True Spies Debriefs: Dr. Jenny Benham on Medieval Spycraft

True Spies Debriefs: Dr. Jenny Benham on Medieval Spycraft

Author: SPYSCAPE April 1, 2025 Duration: 47:30
Historian Dr. Jenny Benham joins Morgan Childs to explore the murky world of medieval espionage. You'll learn about the real 'little birds' who inspired Game of Thrones' Master of Whisperers, and the exiles, slaves and captives who parlayed information for security in a time before formalised intelligence agencies. Dr. Jenny Benham is Reader in Medieval History and the Co-director of the Centre for Medieval Studies at Cardiff University. From SPYSCAPE, the HQ of secrets. A Cup And Nuzzle production. Series producer: Joe Foley. Produced by Morgan Childs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Imagine pulling back the curtain on the most secretive missions ever conducted. That’s the experience offered by True Spies, a podcast from SPYSCAPE that moves beyond the Hollywood gloss to sit down with the actual intelligence officers, detectives, and operatives who lived these events. Hosted by a compelling roster including Hayley Atwell, Vanessa Kirby, and Daisy Ridley, each episode is a direct conversation with the people who know the answers. You’ll hear firsthand about the split-second decisions, the specialized skills, and the profound moral dilemmas faced in the shadows. This isn’t speculative fiction; it’s a deep exploration of authentic espionage cases, political intrigues, unsolved murders, and complex investigations that have shaped real-world events. The narratives covered in this podcast consistently reveal how the most astonishing truths are often more gripping than any invented thriller. By focusing on documentary-style storytelling and historical context, the series provides a rare, unfiltered look into the high-stakes worlds of crime and national security. Each story invites you to consider not just what happened, but how it felt to be in the room, and what you might have done when everything was on the line.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

True Spies: Espionage | Investigation | Crime | Murder | Detective | Politics
Podcast Episodes
True Spies Classic: Blinking Red | CIA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 50:28
In this True Spies Classic, CIA analyst Gina Bennett shows Vanessa Kirby the origins of America's most infamous enemy. Throughout the 1990s, Osama bin Laden launched a series of attacks on American interests at home and…
Spying On The Reich | Historical [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:47
International Relations journalist and author, R.T Howard, reveals the tensions, subterfuge and devastating errors that marked the first Cold War. In the 1920s and 30s, the Allies waged an intelligence war against a risi…
True Spies Classic: The Nuclear Superhighway | CIA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 52:46
In this classic episode of True Spis, undercover CIA agent James Olson takes Vanessa Kirby on a nail-biting mission behind the Iron Curtain. In the late 1970s, James was tasked with tapping an underground communications…
True Spies Debriefs: Bob Dougherty on transnational repression [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 37:15
Do you know about the rising threats posed by transnational repression? Hear from Bob Dougherty, veteran of 26 years as a CIA undercover operations officer. Today, Bob works as an instructor for multiple government agenc…
Digging for Gold | Cold War [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:57
Journalist and author Steve Vogel unravels the unlikely tale of George Blake, the cunning Cold War double-agent who betrayed one of the most ambitious wire-tapping operations of the 1950s - and made a name for himself as…
Tradecraft, Part 9 [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:37
The tools in a spy's arsenal are more varied than you might think. But they all come under one name: Tradecraft. In our ninth round of insights from the world of espionage, Rhiannon Neads looks back on lessons drawn from…
True Spies Classic: Undercover Jihadi | CSIS [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 54:18
In this True Spies Classic, Hayley Atwell tells the story of Mubin Shaikh, an Islamist extremist turned undercover agent for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Undercover as a member of the terrorist group that…
True Spies Debriefs: Mubin Shaikh on the Psyche of an Extremist [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 49:23
What can drive an ordinary person to extremist ideology? Hear from former security intelligence and counter terrorism operative, Mubin Shaikh, on his current work as a Counter Extremism Specialist. He delves into real wo…
The Spy With No Name | CIA [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 44:16
National security journalist Zach Dorfman returns to True Spies with the tantalising tale of one of the War on Terror's most secretive undercover operatives. Known only by his pseudonym, this CIA spy delivered intel dire…