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Our Man in Fotheringhay
Peter Davidson: Our Man in Fotheringhay - Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration by Nadine Akkerman & Pete Langman
The noblewoman Anne Vaux, who smuggled it out of the castle, features in Spycraft as the victim of an audacious and perfectly executed sting by the lieutenant of the Tower of London, where her friend Henry Garnett, a Jesuit priest, was imprisoned. We are given a concise survey of disguise and introduced to one of the strangest impostures of the period – the completely bogus ‘ambassador’ from the court of King James who toured Europe on forged credentials in 1604 until he was apprehended by the wary Calvinists of Heidelberg. There is a map of the London ‘netherworld’, accurately charting prisons, residences and lodgings of individuals known to have been involved in the dangerous trade, as well as locations of letter drops, apothecaries who sold toxic substances and the courts where practitioners would end up if their enemies (or colleagues) didn’t get them first.
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