Players and Plotters

London in the time of the first Queen Elizabeth: players in tights, huge ruffs, dodgy beards, power and Gloriana all spiced up with a hey and a ho and (we fear) a hey-nonny-no. Right?

In fact Elizabeth's reign was a time of great paranoia, where an army of spies operated in the shadows behind the throne, their mission to keep the Queen safe from threats both real and imagined. This walk explodes some of the myths about the last years of Elizabeth's reign and explores the paranoid London of the late sixteenth century, where actors, religious fanatics and nobility alike indulged in treasonable activities aplenty. Passing along Fleet Street westwards to Temple, the walk also takes in a number of buildings which, amazingly, still survive from this turbulent period.