New Monarchs, Reformation, and the Start of English Intelligence to 1553

This chapter examines the relationship between the pre-Elizabethan Tudors—Henry VII, Henry VIII, Mary, and Edward—and early English spycraft. The chapter argues that Henry VII was instrumental in establishing intelligence work as a part of the English mercantile structure, but that spying became essential to the English polity with Lord Thomas Cromwell's work to enforce the Henrician Reformation under Henry VIII.