2.5 The World of the Spymaster and his Spies
Hello and welcome back to the La Garde Ecossaise podcast where will explore early modern history through historical fiction. Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast and you can also view and subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. On today’s podcast we are going to explore the world of the spymaster and the secret world of intelligence and informants during the early modern period.
In La Garde Ecossaise we are introduced to the world of intelligence and spies through the eyes of Robert Meldrum as he is being trained in the handling of intelligence by Timothy Gray, head of intelligence for La Garde Ecossaise. Meldrum gives us an introductory insight into the methods of handling intelligence during the early modern period. Meldrum’s introduction to these methods of intelligence handling show that he is becoming a trusted member of the group.[1]
We are immediately told that the Garde operates a closed system of intelligence, meaning that only invited members would be able to learn the codes and cyphers within which the intelligence was written. This, of course, is used to maintain the highest levels of security which is unsurprising since the Garde deals with threats relating to national security and international security missions.[2]
We are also given an insight into their ‘rules of engagement’ to use a military term and to describe the ethics and parameters of their conduct in operations. It is important to note that although Hamilton is given free reign to conduct operations as he saw fit, he has to do so within the laws of war at the time. There are also rules regarding intelligence gathering, handling and acting upon that intelligence. To act upon it, the intelligence had to be corroborated with evidence. In short, Hamilton and his men, like many spymasters at the time, were bound by the law and his men had to maintain the basic legal standards in doing their work. In other words, they could not go around doing what they wish, or act upon hearsay or rumour. The Garde could only act if someone or something posed a certain immediate threat to life.[3]
Hamilton and his men were also bound by institutional obligations and were part of a hierarchy and a chain of command. Hamilton was summoned to see the king’s head of intelligence several times a week and was briefed on the latest intelligence every other day. Of course, intelligence changed constantly and therefore Hamilton and his men need to be briefed on the latest intelligence to stay ahead of the regime’s enemies and to know about any potential future threats.[4]
Indeed, as Meldrum points out that trust was integral to this intelligence network which stretched from Hamilton and his men to the head of intelligence, his contacts with the court, the King’s counsel and Louis XIV himself. It was not just the keeping of state secrets that was important, but also the trust in those ‘in the know’ to pass on as much accurate intelligence as possible.[5]
As Meldrum details, Hamilton returned from meetings with minimal notes with most of the information retained in his head. This, of course, was to reduce the paper trail or any visible recording of intelligence being lost while in transit between Paris and the palace of St Germain. To add another layer of deception, Timothy Gray’s office is a vacated royal apartment in the palace. It purposefully did not look like an office so any potential infiltrators would not suspect that this was where the Garde’s intelligence was kept. Meldrum also draws our attention to further security features of the room by revealing that the room has no windows. It was also a room used as a ‘safe place’ for his majesty King Louis XIV should there have been trouble in Paris. The room seemingly had only one entry and exit point but as Meldrum states, this was deceptive because the room was connected to Hamilton’s office by means of a secret passage. As Meldrum explains, since the turbulent Fronde in the 1650s, which were a series of serious revolts against Cardinal Mazarin and Anne of Austria by the nobles and the common people, Louis XIV was keenly aware of his own personal security.[6]
Meldrum observes that any sparse notes that Hamilton had gathered on intelligence were written in cypher and code, a code and written symbols which are in place of words. It is clear these cyphers were only understood by Hamilton and his men. In order to understand, transcribe and remember the contents of correspondence written in a cypher you would need good linguistic, mathematical, and writing skills as well as an excellent memory. Meldrum also describes verbal codewords that acted as cypher through the medium of oral transmission. The use of common languages such as Latin, French and English as well as less common languages such as Irish and Scottish Gaelic were forbidden to be used. This emphasises the importance of cyphers in their work, as well as it being a security measure. In addition to this, the cypher used within the Garde was changed on a regular basis as well as the locations used to transmit intelligence between contracts. Again, these were security measures to maintain the confidentiality of intelligence.[7]
If written correspondence was required, as Meldrum reveals, the correspondence of the Garde was written in invisible ink. The ink was made from lemon juice and after the letter was written it was covered by a thin layer of tallow wax to disguise its contents by making the letter resemble a blank page. As we will discuss later this was a common practice in the intelligence communities of early modern Europe. After revealing the contents of the letter, by moving it over a lit candle, Gray advises Meldrum to burn his intelligence ‘without fail’ removing all traces of its existence. Again, these were another security mechanism.[8]
Meldrum was also taught the ‘brush pass’ whereby people exchanged intelligence by walking parallel to each other and exchanged objects and small bits of paper as they met each other at a point of contact. At the end of his initial time with Gray Meldrum is tested in his skills in transcribing intelligence. Meldrum is asked to transcribe and translate two pages of cypher in five minutes, which was clearly a tough challenge given the little training in intelligence that Meldrum had undertaken. Yet, Meldrum does so flawlessly and, as a result, he is welcomed with open arms into the Garde.[9]
What Do We Mean by Intelligence in the Early Modern Period?
Throughout the novel we come across several different situations where intelligence is obtained and used. Often used as a homogeneous term to cover covert operations, the term ‘intelligence’ in the early modern period can refer to information generally. This is seen with reference to printed public newsbooks that call themselves ‘intelligenciers’. However, if examining the term ‘intelligence’ in its covert context, there were several kinds of covert intelligence during the early modern period.
Military Intelligence
The first type of intelligence was military intelligence. In La Garde Ecossaise we see this in action when John Hamilton is requested to do reconnaissance before a battle in the Thirty Years War.[10] As the name suggests, military intelligence was used by the military to enable them to form strategy and tactics to defeat enemies. To quote historian Jullian Whitehead, military intelligence ‘seeks to provide information on enemy strengths, dispositions and intentions in order to assist the commander in planning his own strategy and tactics’.[11] John Ellis, in his excellent analysis of military intelligence during the civil wars in England, outlines a complex web of people involved in the process of intelligence gathering and the situations in which it took place. For military intelligence to operate and be successful there needed to be a spy, a willing messenger, a transcriber of intelligence and a recipient. In a military context during the early modern period, a wide variety of people were recruited as spies, including pubescent boys, military surgeons and close civilian friends of commanding officers. All of these people could blend in with the military and the local populations. The willing messenger could be a servant, or a merchant, or an itinerant traveller. Again, these figures were very common in early modern society and could easily integrate the carrying of messages into their daily routines, thereby avoiding suspicion from enemy forces. The transcriber of intelligence was more likely to be a professional spy, such as a Timothy Gray. These men were usually recruited from the gentry and educated with excellent mathematical problem-solving skills, alongside reading and writing skills. Yet, work for these men could be tough as different generals, even in the same army, had their own cypher system which could be slow and cumbersome to crack. Therefore, to be a transcriber in the military was a high-pressure environment where results were demanded by the commanding officer and the intelligence could change very rapidly over time. The recipient, usually someone on your own side in the war, was usually a military officer who had the responsibility for planning military strategy and battlefield tactics. However, it must be remembered that all of those involved in the processes of intelligence, especially the spy and the messenger, were undertaking their duties under the greatest risk possible, at the cost of their own lives. Military spies were hung if discovered.[12]
Diplomatic Intelligence
As this name suggests this type of intelligence was collected for, and written by, diplomats and their embassies for their respective national governments. This intelligence was used to shape and inform treaties and relationships between countries. The intelligence by diplomats and their embassies would give their respective national governments an inside track into what was going on within the internal politics of government and the policies being established. However, this did not mean that the trust between respective states or counties were a given, even if a diplomat was present, often diplomats were not fully trusted by domestic governments. Domestic governments would intercept their mail on a regular basis, not just for security reasons but also to gain the inside track on what other foreign governments were doing and thinking. The diplomat was part of a wider community of diplomatic compatriots who were in regular contract with each other through written correspondence such as letters and reports. Information about the internal politics within other foreign countries could be gleaned from such correspondence. Sometimes diplomatic correspondence could be used strategically to gain the advantage in treaty negotiations by exploiting weaknesses in potential partners and allies.[13] In La Garde Ecossaise we can see this in action when John Hamilton leans on a Dutch notary left behind in France in order to gain information about the United Provinces at the outbreak of the Dutch War.[14]
We will explore the next two categories of intelligence, as seen from the point of view of a consummate spy, such as La Garde Ecossaise’s Timothy Gray.
Domestic Intelligence
Domestic intelligence dealt with internal threats to the state whether that be whole groups or individual actors. What constituted a threat to the state could change based on events or a change in personnel or governments. For example, in Britain during the English Republic, Royalists, those still loyal to the monarchy, were considered a serious threat to the security of the republic, but when the British and Irish monarchy was restored under King Charles II in 1660, the situation was reversed with the English Republicans becoming the domestic security threat to the monarchy. Threats could also ebb and flow, meaning that any threat was not constant, any threat often waned or gained in strength depending on the actions of malign actors or even as a result of a change in the perception of governments to potential threats (rather than a realistic or actual threats). In the context of seventeenth century France the Huguenots are the best example. They were distrusted by the French monarchy for their actions during the French Religious Wars, which included uprisings and attempted assassinations, but nevertheless Huguenots were given a measure of toleration under the Edict of Nantes passed in 1598. We will discuss this in greater depth in a future podcast, but for now I will keep it brief. Louis XIV had a deep distrust of Huguenots and even though Huguenots fought for him in the Thirty Years War (most notably Viscount Turenne) Louis felt that in order to ensure peace and prosperity in France he would need to persuade the Huguenots to convert to Catholicism and Turenne did so in 1668. Indeed, for the first few decades of his reign Louis wished to persuade the Huguenots to convert to the Catholic faith rather than using force. However, Louis XIV’s approach to the Huguenots changed when the security situation within and outside of France changed and in 1685 the Edict of Nantes, which had promised the Huguenots certain rights, was revoked. Seen by some historians as an act of an intolerant and cruel king, the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes can be seen as a security measure to combat any potential trouble for the French state in the face of the sharpening confessional divisions in international conflicts at the time.[15]
Foreign Intelligence
Our final category, foreign intelligence, should be seen as being separate from diplomatic intelligence as it is intelligence from abroad that is obtained by national governments and states that relate to their own national security. However, the interception of diplomatic correspondence could aid in this process. Foreign intelligence often related to exiled communities abroad that posed a direct threat to the established government of a state. In the 1650s, the English Republic collected a constant stream of information on exiled Royalist communities in The Hague, Paris, Brussels and Spain. This information was not only used to discover plots against the Republic and the movement of people between the two countries, but the intelligence obtained was also used to shape the English Republic’s diplomatic relationships with states in Europe. This is most obvious when Cromwell chose to shift from Spain towards France as a key ally in the mid to later 1650s. The expulsion of the British Royalist community from France was an essential element to negotiations. Looking at France, despite the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, French ministers took an active interest in the Huguenot exiles, many of whom had fled to countries ill-disposed to Louis XIV at the time, including Britain and Ireland, the United Provinces and Brandenburg.[16]
Invisible Ink and Cyphers: Spies and their methods
As detailed above, Timothy Gray teaches Meldrum the two basic skills required to transmit confidential written information in the early modern period, namely using invisible ink and cyphers.
Lemon juice, squeezed finely, can produce invisible ink in which a quill is dipped. At this moment in time the ink is completely invisible but if you provide a naked flame to the letter, the words appear because the sugar in the lemon juice becomes visible under the heat.[17]
Another way to covertly share information by the written word was a cypher. As Jullian Whitehead has pointed out, cyphers took two forms, code, whereby random words and symbols replaced the real message, and, cyphers whereby each letter within a word was replaced with another letter or symbol. These encrypted words would have looked meaningless and chaotic to the uninitiated. Each system had its own key which was only understood by the sender and recipient. There were two approaches to encryption. The first was by jumbling existing letters in words in a random order. However, that made the encryption of the message easy to crack if anyone intercepted it. Therefore, the majority of spies in the seventeenth century used the second method known as the substitution method whereby individual letters were replaced with another letter or symbol making the correspondence more secure. These cyphers were quite simple and were easy to crack if you were an experienced spymaster or transcriber. Many correspondents would use recurring phrases as a form of disguise, even in encrypted material making it easier to discern their meaning. [18]
This concludes season 2 of the La Garde Ecossaise podcast. I hope you enjoyed the series. If you have any questions and are watching on YouTube please feel free to put any comments or questions on the YouTube channel community page and I will do my best to answer them. If listening on a streaming service and you have any questions please feel free to contact me on X @kirsteenmm or Instagram @earlymodernkirsteenmm.
I will see you soon for season 3 where we will explore the Ulster Plantation and the 1641 Rebellion. Until then, au revoir, A bientot.
[1] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 101.
[2] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 101.
[3] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 102.
[4] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 102.
[5] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 102.
[6] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 102-103.
[7] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 103-104.
[8] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 104.
[9] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 104.
[10] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 316.
[11] Julian Whitehead, Cavalier & Roundhead Spies: Intelligence in the Civil War and the Commonwealth (Barnsley, 2009) vii.
[12] John Ellis, ‘To Walk in the Dark’ Military Intelligence during the English Civil War 1642-1646 (Stroud, 2011) 10, 21, 30-36.
[13] Kirsteen M MacKenzie, ‘The Waiting Game’ Cromwellian Diplomacy: the Foreign Experience’ Cromwelliana (2009) 95-107; Alan Marshall, Intelligence and Espionage in the English Republic (London, 2023) 20-22.
[14] MacKenzie, La Garde Ecossaise 156-157.
[15] David Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England 1649-1660 (New Haven, 1960); Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Regime: A History of France, 1610-1774 (Oxford, 1991) 193-194.
[16] Le Roy Ladurie, The Ancien Regime 217, 528; Bernard Cottret, The Huguenots in England: immigration and settlement c.1550-1700 (Cambridge, 1991) 185-228; Simon Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (London, 1997) 587; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England; Jullian Whithead, Cavalier and Roundhead Spies 147-161; Timothy Venning, Cromwellian Foreign Policy 46.
[17] See YouTube Sarah Habibi, ‘How to Write Secret Messages with Lemons’ How to Write Secret Messages with Lemons – YouTube Accessed 31/03/24; Alan Marshall, Intelligence and Espionage in the English Republic 118, 149; Whitehead, Cavalier and Roundhead Spies 223.
[18] Whitehead, Cavalier & Roundhead Spies 223-225; Underdown, Royalist Conspiracy in England 341-342.