Anthony Standen was a member of the court of the Duke of Tuscany from which he sent secret reports to Francis Walsingham , spymaster for Queen Elizabeth I . The reports from Tuscany were so detailed and informative that Walsingham asked Standen to establish spy networks in Spain and France. This he did, employing spies in the French and Spanish courts and gathering information about those who were conspiring to replace Elizabeth with her sister, Mary, Queen of Scots .
Elizabeth plotted with Walsingham to forge documents that made Mary , then her prisoner, guilty of conspiring to dethrone her, using this as an excuse to have Mary executed. Philip II of Spain, Standen learned, was so incensed by the execution that he vowed to avenge Mary's death by sending an armada against England. In 1587, Standen learned from his spy in the Spanish court the exact plans for the armada and sent this on to Walsingham .
In the following year, Standen went to Spain and organized a network of spies along the Spanish and French coasts that reported on the sailing of the armada, its number of ships, and troop transports. Though a fierce storm destroyed a number of the Spanish ships, much of the armada was intact when the British fleet met it and using the information Standen and his agents had supplied then defeated the Spanish fleet.