As research for an exciting project I’m reading .The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I Stephen Alford’s excellent study of the spy network in Elizabethan England. He does a great job in portraying the reality of the Elizabethan police state. We have got used to the version of English history in which Henry VIII–a kind of sixteenth century English Idi Amin– was a great sporting sort of fellow who, “Ho, ho, had an eye for the ladies... Read more