03.41 - Cromwell's Spies

Oliver Cromwell's friend and Secretary of State John Thurloe was also one of the most effective spymasters in English history. Catching the Gerard Plot before they could assassinate the Lord Protector, and uprooting Penruddock's Uprising until it was just Penruddock left, he kept the Protectorate safe from threats. But he could not shield Cromwell from the terrible news of the Western Design. Alice Hunt, Republic, 2024. Martyn Bennet, Oliver Cromwell, 2006. Michael Braddick (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution, 2015. Barry Coward, The Cromwellian Protectorate, 2002. Jonathan Healey, The Blazing World, 2023. Paul Lay, Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of the English Republic, 2020. Anna Keay, The Restless Republic, 2022. Ian Gentles, The New Model Army: Agent of Revolution, 2022. Carla Gardina Pestana, The English Conquest of Jamaica: Oliver Cromwell’s Bid for Empire, 2017. Timothy Noel Peacock, 'Cromwell’s “spymaster”? John Thurloe and rethinking early modern intelligence', The Seventeenth Century, 35, 1. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices