Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Sir William Waad, Lieutenant of The Tower & Gunpowder Plot, 6 Jan 2006
<> Based on careful, detailed research, the author, Fiona Bengtsen, has produced an outstanding book on a very interesting character, Sir William Waad, the man who was Governor of the Tower when Guy Fawkes became one of its prisoners.
<> Previously, as Secretary of the English Privy Council, Sir William Waad(also known as Wade) had been closely involved in detecting and arresting previous plotters against Queen Elizabeth and, later, King James - making Waad an ideal candidate to interrogate Guy Fawkes and his fellow conspirators.
<> Fiona Bengtsen offers new and interesting interpretations on the planning and execution of the Plot, and concludes that, when it suited them, Waad, and some of his colleagues within the Government, allowed the plotters more than enough scope to make their downfall inevitable.
<> The book is very well written and easy to read. I enjoyed it very much and learnt a lot I didn't know.
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4.0 out of 5 stars
Sir Wm Waad; Lieutenant of the Tower & The Gunpowder Plot, 5 Jan 2006
A really interesting and well-researched book by Fiona Bengtsen, a Cambridge-educated historian, that offers a new slant on one of the greatest who-dunnits: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot to blow up the King of England and the English Parliament in 1605 AD.
Son of Armigel Waad, an early 16th Century English Explorer into the New World, William Waad (aka:Wade)was at various times a Diplomat, Spymaster and Secretary to England's Privy Counsel - the Advisory cabinet to the Monarch. Fiona Bengtsen concludes that the English authorities,led by the Earl of Salisbury and his long-standing colleague, Sir William Waad, were very mu ch aware of the proposed plot, and even guided its outcome to achieve their ends - the capture, interrogation and eventual execution of the Catholic opposition to Protestant England.
The author also concludes that it was part of Salisbury's scheme to achieve confessions from the plotters by appointing his own man - Waad - to become Governor of the Tower of London just a few months before the final attempt was made to blow up King James and his Parliament. Working closely with Salisbury, Waad had acquired considerable previous experience in hunting down and arresting Catholic conspirators.
When he became the Governor of the Tower, Waad personally interrogated and supervised the torture of the King' eminent prisoners. Guy Fawkes was one of these charges and after interrogation, torture, and a "confession" to the charges against him, he paid the ultimate price: a public execution in London, along with his band of conspirators.
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