The authors, who have served in the Intelligence services, have made a close and original study of Sir Francis Walsingham and his associates in the Elizabethan secret services. Walsingham is seen as a darkly effective (the Queen called him “my Moor”)master of a comprehensive intelligence gathering network with sophisticated centralized control and all-source processing. The Mahoneys investigate the financial side of Walsingham’s operations (many paid for out of his own pocket) and his uncanny ability to present information in a timely and accurate manner despite the slow communications of the era. Also discussed are the Spanish, Scots, Papal and French efforts to gain useful intelligence in England and Ireland together with an account of the principal of the bitter counter espionage wars of the era and their victims. Robust index and bibliography with glossary included. Extensive original research especially economics and personnel requirements of domestic spying in early Protestant England.