Spying for Queen and Country

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Spying for Queen Elizabeth I was very different from modern-day intelligence services - or was it? This lecture brings together historian Stephen Alford and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, and will discuss Tudor spies and the modern-day secret service.

This lecture celebrates 500 years since the birth of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, an intelligence-gatherer for Elizabeth I across Europe, who also brought his son, Sir Robert Cecil, into the world of secret Elizabethan intelligence. 

The lecture also looks at the use of secret communications like codes and cipher.

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This event was on Tue, 23 Mar 2021

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Professor Stephen Alford

Stephen Alford is a British historian and academic. He has been Professor of Early Modern British history at the University of Leeds since 2012.

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Sir Richard Dearlove KCMG OBE

Richard currently serves as Chair of Board of Trustees at the University of London. He was head of the British Secret Intelligence Service from 1999...

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