Espionage, Diplomacy & the Lodge: Charles Delafaye and The Secret Department of the Post Office

Espionage, Diplomacy & the Lodge is Ric Berman's most recent work. The book unveils one of eighteenth-century Britain's least known but most influential figures: Charles Delafaye, under-secretary of state, spymaster, magistrate and freemason. Delafaye was a member of the elite Horn Tavern lodge in London and at the centre of the government's inner circle for some two decades. He was a key conduit for intelligence from the Secret Department of the Post Office and the decrypters and code-breakers within its deciphering branch, and central to the measures taken against the Jacobite supporters of the Pretender, James Stuart, 'the king over the water'.
Ric Berman provides a unique glimpse into Britain's early secret service operations and explains for the first time the cross-over between freemasonry, espionage and diplomacy.