Behind bars | As you string out the bunting

As you string out the bunting, and prepare for the street party '“ remember that blue, red and white icing is obligatory on cup cakes, and don't forget to add a decent mayonnaise and a pinch of mustard powder to the egg sandwiches '“ spare a thought for history.

History is much among us in these Jubilee days. The Thames, rather wonderfully, will again be used as a central waterway, and there will be a Royal Barge replicating the one used by the first Elizabeth, for the second Elizabeth's ceremonial progress on the river. And, inevitably, there will be encomiums about a second Elizabethan age. Two queens, one who has lived long enough for even republicans to realise she keeps the idea of the community of nations alive in a time of genocide, and the other who beheaded, burnt, imprisoned and tortured dissidents and fought like a cat with her European neighbours. There can be few comparisons between these reigns. Elizabeth was, like her father and grandfather, a plotting despot who kept her monarchy safe by methods which, if used now, would be somewhat at odds with most of the articles of the European convention. Right to life? Pshaw. Right not to be tortured? Are you joking? Right to a fair trial? You are joking! Article 8 rights to privacy? Do stop trying to be funny.

School for spies

Elizabeth I's reign was a template of the surveillance state. Her grandfather started it '“ Henry VII kept tabs on his Yorkist rivals by keeping paid informants among their servants, and annotating the secret information so obtained in the account books over which he pored obsessively. He knew their goings out and their comings in, and jotted down what this information cost him to obtain in shillings and pence. Elizabeth delegated this rough business to her chief spy master, Francis Walsingham. A lawyer, and a passionately anti-catholic protestant, Walsingham became secretary of state in 1568 and devoted the rest of his life to keeping his sovereign '“ and by natural extension her realm '“ safe from the threats of invasion, assassination and usurpation. The threats came from Catholics, from Europe, and from the enemy within, Mary Queen of Scots.

To counter these dangers, he instituted a secret service which he deployed to listen at doors, intercept letters, decode communications, and spy for the good of England and national security. And he was phenomenally efficient. In the 1570s he created an actual school for spies in London, recruiting under graduates from Oxford and Cambridge to train up in cryptography and the other dark arts. Many were sent abroad, to Spain, Italy and France '“ the catholic countries whose fundamental principles he saw as dangerous to his queen. They were taught how to code and de-code, how to open letters and seal them again for their onward journey, and how to bribe and bully information out of their network of contacts.

Nor did it stop at mere bullying: he sanctioned torture, and torture there certainly was. Domestically, he set up a system for mail interception which meant that any letter sent by anyone even faintly suspected of treason was read by him before it got to its intended recipient. Letters then were carried by messengers or couriers who were more often than not in his employment. He even worked out a plan for filching Mary Queen of Scots' outward mail: he conned her into thinking that smuggling letters out in a beer keg was her idea and therefore safe. In fact, he used that service to provide him with access to all her mail. He brought her down by suborning an ex priest whom she trusted into giving her fake letters '“ her answers led to her death when an actual plot was eventually discovered. The plot was feeble in the extreme '“ but she still went to the scaffold for it. He planned for success: the surveillance on her went on for years before there were actual grounds for suspicion.

Latter day Walsingham

How very different from the home life of our own dear Queen! The long brawl of history has surely brought us to a state of such civilisation that the idea of spying on the people, treating them as suspects not citizens, intercepting their mail, gathering information on their pursuits, suborning their service providers and tracking their movements just in case a plot is in the offing is barely credible. It could not happen now, or here. Surely?

When the Queen, teeth royally gritted, announced that her government would shortly bring in the Data Communications Bill to ensure that all our internet and mobile phone data and traffic was kept and stored just in case some latter day Walsingham wanted to snoop at in future did she, in her diamond year, feel the shadow of a dark history?

Two messages for the Jubilee: Vivat Regina! Fight this Bill!