English Golden Age. Elizabeth I
Autor: Claudio Martins | Publicado: 2012-08-26T12:34:00-04:00



Elizabeth I (1558 – 1603 AD)


Elizabeth I was born in
1533 to Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Although she entertained many marriage
proposals and flirted incessantly, she never married or had children. Elizabeth, the last of
the Tudors, died at seventy years of age after a very successful forty-four
year reign.

Elizabeth inherited a tattered
realm: dissension between Catholics and Protestants tore at the very foundation
of society; the royal treasury had been bled dry by Mary and her advisors,
Mary's loss of Calais left England with no continental possessions for the
first time since the arrival of the Normans in 1066 and many (mainly Catholics)
doubted Elizabeth's claim to the throne. Continental affairs added to the
problems - France
had a strong footland in Scotland,
and Spain,
the strongest western nation at the time, posed a threat to the security of the
realm. Elizabeth
proved most calm and calculating (even though she had a horrendous temper) in
her political acumen, employing capable and distinguished men to carrying out
royal prerogative. 

Her first order of business was to
eliminate religious unrest. Elizabeth
lacked the fanaticism of her siblings, Edward VI favored Protestant radicalism,
Mary I, conservative Catholicism, which enabled her to devise a compromise
that,basically, reinstated Henrician reforms. She was, however, compelled to
take a stronger Protestant stance for two reasons: the machinations of Mary
Queen of Scots and persecution of continental Protestants by the two
strongholds of Orthodox Catholicism, Spain and France. The
situation with Mary Queen of Scots was most vexing to Elizabeth. Mary, in Elizabeth's custody beginning in 1568 (for
her own protection from radical Protestants and disgruntled Scots), gained the
loyalty of Catholic factions and instituted several-failed
assassination/overthrow plots against her cousin, Elizabeth. After irrefutable
evidence of Mary's involvement in such plots came to light, Elizabeth sadly succumbed to the pressure
from her advisors and had the Scottish princess executed in 1587. 

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<![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->The
persecution of continental Protestants forced Elizabeth into war, a situation which she
desperately tried to avoid. She sent an army to aid French Huguenots
(Calvinists who had settled in France)
after a 1572 massacre wherein over three thousand Huguenots lost their lives.
She sent further assistance to Protestant factions on the continent and in Scotland
following the emergence of radical Catholic groups and assisted Belgium in
their bid to gain independence from Spain. The situation came to head
after Elizabeth
rejected a marriage proposal from Philip II of Spain; the indignant Spanish King,
incensed by English piracy and forays in New World
exploration, sent his much-feared Armada to raid England. However, the English won
the naval battle handily, due as much to bad weather as to English naval
prowess. England
emerged as the world's strongest naval power, setting the stage for later
English imperial designs. 

Elizabeth was a master
of political science. She inherited her father's supremacist view of the
monarchy, but showed great wisdom by refusing to directly antagonize
Parliament. She acquired undying devotion from her advisement council, who were
constantly perplexed by her habit of waiting to the last minute to make
decisions. She used the varying factions (instead of being used by them, as
were her siblings), playing one off another until the exhausted combatants came
to her for resolution of their grievances. Few English monarchs enjoyed such
political power, while still maintaining the devotion of the whole of English
society. 

Elizabeth's reign was
during one of the more constructive periods in English history. Literature bloomed
through the works of Spenser, Marlowe and Shakespeare. Francis Drake and Walter
Raleigh were instrumental in expanding English influence in the New World. Elizabeth's
religious compromise laid many fears to rest. Fashion and education came to the
fore because of Elizabeth's
penchant for knowledge, courtly behavior and extravagant dress. Good Queen
Bess, as she came to called, maintained a regal air until the day she died; a
quote, from a letter by Paul Hentzen, reveals the aging queen's regal nature:
"Next came the Queen in the sixty-fifth year of her age, as we were told,
very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small yet black
and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow... she had in her ear
two pearls, with very rich drops... her air was stately; her manner of speaking
mild and obliging." This regal figure surely had her faults, but the last
Tudor excelled at rising to challenges and emerging victorious.


Elizabethan England




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<![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->The age of Shakespeare was a great time in English
history. The reign of Elizabeth
(1558 - 1603) saw England
emerge as the leading naval and commercial power of the Western world.
Elizabeth I's England
consolidated its position with the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, and
firmly established the Church of England (begun by her father, Henry VIII,
after a dispute with the Pope). Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh
sent colonists eastward in search of profit. In trade, might, and art, England
established an envious preeminence.



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<![endif]--><!--[if !vml]--><!--[endif]-->At this time, London
was the heart of England,
reflecting all the vibrant qualities of the Elizabethan Age. It was in this
atmosphere that London
became a leading center of culture as well as commerce. Its dramatists and
poets were among the leading literary artists of the day; this is the
environment in which Shakespeare lived and wrote.

London in the 16th century underwent a transformation. Its
population grew 400% from 1500 to 1600, swelling to nearly two hundred thousand
people in the city proper and outlying region by the time an immigrant from Stratford came to town. A
rising merchant middle class was carving out a productive livelihood, and the
economy was booming.

In
the 1580s, the writings of the University Wits (Marlowe, Greene, Lyly, Kyd, and
Peele) defined the London
theatre. Though grounded in medieval/Jacobean roots, these men produced new
dramas and comedies using Marlowe's styling of blank verse. Shakespeare outdid
them all; he combined the best traits of Elizabethan drama with classical
sources, enriching the admixture with his imagination and wit.

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Facts
and Legends on Shakespeare

The first attempts at biographical
research were not begun until over a half a century after Shakespeare's death,
and are therefore not based on first-hand accounts. Few biographies, even of
the famous, were written during the period, and (though it may seem odd to us)
drama was not considered serious literature at the time--so dramatists in
general were not considered worth writing about. 

In addition,
the theatres were closed by the puritans in 1642, 36 years after
Shakespeare's death, with the result that many records and manuscripts were
lost. 

Nonetheless, there are a surprising number
of facts we know about Shakespeare and his theatrical enterprises, and there
are additional inferences we can make on the basis of the lives of similar
people. Then there are of course the legends that gather around any famous
person.

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Facts

Although little is known about Shakespeare the
man, there is in fact much more known about him than about many of his
contemporaries. Public records enable us to reconstruct the framework of his
life, such as his baptism, death, marriage and many business and legal
transactions. There are also a number of specifically theatrical documents that
record facts about him. 

More personal
information may be gleaned from stories told about him by his contemporaries,
and some information is also available through allusions to Shakespeare in the
work of other writers of his time 






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Inferences about
Shakespeare's life

While the facts are fewer than we might like,
there is much we have learned about the life of people like Shakespeare: their
schooling and their domestic lives. We know about life in Stratford and in the growing city of London. 

Many theatre
records survive, and even from those that do not specifically mention
Shakespeare we can learn much about his activities in the theatre. 

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Legends

Because of a lack of personal information about
Shakespeare's life, there are many apocryphal stories about him both as man and
as writer. There is also a great deal of room for interesting speculation about
him. 

In the
material that follows, legend and speculation are carefully labelled so that
they can be kept separate from factual information and well-informed
inferences.