HER MAJESTY'S SPYMASTER Sir Francis Walsingham™s official title was principal secretary to Queen Elizabeth I, but in fact this  pious, tight-lipped Puritan was England™s first spymaster. A ruthless, fiercely loyal civil servant,  Walsingham worked brilliantly behind the scenes to foil Elizabeth™s rival Mary Queen of Scots and  outwit Catholic Spain and France, which had arrayed their forces behind her.  Though he cut an incongruous figure in Elizabeth™s worldly court, Walsingham managed to win the  trust of key players like William Cecil and the Earl of Leceister before launching his own secret  campaign against the queen™s enemies. Covert operations were Walsingham™s genius; he pioneered  techniques for exploiting double agents, spreading disinformation, and deciphering codes with the  latest code-breaking science that remain staples of international espionage.  In the taut narrative of a spy novel, Budiansky recounts how this legendary spymaster invented the  art and science of modern espionage”and in the process set Elizabethan England on the path to  empire.