Conspiracy and Plot in Elizabethan England

As part of Tudor Month at Ripon Cathedral, Professor John Cooper explores the shadowy world of intrigue, rebellion and political danger in the reign of Elizabeth I.

How close did Elizabeth I come to being assassinated?  When we think of the reign of Elizabeth, we tend to focus on the glamour: the cult of devotion to the Virgin Queen, the poetry and drama of the Renaissance, the sacred music of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd.  But there was another side to the age of Elizabeth: a darker world of religious conflict and persecution, where treason lurked in the shadows and voices whispered that a different Queen should occupy the English throne.

This talk explores the conspiracies and plots that threatened Elizabeth I, and the efforts of the government to neutralise them.  As the Reformation became ever more embedded in society, Catholics faced a stark choice: to conform and lose their identity, or to go underground and practise their faith in secret.  England became a battleground between Protestant reform and Catholic survival, a situation made much more tense when Mary Stuart fled Scotland and claimed asylum from Elizabeth.  A Catholic rebellion in the north and a series of plots attempted to depose Elizabeth and replace her with Mary Queen of Scots.  Infiltrating and disrupting them was Sir Francis Walsingham, head of the Elizabethan secret service.  Walsingham has been accused of being an agent provocateur, letting Catholic conspiracies play out or even setting them in motion to see who would join: what does the evidence tell us?

John Cooper is Professor of History at the University of York, specialising in the Tudor period.  His book The Queen’s Agent, on which this talk is based, was serialised on BBC Radio 4.  His most recent book, The Lost Chapel of Westminster: How a Royal Chapel Became the House of Commons, was published in paperback in 2025.  John is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, where he was also Director 2021-25. He lives in York.

Tickets are £15