William Wickham, Master Spy:
The Secret War against the French Revolution
Michael Durey
The Enlightenment World
978 1 85196 983 8: 234x156mm: £60.00/$99.00
978 1 85196 696 7
William Wickham (1761–1840) was Britain’s master spy on the Continent for more than five years during the French Revolutionary wars. He was the creator and head of a small and highly organized secret service unit, and was sent on missions to Europe and Ireland. He is the only important political figure of the period not to have been the subject of a modern biography.
Durey sees in Wickham a peculiarly eighteenth-century, whiggish patriotism: he served king and country, but he also bore loyalty to a political family that was based around his Christ Church connections.
Sample pages
Readership
Eighteenth-Century Studies, History of Intelligence
Contents
Introduction
1 Entering the Maze
2 Defending the Constitution, 1792-4
3 ‘Save France, Monsieur, and Immortalize England’: The First Great Plan, 1795
4 ‘Exaggerated Dimensions and an Unnatural Appearance’: Plotting Regime Change in France, 1796–7
5 The Green Great Game, January 1798–June 1799
6 ‘Going Full Gallop, with our Swords Drawn’: Wickham’s Second European Mission, 1799–1801
7 ‘When Great Men Fall Out’: Ireland, 1802–4
8 Out in the Cold, 1804–40
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