The Spy Who Brought Down Mary Queen of Scots (2014)

With the aid of dramatised scenes and location-based interviews with leading historians, this film tells the riveting story of how, over an eight-week period in 1586, England's greatest spymaster used covert espionage techniques to foil a Catholic conspiracy to murder Queen Elizabeth I and engineered the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. Sir Francis Walsingham is recognised as one of history's master spies, thanks to the extraordinary trap that he set for Mary, Queen of Scots. Using a sophisticated network of double agents, informants, and secret codes he allowed Mary to believe that she was master-minding a plot to destroy Elizabeth. In fact, every move Mary made was tracked, by intercepting and decoding her correspondence. As a result, the Scots Queen was exposed as a threat to the Crown, and Walsingham was finally able to persuade Elizabeth to execute her.