Queen Elizabeth's double agent...was Anthony Rolleston the Elizabethan James Bond?

 

Today we look into the murky and intriguing world of Elizabethan spies. In the 1590's England was fighting a covert war against her Catholic enemies Spain and Scotland and Anthony Rolleston, "gent... late of Watnall in the countie of Nottingham", was centre stage. With the Spanish Armada in the English Channel bent on invasion what could Rolleston do?

It was a world of secret ciphers and code names, of shifting and conflicting loyalties where one false move could mean a stretch on the rack and losing your head.

Rolleston was based in the Spanish/French border reporting back shipping and troop movements to his handlers in England. However, there is documentary evidence that shows he was being paid for his services by Spain as well as England. Where were his true loyalties and was he really an Elizabethan double agent?

Was he linked to an earlier Rolleston plot to rescue the imprisoned Mary Queen of Scots from Chatsworth House?  That did not end well for his relative Francis Rolleston of Lea in Derbyshire...

Click here for the full and starting details...

https://watnallhall.blogspot.com/2021/11/the-rollestons-of-watnall-family-origins.html#spymaster