Espionage

Once among the least monitored nations in the world, Britain is now probably the most watched. Why do Britons make so little fuss about this erosion of their ancient liberties, asks Bernard Porter?

Maurice Hutt offers a study of the secret operations conducted from Jersey by which the British Government kept in touch with the royalist Chouans and spied on French designs.

Throughout the Terror in 1793-94, writes Vera Watson, the British Government were being supplied with detailed reports on French Cabinet meetings. Who was the Spy among the thirteen members of the Committee of Public Safety?

For twenty-five years, writes Charles Curran, a former major in the U.S. Federal Army acted as a British secret agent among the Irish Nationalists.

The failure of the Plot, writes Cyril Hamshere, forms a complex story of espionage and counter-espionage; its events caused Elizabeth I to give up all ideas of restoring Mary Queen of Scots to the Scottish throne.

The release of the 23rd Bond film, Skyfall, coincided with the 50th anniversary of James Bond’s first appearance on the silver screen. Klaus Dodds looks back on half a century of 007.

In the mid-18th century – at the height of the power struggle between France and England and the political ferment of both nations – a French spy with a peculiar personal agenda came to prominence in London. Jonathan Conlin tells his story.

Bernard Porter reviews the field of studies of British covert operations and espionage.

Chris Corin exposes the huge apparatus created by Tsarist Russia to combat the threat of revolution.