Queen Elizabeth's Secret Agents

PBS is currently airing a 3-part BBC history documentary called “Queen Elizabeth’s Secret Agents.”   The series examines the domestic security and intelligence apparatus that Elizabeth I constructed during her extraordinary 45-year reign as England’s monarch, which lasted from 1558 to 1603.

The series is outstanding and will interest all history buffs. It features top historians discussing one of the most pivotal periods of English history. But the issues involved in the Elizabethan security state are also surprisingly modern in nature. There are at least three themes to the television documentary that have direct relevance to important legal and constitutional issues today.

First, the story of Elizabeth I’s reign powerfully underscores the deep historical roots of police states. The idea of a massive security and intelligence apparatus that surveils the domestic population seems like a modern invention. It conjures images of Lavrenty Beria, the murderous head of Joseph Stalin’s intelligence services, or of Kim Jong Un’s brutal North Korean dictatorship.  Even major democracies such as the United States and United Kingdom have had to make difficult choices in the post-September 11 years regarding the balance between individual rights and the security needs of the state. 

Elizabethan England faced a similar set of choices, but there was no doubt as to which side it came down on. Although Elizabeth's police state existed 450 years ago in an age before cameras, telephones, and listening devices, it would have made Erich Honecker’s East Germany proud. Elizabeth had spies in every corner of her realm, and she assigned to her government officials full authority to relentlessly hunt—and ruthlessly crush—all real and perceived internal threats to the regime.

Without question, Elizabeth had reason to fear for her safety and the political stability of her country. As the only Protestant ruler in Europe in the late 1500s, she was a target of constant foreign and domestic threats. Both King Phillip II of Spain, the most powerful ruler in Europe, and Pope Pius V, head of the Catholic Church, actively worked to overthrow Elizabeth and replace her with a Catholic monarch. In fact, in 1570 the Pope proclaimed Elizabeth a heretic, which essentially constituted a call for her assassination. 

In response to the pervasive and growing threats, Elizabeth established the most sophisticated police state in Europe. Her domestic spymasters, Francis Walsingham and William Cecil (later joined by his son Robert Cecil), organized a surveillance apparatus that placed the English people under constant watch. Elizabeth’s spymasters planted spies throughout the country, intercepted and monitored the mail, circulated rumors to flush out alleged conspirators, and tortured suspects without mercy. Those deemed enemies of the state faced a slow and gruesome public execution, which was designed to terrorize Elizabeth's opponents and maintain the loyalty of the general populace.  

In short, although it was an age of primitive technology by modern standards, Elizabethan England was a police state by any definition of the term, and a chillingly effective one at that. As Elizabeth's reign demonstrated, a government exercising extremely intrusive surveillance of its own population is not a new phenomenon. The concept is at least 450 years old. 

Second, although common law countries rightfully celebrate their connection to the English legal and constitutional tradition that stretches back to the Magna Carta in 1215,  the reality is the legal procedures and evidentiary standards of Elizabethan England fell far short of anything we would recognize today as due process.

For example, the first episode of the BBC/PBS series culminates with the famous confrontation between Elizabeth and her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, who Elizabeth’s forces held captive in a gilded prison. As a Catholic, Mary had powerful supporters on the continent, including Phillip II. Mary's allies (combined with her royal blood) made her a dire threat to Elizabeth, even during Mary’s years under house arrest. In light of the obvious danger, Elizabeth’s spy masters sought to execute Mary, but the prospect of ordering the death of her own cousin gave Elizabeth pause.

The deadlock only ended when the spymaster Walsingham, in what was effectively a sting operation, intercepted correspondence between Mary and members of the Catholic Underground. One letter in particular demonstrated Mary’s direct involvement in a plot to overthrow Elizabeth, a piece of evidence that sealed Mary’s fate. She was tried and convicted in the fall of 1586 and beheaded in early 1587.

There is little doubt that Mary was guilty of conspiring against Elizabeth. But the trial did not remotely comply with what we today would view as even minimal standards of fairness, impartiality, and justice. As the historian J.E. Neale wrote in his classic biography of Elizabeth I,  the procedures that governed Mary’s trial “would amaze and shock a modern lawyer,” including the absence of defense counsel on Mary’s behalf and no right to call defense witnesses. Yet, as Neale noted, despite its obvious deficiencies, Mary’s trial “was conducted according to the normal procedure of the day and with less animus and more substantial proof than many another trial of its kind.”

Thus, Mary actually had it better than other defendants charged with committing crimes against the state. That fact does not speak well of the quality of the judicial system in Elizabethan England. 

Third, the documentary illustrates why the rule of law is something that we must never take for granted. Elizabeth’s police state happened at a time when England was flourishing in all areas besides politics. During Elizabeth's reign, William Shakespeare transformed the English stage for all time to come, Francis Bacon developed and promoted the scientific method, Oxford and Cambridge advanced the very idea of universities, and England emerged as a world power. But behind the scenes was a state that governed through fear, intimidation, and brute force. 

The United States in 2018 is a long way from Elizabethan England. America’s legal and constitutional institutions are sophisticated and deeply rooted, and the American media provides a degree of transparency and accountability unimaginable in the sixteenth century.

But there is a worrisome undercurrent of populist hostility to the institutions that undergird the rule of law in America.  Extreme political rhetoric, including alarmist warnings of internal threats that supposedly can only be dealt with by extralegal means, are increasingly common in American political discourse. A 2016 study led by Prof. Nathaniel Persily of Stanford Law School found that 40% of Americans say they have "lost faith in democracy." An August 2017 Washington Post poll found that over 50% of Republicans would support indefinitely postponing the 2020 presidential election because of their fears of voter fraud. The FBI, the foremost law enforcement agency in the country, is now routinely drawn into partisan battles. Earlier this week the president condemned his political opponents as “treasonous.”  And today we learned that the president has directed the Pentagon to prepare for a massive and extremely unusual peacetime military parade in Washington D.C. 

Those disturbing trends may ultimately prove to be transitory, but it is nonetheless true that at a time when Americans are more polarized than any period since the Civil War era, history's lessons have never been more relevant and timely. If you are interested, episode three of the Elizabethan series is airing on PBS stations across the country on Sunday night. If you want to catch up on past episodes, episodes one and two are available on the PBS program's website.

Comments

[Howard Wasserman]

The confluence of Shakespeare and the great universities with this police state suggests to some that robust free expression is not necessary for artistic genius to flourish.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you for your comment, Howard. It's interesting to reflect on the fact that Shakespeare's history plays involved so many explosive topics that would make even the most well-loved and secure monarch uncomfortable, including the murder of a king by his brother with the connivance of the queen (Hamlet), a king gone pathetically senile (King Lear), and a wretched and loathsome king who murders his nephews (Richard III). Yet, despite the controversial nature of Shakespeare's plays, Elizabeth I and later James I allowed his plays to be publicly performed. Moreover, at least a couple of Shakespeare's plays were actually performed at Elizabeth's Court, https://www.folger.edu/queen-elizabeth-i which is amazing to think about. Now, if Shakespeare wrote a play that directly attacked Elizabeth I or James I, I think it's safe to say the outcome would have been very different, and his tenure as a bard would have come to an abrupt and likely bloody end. But it's still interesting that the Tudor and Stuart monarchs allowed at least a degree of artistic license on the stage.

[Anthony Gaughan]

I should point out that I first wrote "unprecedented" military parade, but changed it to "extremely unusual." It's true that at the end of the Civil War in 1865 as well as at the end of the Gulf War in 1991 there were major military parades in Washington D.C. But President Trump's proposed military parade in Washington later this year does not mark the end of any war, and thus seems to constitute simply a display of force. As a result I don't think there is any obvious precedent in the American historical tradition for what he is proposing.

[Ellen Wertheimer]

This is a great post and a lot of fun to read, as are the comments. I have been enjoying the show as well.

I have a couple of points to make, especially about Shakespeare and the plays he wrote that were unquestionably relevant to Elizabeth I's monarchy. I don't think that Shakespeare's plays create the inference that he was being particularly brave in what he wrote. Some of his plays were very political, yes, but they adhered to the party line.

First, to the extent that they are relevant to Elizabeth I, Shakespeare's plays were shameless pro-Lancaster (and therefore pro-Tudor) propaganda. Shakespeare had to tread carefully, as Henry VII's wife (Elizabeth's grandmother) was a York, but overall he comes out heavily against the white rose and sides with Lancaster. As a Ricardian myself, I reject the view that Richard had his nephews murdered; it was a view that was developed later as a post hoc justification for killing off Richard and became mandatory for the usurpers in the Tudor line. Along these lines, it is noteworthy that Henry VII claimed the throne by right of conquest, not blood. It was his mother, Margaret Beaufort, a remarkable woman, who won it for him, and of course the winner gets to write the history.

Second, as a religious matter, siding with Malcolm over Macbeth was also a political position putting Roman (Anglican) Christianity above Celtic Christianity and justifying the takeover of Scotland by the lines that led to the unification of Scotland and England under James VI and I, who of course ruled during much of Shakespeare's career. Once again, the winners, in this case the Roman church that was brought to Scotland by Malcolm's wife Margaret, got to write the history. Macbeth actually ruled Scotland for years and was known as "good king Macbeth."

Scholars agree that there was nothing particularly accurate about Shakespeare's historic plays, but it is unlikely he wrote them for any other purpose than entertainment. Who could have foreseen that he would cause Richard III and Macbeth to spend eternity as villains? I'm sure he wouldn't have cared, as long as it made a good story and didn't get him into trouble.

Finally, it is useful to compare England with other nations at this time in terms of the fairness of trials and the like. While Elizabethan trials were horrendously unfair by modern standards (they were worse during Mary Tudor's reign than during Elizabeth's, incidentally), surely it is in comparing trials in England with those in other countries at the same time that produces a more reliable test than comparing them with the trials of today.

Incidentally, Elizabeth and Mary Tudor never met. I wonder what their meeting would have been like had they done so. And as Antonia Fraser points out in her biography, it is one of the supreme ironies of history that every single monarch England has had since Elizabeth I was descended from Mary Queen of Scots, and none from Elizabeth.

[Anthony Gaughan]

Thank you so much for your comments, Ellen! I loved all of the points you made and I learned so much from them.

I absolutely agree that the quality of justice in Tudor courts must be compared to comparable courts in sixteenth century Europe, and not be unfairly judged by modern standards. Also I loved your points about Shakespeare’s strategic siding with the Lancastrians over the Yorkists, and his strategic partiality to the Anglican church over the Celtic church. The man from Stratford-upon-Avon was certainly a politically savvy person.

Have you seen the PBS program on the scientific examination of Richard III’s skeleton, which was found under a parking lot in Leicester, England five or six years ago? The scientists discovered that contrary to Shakespeare’s depiction, Richard was a strong, vigorous, physically formidable person despite the curvature of his spine. I also find it amazing that in 2016, one year after Richard finally received a proper burial in Leicester Cathedral, the local soccer club won the English Premier League in the biggest victory by an underdog in the history of English soccer!

Thanks again for your comments, Ellen. Have a great weekend!