Summary

Part II, “Geoffrey Belloc, 1601” begins with a quote from Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's spymaster.

In Chapter 1, Robert Cecil, the queen's principal secretary, tried to convince Elizabeth to eat. She was very ill and delirious. In Chapter 2, Cecil was visited by Geoffrey Belloc, one of the “Queen's Messengers” (57), a spy ring created by Francis Walsingham, now deceased. Belloc said that he came as a representative of many men in government and his fellow spies to state their concern about the succession. If Queen Elizabeth died, King James would be heir, and many were concerned that he might secretly be a Catholic, despite claiming to have converted to Protestantism. He presented Cecil with a dossier listing evidence that this could be the case. Belloc believed there would be violent upheaval if a Catholic took the throne and asked Cecil for permission to...