Words that Tony Blair and New Labour might do well to ponder

He paid a isit to Paisley rom Glasgow, "the second city o empire", longing to know what had become o that empire. In his irst book, Sorrows o the Moon, he ga e his attention, as a shy insider, working in a north London hotel, to the icissitudes and triumphs o immigrant communities in London. Alongside his myopic, indulgent iew o the oreign policy o Elizabeth I, Hutchinson reaches or hyperbole when trying to justi y the unjusti iable in the orm o Walsingham. "It is now time," he says, " or him to come out o the darkened wings to recei e the audience's applause or his unique role in creating the England, the Britain we know today." A ter all his wickedness, it is a kind o poetic justice that Walsingham should be regarded as the spiritual ather o mugging, binge-drinking, gang war are, uni ersal thuggery and the other glories o modern Britain.. Hutchinson's case or Walsingham is that he sa ed England through his espionage network. He didn't: the Armada campaign was lost by Spanish incompetence rather than won by English seamanship or intelligence.

As or the threat to Elizabeth and Protestantism rom in asion and assassination threats, these were perils she brought on hersel , by the anti-Catholic zealotry which led to her excommunication by Pope Pius in 1570, by her meddling in European politics, especially the Spanish Netherlands, by her encouragement o piracy and preying on Spanish possessions in the Indies by her "sea dogs". It is more than surprising that a writer who saw through the disgusting Henry III, as Hutchinson did in his last book, should be so indulgent towards his equally bloodthirsty and rebarbati e daughter. like the titles o books, which or the most part, the more glorious things they promise, let a man narrowly peruse them o er, the less substance he shall ind in them. I say, let a man by doing worthy acts deser e honour and although he do not attain it, yet he is much happier than he that gets it without dessert." Words that Tony Blair and New Labour might do well to ponder.Hutchinson has written an excellent book, but there is one thing that puzzles me. He demonstrates that Walsingham's hatred o Mary Queen o Scots was e ery bit as poisonous as that o Robert Cecil, uni ersally recognised as her nemesis. Hutchinson also probes deeply into the inner Walsingham, unco ering a genuine egomaniac and prima donna, who absented himsel rom court i he elt he had been slighted or unappreciated, pleading his well-known and habitual ill-health. The man who emerges rom Hutchinson's care ul study is a dismal apology or a human being, a loathsome spider.On only one occasion did he strike the right note, though e en here one suspects rationalisation, since he had been passed o er or the highest honours by a queen who personally detested him, while appreciating his alue to her.

Speaking o the honours system, Walsingham remarked: "As or titles, which at irst were the marks o power and other rewards o irtue, they are now according to their name... Money too was the rock on which Walsingham almost perished, or the notoriously tight isted Elizabeth almost ruined his elaborate spy network by her parsimony; there is a mystery about Walsingham's declaration o bankruptcy shortly be ore his death,since he had recei ed many a ours and emoluments,but it may be that he had to inance some o his anti-Catholic operations out o his own money.Robert Hutchinson's lucid and learned olume gi es us a i id portrait o Walsingham and clears up many o the conundrums that ha e beset academics interested in the spymaster's career. The only slight com ort the reader o all these unsa oury practices can deri e is that by and large Walsingham's agents were uninterested in his anti-Catholic zealotry and were concerned only with money. Thomas Phelippes, his master cryptanalyst and orger, was a man o genuine intellect, and another luminary on Walsingham's payroll was the playwright Christopher Marlowe. Yet Walsingham did not limit himsel to psychopaths as his employees. Cruel and barbarous torturers may be, but it is their crass stupidity that most impresses historians, since men put to the torture will con ess to anything and simply tell their tormentors what they want to hear.