Robert Harley as Secretary of State and his Intelligence Work: 1702–1708

Abstract

This article seeks to reassess Robert Harley's role as Secretary of State (1704–10) and especially his work in the intelligence and espionage fields of his day. It examines not only his reputation in such affairs but his skills and techniques in early eighteenth-century espionage, and also his failures. It sets out the important administrative background of Harley's espionage work, and how he handled and processed secret material through his secretarial office. It also explores the cases of some of his secret agents, especially that of the notorious William Greg, who was later exposed as an agent of the French government and cost Harley not only his reputation for astuteness, but his post as Secretary of State. Above all, however, Harley's secretaryship of state shows how by the early eighteenth-century, espionage had become an essential part of the routine of the early modern state.