All the Pope's Men: Vatican Diplomacy and Espionage in Tudor England, 1534-1570

This thesis examines the diplomatic relations between the Kingdom of England and the Holy See from 1534 to 1570. Its novel approach is characterized by both its reevaluation of the traditional motives ascribed to the various popes who reigned throughout the period by historians up to the present day and by its focus on studying the period from the perspective of the Holy See. Although access to primary source material was limited, this project ultimately found that the Catholic approach to dealing with the English Reformation was much more generous and much less sinister than historians have written throughout the past several centuries.