A detailed account of the secret services operated by the great men of Elizabethan England, whose clandestine efforts sprang from the collective Protestant fear provoked by the exiled presence in England of Mary, Queen of Scots. After the rising of the Northern Earls in her favour in 1569 - an event that shocked the government - any claimant to the English throne was viewed with hostile suspicion as a potential focus for religious malcontents and foreign meddlers. By stealthy efforts at home and abroad the Elizabethan spy clusters became forces to be feared. Kidnapping, surveillance, conspiracy, counter-espionage, theft and lying were just a few of the methods employed to defeat the ever-present threat of regicide. The author aims to challenge many of the stale notions about espionage in Renaissance England and to show the reign of Elizabeth I in a new light.