Marshall, A (2020) '‘Secret wheeles’: clandestine information, espionage, and European intelligence.' In: Ebben, M.A and Sicking, L, eds. Beyond ambassadors: consuls, missionaries and spies in premodern diplomacy. Brill, Leiden. ISBN 9789004438842 doi: 10.1163/9789004438989_010
Abstract
This chapter will seek to explore a few of the roles played by professional secret intelligence gathering and espionage agents and ‘non-state’ actors in the Europe of the mid-17th century. It will consider the nature of espionage and its language and structures. In particular it will reconsider the espionage games played by Richard and Ignatius White. These men were brothers, and members of a large exiled Irish family, and they were also members of the Irish exile community in Europe, and they took on an espionage role within the transnational intelligence networks of the diplomatic world of the late 1650s and early 1660s. Indeed by operating across state borders in the service of Spain, France, and England, the White brothers deliver a valuable example of how such ‘non-state’ (or at the least very loosely attached) actors could operate in what Alain Hugon has fittingly called Europe’s “monde du secret,” and how such people also became included in the state policy and diplomacy of their day.
| Item Type: | Book Chapter or Section |
|---|---|
| Note: | Part of the 'Rulers and Elites: Comparative Studies in Governance' series. |
| Keywords: | spies, intelligence, European history, 1600-1700, Ireland, Cromwellian Britain, France, Spain, Low Countries, Fronde |
| Subjects: | D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain D History General and Old World > DC France D History General and Old World > DH Netherlands (The Low Countries) D History General and Old World > DJ Netherlands (Holland) D History General and Old World > DP Spain U Military Science > U Military Science (General) |
| Divisions: | School of Writing, Publishing and the Humanities |
| Research Centres and Groups: | History and Heritage Research Centre |
| Related URLs: | |
| Date Deposited: | 17 May 2018 15:41 |
| Last Modified: | 16 May 2022 14:36 |
| URI / Page ID: | https://researchspace.bathspa.ac.uk/id/eprint/11073 |
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