The Shadow of Great Britain-Chapter 735 - 353: Crazy English

"Arthur, I fully understand your anger and dissatisfaction. If I were in your shoes, especially after the Liverpool incident, I too would feel that this society is beyond redemption and something must be done to improve it,"

"However, from the perspective of an ordinary civil servant, our job is solely to complete the various tasks assigned by the Cabinet and Parliament, to fulfill our designated duties. The intelligence system of the Foreign Office is far older and more systematic than that of the Police Intelligence Department, we know what we are doing."

"That being said, I remember that you graduated from the Department of History at the University of London, with quite good grades. You surely know of Sir Francis Walsingham, don’t you?"

For Arthur, who specialized in European history, the name Francis Walsingham was not unfamiliar.

As the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I’s most relied upon man and simultaneously her chief secretary, Walsingham was not only the queen’s most trusted diplomatic advisor but also her chief spy.

Of course, Walsingham’s ability to garner such favor from the queen wasn’t just because he was a handsome man; it was more so because his remarkable work capabilities helped Elizabeth initiate the Golden Age of Britain.

His accomplishments included, but were not limited to:

Thwarting numerous assassination attempts against the queen, aiding her in the execution of Mary I of Scotland, who had claims to the English throne.

After the Catholic Mary was executed, Pope Sixtus V issued a papal bull, declaring that the Holy See would subsidize armies invading mainland England, and called for a holy war against Britain by Catholic nations.

King Philip II of Spain, considering religious and practical interests, decided to respond to the Pope’s call and sent armies to invade Britain.

However, even before the Spaniards could leave their homeland, Walsingham had already intercepted this intelligence through the Tuscany Embassy in Madrid.

On one hand, he urgently wrote to the queen to strengthen the defenses of southern English ports like Dover and Plymouth, and on the other hand, he spent a considerable sum to hire legendary pirates such as Francis Drake to launch attacks on major Spanish coastal towns, successfully disrupting the Spanish supply lines and delaying their assembly speed, thereby gaining precious mobilization time for England.

After the Spanish Armada set sail, Walsingham quickly intercepted their navigational intelligence.

In the end, aided by The Tempest and Walsingham’s intelligence, the first to fall in the Battle of Gravelines were the Spanish ships Saint Mary and Jesus Nazarene.

This time, God did not side with Catholicism, but rather comically flipped over, accidentally rolling onto the Protestant side.

The joint navy of Britain and the Netherlands only destroyed five Spanish ships; the remaining 60 Spanish vessels that sank were mostly overturned by The Tempest.

However, although in this naval battle that annihilated the Invincible Fleet, God was the primary contributor, the intelligence passed by Walsingham still firmly held secondary merit.

Just as the Protestant Britons appraised Sir Walsingham: He was a pillar of the Protestant faith, generous, eager to learn, and possessed a knightly spirit."

Of course, Catholics held the opposite view; they considered him a ruthless, vile person keen on all sorts of underhanded plotting.

But regardless of how future generations judged Walsingham, everyone agreed that he was certainly one of the most accomplished spies in British history.

The intelligence agency he founded in 1569, the English Secret Service, was also the oldest spy agency in the world. At its peak, it employed over 300 people within England.

As for its foreign branches... Arthur understood that the Secret Service had established up to 12 spy stations in just France alone.

However, this once vast organization no longer exists today.

During Cromwell’s rule, the Secret Service was split into domestic and foreign sections, managed respectively by the Southern Department and the Northern Department.

After the creation of the Colonial Office in 1768, some personnel were transferred there to serve.

As for the Southern and Northern Departments, they were reorganized into the Home Office and Foreign Office during the administrative reforms of 1782.

The Colonial Office merged with the War Office in 1801.

This has resulted in Britain’s current patchy configuration of intelligence agencies. The Home Office has spies, the Foreign Office has spies, the military-centric War and Colonial Affairs Department and the Navy Department naturally have spies, and even the Treasury has its own system for investigating tax evasion."

In short, the current British intelligence system really emphasizes individualism."

And in Arthur’s leadership, the Police Intelligence Department could hardly compare to the age-old Foreign Office, and perhaps even in the eyes of the Home Office, he wasn’t as important as the old Secret Service.

Though Arthur held the title of head of an intelligence agency, Scotland Yard’s low status also made him look inferior in the eyes of others.

But in some sense, the old spies indeed had reasons to look down on the Police Intelligence Department.

After all, Arthur, as the director, was practically blind outside of London. A trip to Liverpool nearly got him killed.