Exclusive interview with author Patrick Martin and a review of his new book about Catholic espionage in Elizabethan England
Rating: 4 Stars
Book Review by Gabrielle Pantera
“I began work on a book on the rivalry between Edward Coke and Francis Bacon to become attorney general of England 1593 to 1594,” says Elizabethan Espionage author Patrick Martin. “As I focused on their work on Catholic conspiracies, I encountered spy letters under various aliases…especially the names Robinson and Rivers. These letters were often intriguing and eventually, after collecting and transcribing a number of them, I realized they were all related to one William Sterrell.”
Elizabethan Espionage brings to light the unrecognized role of William Sterrell and the intelligence network established by himself, Jesuit priests in England and English Catholic exiles abroad. After Elizabeth destroyed the Spanish Armada in 1588, ending a potential invasion, the Catholics in England were on their own. They devised an ingenious network of Jesuits who relayed intelligence to Brussels, Antwerp, Madrid and Rome. Oxford philosopher William Sterrell, a member of the British government, worked for both the Earl of Essex and for the 4th Earl of Worcester, secret sponsors of the Jesuits. Sterrell’s clandestine spy network went undetected for 400 years.
Martin brings the details to life of how Sterrell was able to engineer his network. He reveals original letters and documents that have never been published, the details of how people moved around…and the unfortunate end to those who were discovered. A vivid read.
“As I worked on his identity and background, I learned he (Sterrell) was formerly a philosophy lecturer and fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford,” says Martin. “Pressured into working as a spy for the Earl of Essex by Thomas Phelippes the Decipherer and Francis Bacon. By the time I collected about 250 of his letters, I set about writing his biography, together with John Finnis of University College, Oxford. We collaborated on a series of articles. I put the book into its present form over the past three years.”
Most English spying in the Elizabethan period related to religious matters. The book explores the deceptions and false plots devised by Elizabeth’s spymaster, Sir Francis Walsingham, to bring about the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.
For research, Martin began with the English State Papers Domestic, then printed out the underlying documents referred to in those volumes from microfilm in the LSU library and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D. C. He made two trips to Oxford University for original materials in the Bodleian Library, visited the British Archives at Kew Gardens and spent a week in the Jesuit archives in London.”
Martin, a law professor with a Ph.D. in history, retired from teaching to devote himself to writing. He’s the author or co-author of books on oil and gas law, legal philosophy, and regulation of the energy industry. In collaboration with Professor Finnis, they’ve written a series of articles on Sterrell, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Thomas Thorpe [publisher of Shakespeare’s Sonnets]. They are writing a related book on the Fourth Earl of Worcester, Shakespeare, and Sterrell.
Martin has recently completed writing two novels. Nasty, Brutish and Short: The Philosopher and the Prince, Paris Exiles, 1646 is about Thomas Hobbes and Prince Charles. A Crafty Scout is about a law student in New Orleans in the summer of 2015 who becomes involved in the Louisiana movie industry. Martin is writing three non-fiction books: The Seductions of Philosophy, Beams Not Falling: The Existentialism of O’Neill, Hammett, Camus and Percy, and The Earl, the Playwright and the Spy. He’s also working on a two-part novel set in Louisiana in the 1800s.
Martin has no agent and no editor. “McFarland published a book my wife wrote with a co-author,” says Martin. (James D. Hardy, Jr. and Ann Martin, Light of My Life, Love, Time and Memory in Nabokov’s Lolita.) “I sent them a query letter about several books and they were interested in this book.”
Martin lives in Clinton, Louisiana, north of Baton Rouge. He was born in Bastrop, Louisiana, in 1945.
Elizabethan Espionage: Plotters and Spies in the Struggle Between Catholicism and the Crown by Patrick Martin. Trade Paperback: 368 pages, Publisher: McFarland (April 25, 2016), Language: English, ISBN: 9781476662558 $ 49.95 Kindle version: File Size: 8738 KB, Print Length: 368 pages, publisher: McFarland, Publication Date: April 25, 2016, Language: English, ASIN: B01F2AKJAS $22.49
