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In the second half of the reign of Charles II the world of espionage and conspiracy continued to be as perplexing for the government as in the first half. The ‘problem’ of Catholicism also began to loom, to explode in the Popish Plot of 1678. There were a number of men employed as spies by the regime in this period and while it is not possible to trace all of their careers here, lengthy case studies are given of two of the most notable and complex individuals who enlisted as covert soldiers in the regime's espionage wars: Thomas Blood and John Scott. Sir Joseph Williamson, who came to know Thomas Blood quite well, noted on the day after Blood's attempt on the Crown Jewels that it was ‘one of the strangest any story can tell’. There is no doubt that Thomas Blood was the nonpareil of the seventeenth-century spy, rebel and adventurer. There is no-one quite like Blood in the Restoration regime's service, or for that matter out of it. He was distinctive in many ways, but most of all his is the only fully rounded figure of a spy in the period we can uncover. The others involved in the Restoration regime's intelligence system remain at heart shadowy figures. With Blood, however, we have a man whose thoughts we can actually penetrate through his own personal writings. Yet in spite of this there are great mysteries both concerning the man and his career. Notorious in his day, he was also adept in covering his tracks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the later seventeenth century diplomacy was often merely seen as warfare by other means. In such a world the cutting edge of diplomacy lay in its intelligence gathering and espionage activities. These ‘secret services’ were an essential part of the diplomatic arsenal of any state. They could, of course, cover a multitude of actions from subterfuge and chicanery, to bribery, corruption, simple news gathering and running spies, or even more complex operations such as kidnapping and murder. For the Stuart regime, as for others, the men who ran this seamy side of diplomatic life were located in two areas of government. The first of these, as we have seen, lay in the office of the Secretary of State in London. The secretaries divided European affairs between themselves, although not always equitably, and ran the second group of officials involved in foreign affairs, those ambassadors, agents, residents and consuls who made up the diplomatic corps. The diplomat stood in the front line of such activities. While the diplomat then, as now, was seen as the representative of his country abroad, more often than not he was also seen as a mere spy by another name; an ‘honourable spy’ as Abraham de Wicquefort put it, but still a spy. The concern here is less with the diplomat's role as a purveyor of his country's fluctuating foreign policy and more with his role in that area known as secret services. In general this can be divided into two main areas: intelligence gathering and espionage activities, or information and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collection, transport, and distribution of the shells was an unique exercise quite unlike any other export of Asia or import to Africa. The mechanism that was firmly in place at the start of the eighteenth century worked smoothly for the most part, even though the “invisible hand” of Adam Smith shared its grip with monopoly and monopsony at several stages. “PRODUCTION” OF THE SHELLS It might be assumed that the shells could simply be plucked off Maldive beaches and loaded into ships for export. Such a view would be wholly wrong on two accounts. First, if the inhabitant of the shell were already dead and the cowrie had been rolled along the sand by waves and tides, its enamel would be worn and its lustre much diminished. Shells in this condition were fragile, useless for ornamentation, and were often rejected for money use, or commanded a lower price. Second, if the animal was still alive when put into a ship's hold, it would not long remain so and there would soon be an overpowering stench. “Dead Maldives,” a sales category at the European auctions, were of the first type – collected after the mollusc had died. “Live Maldives,” the major category, were not however shells shipped with a live mollusc inside. Such a practice was rare, although one nineteenth-century writer does describe the “stinking and very unhealthy” condition of cargoes shipped with the living creature still resident at the start of the voyage. Instead, “live Maldives” were shells that had been processed, and even the word “manufacture” is perhaps appropriate. These considerations led to methods of collecting the shells with their inhabitants alive, and processing them to rot out the animal matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The event of 1660 that shaped Dutch history no less than that of England was the call to Charles II to come home from his travels. The Orangist party passed in an instant from apparent moribundity to vigorous vitality. The governing States party, in accordance with its principle of always staying on good terms if possible with whatever government happened to hold power in London, in the same brief moment went over from a disdainful wariness toward the Stuarts to an effusive welcome. On his way home, King Charles was entertained in The Hague in the most ostentatious fashion, with gala banquets, receptions and entertainments. His sister, Princess Mary, was in constant attendance in this triumph of her aspirations after a bitter decade of defeat and (for a royal person) poverty. Her son, William III, watched too, although his future rather than his person was at the center of discussion. We know little about how he felt or what he thought then, but he was old enough to realize that much was at stake in these talks between his mother, his uncle and the councilor pensionary who had been the bane of the House of Orange ever since he could remember. Amalia van Solms was almost a stranger at the festivities, present but neglected by the jubilant and triumphant Stuart partisans. Charles wanted, of course, the abolition of the Act of Seclusion, and it was repealed without fuss; but he also sought the parallel restoration of his nephew, or at least a firm agreement to give him the stadholdership and captaincy-general when he came of age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]