ON THEIR MAJESTIES' SECRET SERVICE.

This article focuses on the development and operation of intelligence networks in late 17th-century Britain during the unsettled 1690s following the deposition of James II and VII. It highlights the roles of James and Alexander Johnston, two brothers who managed covert espionage activities to support the Williamite regime amid fears of Jacobite plots and foreign threats. Their work involved extensive surveillance, use of informers, raids, and secret communications, often funded personally due to limited government resources. The article also discusses Hans Willem Bentinck, Earl of Portland's 1692 proposals for a comprehensive intelligence system in London, which anticipated a proto-police state. Overall, the piece illustrates how espionage became a crucial, though sometimes harsh and secretive, tool for political stability in this period.