Jerry Brotton

William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth I’s spy master, intercepts a conspiracy to assassinate the Queen. When he discovers that Elizabeth’s own cousin, Mary Queen of Scots is behind the plot, he lays a trap to capture and execute her.

Elizabeth’s enemies grow in strength but Robert Cecil, her spymaster, also fights an enemy within. An ambitious aristocrat is trying to takeover his network. At stake is control over the ageing Queen and the power to choose the next King of England.

England has a new monarch, King James I, and Elizabeth’s former spymaster, Robert Cecil, faces his toughest test. A group of religious extremists’ plan to blow-up the Houses of Parliament with the King inside – what we call the Gunpowder Plot.