Invisible agents : women and espionage in seventeenth-century Britain / Nadine Akkerman.

A compelling history of women in seventeenth century espionage, telling the forgotten tales of women from all walks of life who acted as spies in early modern Britain. Nadine Akkerman has immersed herself in archives and letter collections, acting as a modern-day Spymistress to unearth plots and conspiracies that have long been hidden by history.

Cover; Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain; Copyright; Dedication; Acknowledgements; Contents; List of Figures; List of Plates; List of Abbreviations; Note on Transcription of Manuscript Sources; Note on Dates; Introduction: Invisible Agents, She-Intelligencers or Spies Invisible by Birth; Set a Spy to Catch a Spy: the Historian as Spymistress; Counsellor, Ambassador, Secretary, Spy, She-Intelligencer?; Profiling the She-Intelligencer; Temporal Scope; Entering the Black Chamber; A Female Modus Operandi?; Methodologies and Approaches I: Materiality

Methods and Approaches II: Reading Against the Archival Grain1: Ciphered Pillow Talk withCharles I in Prison, 1646-9: 'intrigues, which at that time could be best managed and carried on by ladies'; Holdenby House, 17 February-14 June 1647; Hampton Court, 3 September-21 November 1647; Isle of Wight, 23 November 1647-11 December 1648; The First True Escape Attempt; The Second Escape Plan; Frolicking with Jane, July-August 1648; Treaty at Newport-Third Escape Attempt; 2: The Credibility and Archival Silence of She-Intelligencers: Women on the Council of State's Payroll

Susan Bowen and Elizabeth Alkin: Nursing IntelligencersDiana Stewart; Apolin Hunt; 3: Susan Hyde, a Spy's Gendered Fate and Punishment: Hide and Seek the Sealed Knot; Hyde's History with the Louvre Faction; An Apothecary's Betrayal; Susan of the Knot Unravels; A Spy's Gendered Fate and Punishment; Appendix; 4.1: Elizabeth Murray, Loyal Subject, Lover, or Double Agent? Rumour, Hearsay, and the Sins of the Father; Elizabeth's Character Assassination at the Hands of Gilbert Burnet; A Family of Spies; Sir Edward Hyde's Distrust of Elizabeth; Elizabeth Murray in Bed with Cromwell?

The Sealed Knot Unknots, Cromwell Dies, and Elizabeth Flees4.2: Elizabeth Murray's Continental Foray: Incompetence, Invisible Inks, and Internal Wrangling; Lady Dysart and the Earl of Inchiquin, Both Shunned Royalists; The Mechanics and Social Networks of a Cipher Key; Invisible Inks, Invisible Plots; The Age of Suspicion; 5: Elizabeth Carey, Lady Mordaunt: The 'Enigma' of the Great Trust; The Friendship of John Evelyn and Elizabeth Carey; Romance as Code; Escape to France after the Letdown of Booth's Rising; Lady Mordaunt's 'Spiritual' Diary

6: Anne, Lady Halkett's 'TrueAccountt': A Married Woman is Never to BlameThe Manuscript of Anne's 'True accountt'; Halkett's Life as a She-Intelligencer; Deflecting Blame; 7: Aphra Behn's Letters from Antwerp, July 1666-April 1667: Intelligence Reports or Epistolary Fiction?; Worlds Colliding; Competition in Flanders; The Holograph Letters; Epilogue: Invisibility and Blanck Marshall, the Nameless and Genderless Agent-Spies Are Best Disguised as Women; Blanck Marshall; Bibliography; Primary Sources; Pamphlets and Periodicals; Other Publications; Catalogues and Calendars of Manuscript Sources

Includes bibliographies and index.

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