The central idea that Elizabeth Lew was a spymaster is further developed. Which answer summarizes the next central idea of the passage.

When reading "Ivanhoe", by Walter Scott, it is helpful to know that in medieval England there was great tension between the Saxons and the Normans because it explains why there is tension between the two sides in the tournament. King Richard I has been imprisoned in his way back from the Crusades. Prince John is in the throne, but the Norman nobles are the ones who really govern. The Normans are dispossessing the Saxons from their lands. The tension between the Normans and the Saxons at a peak.