Simon Adams

The Queen’s Agent: Francis Walsingham at the Court of Elizabeth I

A livey and accessible biography of Queen Elizabeth's secretary of state.

The Gunpowder Plot: Terror and Toleration

Simon Adams investigates the political and religious options available to the Catholics of early Jacobean England, and asks why some chose to attempt the spectacular coup in November 1605.

The Succession and Foreign Policy

Elizabeth the Queen

Simon Adams reviews two bookson Elizabeth I, by Alison Weir and Julia M. Walker.

At Home and Away: The Earl of Leicester

Simon Adams goes through the household accounts of a Tudor courtier to give a revealing insight into his lifestyle and milieu both at and away from Gloriana's court.

Emden and the Dutch Revolt; & The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt 1555-1590

Simon Adams assesses new books on the Dutch Revolt

The Early Stuarts; & The Blessed Revolution

A general account and a more in-depth study of the Stuart reign

A Godly Peer? Leicester and the Puritans

Pious nobleman or calculating humbug - what is the true characterisation of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester? Simon Adams sifts the motives for the patronage given to some of Elizabeth's sternest religious critics by her favourite courtier.

The Lurch Into War

400 years ago this May, Spain's great Armada set sail, bent on the invasion and conquest of Elizabethan England. Simon Adams re-examines the strategic considerations that underpinned the actions of both England and Spain before and after the Armada.