Susan Hyde: a Seventeen Century Spy
A number of years ago, whilst my Dad was undertaking family history research, he discovered that my Mum’s ancestors was Sir Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, who was one of the most prominent Royalists during the British Civil Wars, and Lord Chancellor to Charles II. So imagine my surprise a few years ago when I purchased Nadine Akkerman’s interesting book Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain, which features a chapter on Edward’s little-known sister, Susan, who was a Royalist spy during the years following Oliver Cromwell’s rise to power. Edward in his own writings and autobiography never mentioned her and the crucial part she played in the Sealed Knot, a secret organisation made up of second sons of some of the Royalist families remaining in England that that time, that corresponded with Hyde and the exiled Charles II. This post is dedicated to my brave and dedicated ancestor, Susan, and what little is known about her important role and the tragic end to her life in 1656.
Susan Hyde was baptised on 22nd July 1607 as the seventh of nine children of Henry and Mary Hyde. Sadly, that is the most of what is known about Susan prior to her becoming an agent of the Sealed Knot. Presumably, she was an unmarried woman, for they were the kinds of women usually employed as agents by both Parliamentarians and Royalists alike. They were known as ‘she-intelligencers’ and were not automatically thought of as spies, for it was a common belief at the time that women were gossipy in nature and unable to keep secrets.
Before discussing in further detail exactly what Susan’s role was with the Sealed Knot, it seems a good idea to talk more about what the Sealed Knot was. The Sealed Knot was founded sometime around February 1654 and continued until another Royalist organisation, the Great Trust, all but swallowed it. The Sealed Knot was a small group, comprising of seven select heads, six leaders and a secretary. They comprised of Royalists still in England and who weren’t directly involved with the exiled Royalist court, but had been in the Royalist army before Cromwell’s rise to power. Their aim was to be cautious, but to take advantage of, or create a general rising in England that could then benefit the Royal court. Their main contacts on the continent were Edward Hyde and even Charles II himself, who wrote under the pseudonym of Francis Edwards.
The earliest secret letter in existence between Susan and her brother, Edward, dates from 14 June 1653. Just as with any letters of between members of the Sealed Knot, it’s true meaning was hidden inside a load of commercial and business talk. Their true business that was being alluded to was the restoration of Charles II as King of England. Something they had in common with the other Royalist secret organisations at the time, even if they did things more cautiously than others.
The system of concealing correspondence was a risky and tricky business. Oliver Cromwell had employed John Thurloe as spymaster and Postmaster General to monitor Royalists and their correspondence. They used the Black Chamber in Whitehall to monitor and decipher this correspondence and this included Susan Hyde’s. Although her correspondence was probably being monitored for a long time, there wasn’t anything that could specifically tie her to the exiled court, but it would eventually start to unravel.
A common practice for those engaging in secret correspondence was to use a ‘safe’ address, either someone of a genuine profession that wouldn’t raise suspicion, or who would fake a profession as a cover. That address would be used on any outer envelopes, with further internal envelopes being addressed to fake names, with the cover person then able to distribute the letters to the correct person. Susan Hyde implemented this technique and used a man called Anthony Hinton, an apothecary, although we don’t know if he truly was one, or used it as a cover.
It was only when Hinton was arrested on 15th September 1656 that his dealing with secret correspondence, and exactly who’s he had been concealing, was revealed. Initially, he refused to give any information. He was then sent to Lambeth House (the name of Lambeth Palace during Cromwell’s rule), which was a notorious Royalist prison and was known for its terrible conditions. By 22nd September, Hinton was willing to give up his information. He admitted that Susan Hyde had used his premises for around four years for secret correspondence. Letters for her were hidden in envelopes address to him and that he was being paid by the Royalist court via her for this.
It would appear that Hinton had been arrested just as he was about to go on some sort of travel, for the last letter Susan is known to have sent before her death, just two days before Hinton’s arrest, was warning Charles II of an interruption to their normal channels of communication, but also to warn of a possible leak in the organisation. She warned not to trust a ‘Mr R H’, which possibly could mean Robert Honeywood, who was a member of the Queen of Bohemia’s household and a Cromwellian spy. Not long after, Susan herself was arrested in Wiltshire. What we do know of her arrest and imprisonment is from a letter written by John Cosin, dated 11 December 1656, to Edward Hyde about his sister’s death. Nothing was found on her, but she was ill-treated from the very minute of her arrest.
Those in charge of her intended to make her suffer physically and psychologically. She was first taken to Marlborough in Wiltshire and made to stand in front of a council for two hours, before being moved to Westminster as a prisoner. She was not allowed a pen and paper to tell anyone of her circumstances and was regularly threatened with weapons. She continued to be treated awfully and was moved to the dreaded Lambeth House, where she died a week later. According to Cosin, those in charge of her had “terrified her so much that she lost her senses, and expired in a few days in that condition”. Somehow though, Susan’s body was spirited away from her prison by her friends and buried elsewhere.
It is unimaginable that a woman should be treated as such, for in general, most women suspected of spying were treated more leniently than their male counterparts. Sadly, not so for Susan, for she was at the heart of Royalist correspondence since at least 1652. It is also telling that her arrest came just a month after her brother, Edward, had published a pamphlet against Cromwell’s regime. It is a shame that both Edward in his own writings, as well as subsequent historians, have either left Susan out, or failed to give her an identity of her own. I applaud Nadine Akkerman for her attempts to highlight Susan and how important she was as a ‘she-intelligencer’ and a secret agent of the Sealed Knot. I hope this post also has highlighted in the same way too.
Bibliography: Edward Walford, ‘Lambeth: Lambeth Palace’, in Old and New London: Volume 6 (London, 1878), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/old-new-london/vol6/pp426-447. Jackie Eales, ‘Can You Keep a Secret’, History Today (69.7 (7 July 2019), https://www.historytoday.com/reviews/can-you-keep-secret Nadine Akkerman, Invisible Agents: Women and Espionage in Seventeenth-Century Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) World Turned Upside Down, ’The Royalist Conspiracy, The Story of the Sealed Knot’, https://www.worldturnedupsidedown.co.uk/transcripts/royalist-conspiracy-the-story-of-the-sealed-knot/
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