the day, and for me it's a treat to peel back the layers and see how it was handled. From the perspective of a post-9/11 world, it rings with familiar echoes.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Ulster Tom
- 02-13-18
A worthy listen
The narrator is superb and does justice to a marvellous book. A great tribute to Walsingham.
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- Mary Elizabeth Reynolds
- 04-12-14
Different take on the Reign
There has been probably too much written about Elizabeth the First, but this is new information from a different perspective. It's not written in chronological order, but rather based on events. It certainly becomes obvious through this work how the Reformation shaped Europe and America. It's not a spy book full of intrigue but more a dissection of Tudor state craft.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Malcolm H. Leggett
- 06-12-15
An important person in an important time
If you're interested in this period in history this is a must read. The reign of Queen Elizabeth the 1st was one of those pivotal periods in history that influenced the development of Roman Catholicism and the Protestant reformation. Francis Walshingham was at the center of it all, particularly the execution of Mary Queen of Scott's. Much has been written about the Spanish Armada but little about this man who helped shape the future up this this day ,or the uncertain period when history could have taken a different path and the development of what many consider the first spy service.
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- No
- 09-16-16
Before there was Smiley,Bond, or Wild Bill
If you could sum up The Queen's Agent in three words, what would they be?
Sir Francis was devoted (to Queen Elizabeth I), driven (to protect her and England), and dedicated (to his Queen, his country, and his Reformed Christianity).
What was one of the most memorable moments of The Queen's Agent?
Sir Francis's exhaustive efforts to entrap Mary, Queen of Scots and to protect England from the Spanish Armada, despite his often ill health, Queen Elizabeth's frugality, and hesitation to strike against her fellow queen and cousin.
Which character – as performed by James Adams – was your favorite?
Duh! The subject of the biography.
Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?
The opening chapters described the horrific massacre of the French Huguenots. Sir Francis was in Paris at the time and witnessed the slaughter and fear of the French Protestants. His memory of this event coloured his subsequent actions.
Any additional comments?
James Adams narrated the book clearly. His voice conveyed the subtlest sarcasm and wit when appropriate. I would gladly listen to his narration again. There was a lot of information in the book - it is, perhaps, too "dense" to be an easy listen, but Mr Adam's narration, unlike some, did not lull the listener into a hypnotic fog.
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4 people found this helpful
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- artaylor77
- 05-05-21
Walsingham Facts
There is a lot of information in this book, but the narrative is stiff and not engaging.
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- J. Glisson
- 07-21-17
Little about espionage: Lots of mindless minutiae
What reaction did this book spark in you? Anger, sadness, disappointment?
Boredom. Lots of irrelevant details acting as filler. Every book has a part that is slow but, this was intolerable.
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