The Watchers : A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I (Hardcover)

from stephengoldenberg

Some fascinating stuff but rather too much of it. By the end all the spies start to blend together. I preferred S J Parris fictional version using some of the real people.

from mrlzbth

I thought the history covered in this book was really fascinating, and it was nice to get a book set during Elizabeth's reign that talks about what was going on behind the scenes and abroad instead of focusing solely on her and her own choices and actions. What keeps me from giving the book a hig...

from gayla.bassham

It's a very interesting book, and I learned a lot about espionage in the Tudor era. The author does a great job sketching the lives and personalities of men like Thomas Phelippes and William Parry (a spy working for Elizabeth I and a conspirator against her, respectively). Where I think Alford mi...

from passion4reading

In this book Stephen Alford gives a detailed account of the men who chose (or were occasionally *persuaded*) to protect Elizabeth's life and government during the tumultuous years of her reign; far from being the Golden Age we often associate with it, the years between Elizabeth's accession in 15...