This edited article about espionage around the Spanish Armada originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 706 published on 26 July 1975.

The Spanish Armada (top) preoccuppied Elizabeth’s spymaster general, Sir Francis Walsingham (centre), but of all Britain’s spies, Christopher Marlowe, who was killed in a Deptford tavern (bottom), was the greatest loss. Pictures by Eric Parker

Who defeated the Spanish Armada? “Sir Francis Drake,” would be the universal answering chorus.

But as anyone who lived in the days of Good Queen Bess would have told you, Drake was only half the answer. Behind him lurked another Sir Francis – a knight named Walsingham, Britain’s super-spy of the sixteenth century.

He was tall, slender, dark and mysterious, like an Italian cavalier. His tread was soft and he spoke only when it was necessary, but his eyes were everywhere. “He is my Moor,” laughed Queen Elizabeth, likening him to a stealthy Arab servant, but she knew his value to her and to her realm.

Walsingham’s official title was Secretary of State, an office he gained after many years in Europe as diplomat and ambassador. At home, as England’s spy-master, he was never short of enemies, for these were the times when England and Spain were perpetually in an ugly mood with each other.

With war always on the cards, Walsingham concentrated his agents in Spain. The star among them was Antony Standen who, using the name of Pompeo Pelligrini, and his own great charm, ingratiated himself with the courtiers of Spain’s King Philip in Madrid.

Thus it was that three years before the mighty Spanish Armada sailed up the Channel to invade England, Standen and his fellow spies were reporting to Walsingham that the Spaniards were assembling a great fleet in Cadiz harbour, and their plan was to use it to attack England.

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This edited article about Somerset originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 704 published on 12 July 1975.

The Battle of Sedgemoor by Ron Embleton

Somerset, as the old song says, is where the cider apples grow. It is also a county of rolling hills, famous towns, great men, romantic legends and vital developments in our island story.

You can go back a long, long way in British history, in fact, and still find that men were busy in Somerset. Years before Julius Caesar made his inquisitive expedition to our hostile shores in Kent, the early Celts had developed a high level of culture, centred upon Glastonbury. In that same town, centuries later, Dunstan, probably the first of Britain’s chief ministers, founded the Abbey, the ruins of which still stand today.

Glastonbury, too, is one of the places where King Arthur was said to have been buried, and in the reign of Richard I, an excavating team claimed to have discovered his bones there.

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This edited article about originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 704 published on 12 July 1975.

The murder of Thomas Becket by Peter Jackson

Canterbury Cathedral, that magnificent edifice of stone, founded by St. Augustine in 598, is rightly considered to be one of our great national heritages. Although by the twelfth century, its position as an ecclesiastical building was assured, its popularity as a place of pilgrimage did not really begin until after the year of 1170. Then a steady flow of pilgrims made their way lo Canterbury to stand before a shrine which had come to he considered as one of the most sacred spots in Christendom. Sacred that is, until it was destroyed by Thomas Cromwell, three centuries later, on the orders of King Henry VIII. who declared that the shrine did not belong to a saint but to a traitor. The shrine belonged to Archbishop Thomas Becket. whose story is the classic one of the king’s favourite who fell from grace and paid for it with his life.

Becket was the son of a London merchant, who had risen from his relatively humble beginnings to become chancellor, chief minister and the friend of King Henry II. Although Becket was some fifteen years older than his royal master, he had quickly endeared himself to the king because of his seemingly light-hearted attitude to life and his love of sport. As the years had gone by, the two of them had become inseparable. Unhappily for both of them, it was a friendship that was to turn to enmity.

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This edited article about Fife originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

A picture history of Malcom’s reign showing Margaret’s escape by boat; their marriage in Dunfermline Abbey; Malcom’s refusal to do hommage to William Rufus and the endless carnage and bloodshed in Northumberland. Pictures by Dan Escott

The people of Fife do not live in a county. They live in a kingdom. Their land of heather-hills, cornfields, and coal mines stretching far into the North Sea has always been called the Kingdom of Fife.

Why does this eastern area of Scotland claim this proud title? The coalminers, fishermen and weavers of Fife will tell you it dates back to the days when Fife was a feudal kingdom ruled by its own Pictish king.

Fife lost its king before the Conqueror came to Britain. There was much confusion over the rules of succession, which ended with a Scottish chief named Kenneth MacAlpin becoming ruler of the Scots and the Picts.

Centuries later, of course, the kingdoms of England and Scotland were united under one monarch.

Dunfermline, the chief city of Fife, was the seat of medieval kings in Scotland. The palace there was a royal residence from the time of Queen Margaret in the eleventh century until the sixteenth century.

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This edited article about King Faisal of Saudi Arabia originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 703 published on 5 July 1975.

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia

Dressed in a long white gown that effectively concealed the pistol he was holding. Prince Faisal bin Museid Ibn Abdel Aziz of Saudi Arabia began slowly to walk the length of a hall in the royal palace in Riyadh, the capital. At the far end of the hall sat his uncle, King Faisal, who was receiving the members of his family and court. It was March 25th, this year, the birthday of the prophet Mohammed, a holy day.

The courtiers had given the king the customary kiss on each cheek, and they drew to one side to allow the prince to do the same.

When he was only a few yards from the king, the prince stopped. While the attendants waited politely for him to advance, he drew his pistol. They saw the glint of metal, heard the sound of three shots fired at point blank range and saw the king collapse with blood staining his royal attire. The attendants rushed the king to hospital, but they were too late. Thirty minutes after the shots had been fired, he was dead.

The killer’s motives were not clear. Some said that his mind was deranged. Others declared that he had murdered out of revenge for his brother, who was killed at a political demonstration by Faisal’s security forces.

But whatever the motive was, the fact remains that with Faisal’s death there passed from the Middle Eastern scene a man with the power to control the flow of one of the world’s most vital commodities – oil!

King Faisal, a man of austere habits and untold wealth, was becoming the most important chieftain of all Arabia. This was because a measure of unity had been reached among the desert lands after the 1973 war with Israel. The fuel crisis in the West stemmed directly from his decision to stop exports of oil to countries which supported Israel. Even those like Britain, which tried to remain neutral, suffered from the oil restrictions.

The soaring price of oil brought vast riches to the already wealthy land of Saudi Arabia, where the king counted his fortune in millions of pounds. As the country with the largest oil fields in the world, Saudi Arabia earned £10,000 million last year – or roughly £300 a second. Her financial reserves grew almost too fast for accurate assessment.

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This edited article about Hatfield House originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

A picture history of Hatfield House

Only 21 miles from London, is this celebrated Jacobean house which stands in its own great park. It was built between 1607-12 by Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury and Prime Minister to James I. It has been the family home of the Cecils ever since.

The accounts show that the design is due to Robert Lyminge and supervised by Simon Basil, the predecessor to Inigo Jones as Surveyor of the King’s Works.

The plan is unusual in that it was among the earliest to combine domestic comfort with provision for State visitors or as we would call them now, V.I.P’s. The centre is devoted to State rooms with a separate dining room with kitchen adjacent.

The staircase is exquisitely designed and decorated and the beautiful stained glass in the chapel is original. Adjoining is Hatfield Old Palace where Queen Elizabeth I was confined during her sister Mary’s reign.

The Staterooms contain famous paintings, fine furniture, rare tapestries and historic armour. Hatfield House is one of the most completely adorned and preserved of mansions.

This edited article about the Kaiser originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

The Kaiser took an obsessive interest in felling trees and was frequently photographed with axe in hand

The Dutch sentry on the Belgian frontier at Eysden swung round, his rifle at the ready.

Towards him, out of the November mist, came a group of people, some in the field-grey uniform of German officers. The sentry tensed as one figure, wearing a calf-length cape with fur collar, detached itself from the group.

As he strode up, the figure in the cape placed a hand inside its folds. The sentry expected to see a Luger pistol and prepared to fire. But the hand withdrew not a pistol, but a sword, and thrust it towards him, hilt first.

The astounded sentry lowered his rifle and as he took the proffered sword, he recognized its owner. It was the Kaiser – the King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany, the war-lord who had defied the power of 28 nations.

When the unknown Dutch soldier took the Kaiser’s sword it was a symbol of Germany’s total defeat.

Behind him the Kaiser had left a Germany being invaded from without and experiencing a revolution from within. His Germans, who four years ago had marched victoriously into Belgium at the beginning of the First World War, had mutinied against their own leaders. Germany was being devoured by her enemies – and was devouring herself.

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This edited article about the Black Prince originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

The Black Prince’s effigy in Canterbury Cathedral with (inset) his ‘achievements’which are hung over his tomb, by Dan Escott

The man who was to become famous throughout Europe as the Black Prince was born at Woodstock on June 15th 1330, the eldest son of King Edward III of England.

Christened with the same name as his father, Edward was made the Earl of Chester in 1333; four years later, Duke of Cornwall, and in 1343 Prince of Wales.

He accompanied his father on his French campaign and distinguished himself at the battle of Crecy on August 26th, 1346.

Edward was also at the capture of Calais and in 1350, in the sea fight off Winchelsea against the Spaniards.

In 1355, he was sent to Gascony when he led the English armies in a series of raids over French territory. A similar expedition culminated in the famous battle of Poitiers on September 19th, 1356. A year later, he returned to England and later married his cousin Joan, known as the Fair Maid of Kent.

In 1362, his father granted him Gascony and Aquitaine, but soon many dissatisfied lords rose against him. The Black Prince besieged the town of Limoges and ordered a general massacre of its inhabitants.

In 1371, he returned to England in very poor health and died five years later on June 8th, 1376, one year before the death of his father.

Edward was given the name ‘Black Prince’ by the French, who described him as “the prince of darkness” because of the terror of his campaign in the Hundred Years’ War. For many years, it was believed that he was called the Black Prince because of his black armour, but in fact, he usually wore gilt armour.

The Black Prince’s son, became Richard II, King of England.

This edited article about the Lombards originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 702 published on 28 June 1975.

Alboin, King of the Lombards,  makes Rosamund drink from her father’s skull by Tancredi Scarpelli

A modern bank with its air of calmness and efficiency seems to owe little to the far distances of history where murder, brutality and intrigue were rife.

Yet, banking has its origins with the Lombards, a Germanic tribe which emigrated south 1,400 years ago from the rule of Attila the Hun, plundering, warring and gathering fortunes to establish a new home in the north of Italy.

Rightly, they are remembered in the City of London, hub of the financial world, where one thoroughfare is named after them – Lombard Street.

Although the strange race, which took its title from their long beards – or “Lango Bardi” – vanished as an independent nation in the 8th century, their traditions, achievements and administrations lived on to produce the principles of commerce and banking that remain to the present day.

The groundwork of finance and trade was carried down the ages by Lombard crusaders, knights and financial agents of the Popes, who set up money-lending businesses in London in the 13th century.

But in the early centuries, Lombard kings with names like Alboin, Cleph, Authari and Luitprand carved the beginnings of the financial structure, finally clashing with Charlemagne the Great, who conquered them and proclaimed himself king of the Lombards.

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This edited article about Ferdinand and Isabella originally appeared in Look and Learn issue number 701 published on 21 June 1975.

The reception of Columbus by Ferdinand and Isabella

Famous for uniting the whole of Spain under one ruling family, and for helping to make it a strong and powerful country, Ferdinand and Isabella started their reign as King and Queen of Aragon and Castile.

For centuries Spain had been divided into several separate kingdoms, each with its own rulers and by the 1400s the three main ones were Aragon, Castile and Granada.

In 1469 Ferdinand of Aragon married Isabella of Castile, the two countries being united under their joint rule. As King and Queen they proved to be strong and able rulers, who succeeded in suppressing the powerful and rebellious nobles of Spain by defeating them in several battles and destroying many of their castles.

In 1492 Ferdinand conquered Granada, the last remaining Moorish part of Spain, and with this conquest, the whole of Spain was united.

It was during the rule of Ferdinand and Isabella that the Spanish Inquisition was set up. This was a court of law that sentenced to torture and death people who refused to obey the teaching of the Roman Catholic Church. Ferdinand and Isabella were determined to make all their subjects Christian. This meant that many Jews and Moors were expelled and persecuted.

It was also at this time that Spain began to build up a great new empire in the New World. In 1492 Christopher Columbus discovered the continent of America. Because he had sailed from Spain with the help of Ferdinand and Isabella he returned there and Spain became the first European country to conquer territory in the New World.

Isabella died in 1504 and her husband died twelve years later.