Tipoff at that start that this was not going to be anything but an exhaustive first draft of history: a 4-page list of names at the beginning of a small book that barely topped 200 pages. And author Budiansky proceeds to use them all in journalistic style, with no summary, narrative, or placing of Walsingham in the context of modern espionage as the subtitle claims.

I ended up skimming the last 100 pages.

A short, yet comprehensive study of Sir Francis Walsingham. A brilliant spy master. He coordinated espionage activities against Spain and France and internal enemies (both real and unfortunately imagined) of Queen Elizabeth I.

This history shows black operations and black propaganda, influence operations, the acquisition of foreign intelligence, the recruitment of agents, covert action, mail intercept, etc. It's about the figurative "puppet master" - the Privy Councillor - that affected and influenced the course of history. He influenced the events surrounding Elizabeth's contest for power with Mary Queen of Scotts, etc.

As a bonus, you will also learn about how the Spanish King Phillip managed his correspondence and managed his Empire.

The study of an intelligence and political master in the context of Elizabethan England, the times of the Spanish Armada's attack on England, etc.

An excellent book that I highly recommend for the serious student.

Mr. Budiansky proposes that Elizabeth's spymaster Francis Walsingham offers us an example for conducting modern espionage. Yet the fact is, Elizabethan England was for all practical purposes a police state. Catholicism was deemed treasonous, and Walsingham's spies combed the countryside for practitioners of the "old religion," i.e., the faith that had been the taproot of English civilization for a thousand years. Catholics were barred from serving in Parliament, attending university, worshipping at Mass, and generally living the life their immediate forebears took for granted. And yet Budiansky holds up this tragedy as a model. Let us look elsewhere for guidance.

After such a promising title, I was disappointed to make it more than half-way through this book and still have little mention of the title character and no information that seems pertinent to the supposed theme of the book. It is possible that toward the end Budiansky decided to actually make a point with his narrative, but between his abysmal sentence structure and his *sesquipedalian* use of gratuitously long words that broke up the even flow of reading, I personally was unmotivated to find out.

Stephen Budiansky's "Her Majesty's Spymaster" is a very readable popular history of Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth I's personal secretary and informal chief of intelligence. Written in a breathless novelistic style, Budiansky captures the atmospherics and endless intigues of the Tudor period in a way designed to capture the interest of the average person without background in the era. He succeeds in making the religious struggles and dynastic wars of this distant period accessible to the modern reader.

Walsingham was unusual in his time in that he served in a high position in government without having come from the nobility. His rise from what would now be termed a middle class upbringing was based on education, talent, and good service. Walsingham turned out to be a superbly capable spymaster who could get and keep secrets and protect the fortunes of his Queen and country. Walsingham was especially effective in managing the English rivalry with France, including the dangerous problem of the status of Mary Queen of Scots, and the running conflict with Spain.

Budiansky is less than effective in making the case that Walsingham gave birth to modern espionage. Walsingham learned his craft from his mentor and predecessor, Lord Burghley, and his success was due less to inventing new methods of espionage than to making fewer mistakes than his contemporaries in executing already widely-known tactics and techniques.

This book is recommended to the casual reader looking for an introduction to the intrigues of the Elizabeath period. The close student of the history of the period will find no information that has not been covered in more detail elsewhere.

The author tries to bring both the biography of Walsingham and a discussion of the birth of espionage together in the same book and succeeds at neither. It is a fine read if you would like a general overview of the time, but, after reading the title and reviews, I was hoping for a detailed biography of Walsingham or much detail on how he created the group of people who became his information gatherers. Instead, it is a general overview of Walsingham's life with references to the work that he did. There are some interesting facts that the author brings forward that the reader might not find elsewhere , but the majority of the reading is rehashed from biographies of Elizabeth I. If you want details and a better understanding of Walsingham the man, and his life work and actions, you will need to look elsewhere.

The author tries to bring both the biography of Walsingham and a discussion of the birth of espionage together in the same book and succeeds at neither. It is a fine read if you would like a general overview of the time, but, after reading the title and reviews, I was hoping for a detailed biography of Walsingham or much detail on how he created the group of people who became his information gatherers. Instead, it is a general overview of Walsingham's life with references to the work that he did. There are some interesting facts that the author brings forward that the reader might not find elsewhere , but the majority of the reading is rehashed from biographies of Elizabeth I. If you want details and a better understanding of Walsingham the man, and his life work and actions, you will need to look elsewhere.

I was hoping that this book serves as a biography for Sir Francis Walsingham but instead, it proves to be a career dossier on Walsingham. The book read like a historical novel of Walsingham's activities as Elizabeth I's ultimate spymaster. That review written by Lisa Jardine hit many marks right on the nail despite of her rather snobbish approach. The author centered much of the book around the Walsingham's most famous case against Mary, Queen of Scots. However, since the information proves to be pretty basic, you will not find any new insightful information here.

It seem regretful that the author missed his opportunity to write a good biography on Walsingham instead of writting a slightly generic book on his role as a spymaster. His relationship with Burgley, Dudley and with his own family proves to be very lightweight. There are hints of interest scattered all over this book and I guess for that reason, it may be worth your time to read it.

Overall, the actual rating may be closer to 2.80 stars if I had a choice.

In "Her Majesty's Spymaster," Stephen Budiansky attempts to show the truth behind the Walsingham myth, by pulling together countless quotes from letters, diaries, and marginalia. Unfortunately, the attempt is lost in the telling. Even though the picture he shapes for us is a much closer representation than Hollywood gives us, the method of his delivery has much to be desired.

In fact, the book is so loaded down with quotes and excerpts that it lacks any real tone or voice of its own. The end result is nothing more than a mish-mash of historical references and quips that are merely slung together in chronological order with no sense of purpose, and lacking any new insight or greater understanding of Walsingham's life or career.

If you're looking for an interesting, in-depth narration of Walsingham's expansive service, this isn't it. If you want to remember why you hated history class in middle school, look no further.

The book begins with an extraordinary description of an even more extraordinary event: the St. Bartholomew massacre. Ostensibly to create peace between Catholics and Protestants, the Catholic King of France's sister was wed to the Protestant Prince of Navarre, and thousands of Protestants came to Paris for the celebration. Several days of revelry ensued and, on St. Bartholomew's day (well, actually night), the city gates were locked shut. When they once again re-opened, thousands of Protestants had been massacred and the Seine was filled with corpses. Unbelievable, but true.

Elizabeth was Queen of England at the time, and England was also suffering from the ugly clash of Protestant and Catholic interests. Mary Queen of Scots was hoping to take the crown and restore Catholicism to England, and France and Spain had their eyes on England, too. What I did not know was that, at that time, England was a third rate military power, highly vulnerable to the schemes of superpower Catholic Spain and longtime enemy France.

This book is the story of how England navigated through these treacherous shoals and currents using information obtained, by hook and by crook, by the brillliant, shrewd and Machiavellian Frances Walshingham, not only a Privy Counsellor and "Secretary" (read: minister of almost everything) to the Queen, but also her spymaster -- head of the most successful and cunning government intelligence organization of the 16th Century.

The book chronicles these sub-rosa goings-on, which included double agents and double crosses galore, in the context of the politics of the English Court and the age. It is interesting and informative, but sometimes hard to follow, because many different characters are often introduced in a short space, and there is no index to turn to if you wish to find out when acharacter was first mentioned and in what context. A cast of characters at the beginning of the book is marginally helpful, and a timeline at the end is also useful, because sometimes the text hops from time to time, creating confusion about the order of events.

I'd recently read "Will in the World" (an excellent Shakespeare biography), and this book helped make that one much more meaningful.