Shakespeare's England

Shakespeare's England. Read the text and say the answers out loud so the computer can record your speech.

Queen Elizabeth I

Shakespeare lived at the end of the 16th and start of the 17th centuries. The England he grew up in and worked in played a huge part in his writing. For most of his life, England and Ireland were ruled by Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), an intelligent monarch who spoke six languages fluently.

This period is known as the Elizabethan era. During her reign, England established itself as a world power. At home, London became the cultural capital of the country, filled with poets, actors, painters and playwrights. The rich lived very well in Elizabethan England, while the poor got poorer. Elizabeth herself enjoyed a life of luxury: she wore lavish clothing and jewellery, and liked to have extravagant entertainment in her court, including Shakespeare’s plays.

Religion

In the 1530s, King Henry VIII, the father of Elizabeth I, separated the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church, breaking all ties with the Pope, the leader of Catholics worldwide. King Henry VIII was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Mary, who wanted to re-establish the Catholic Church in England. Under Mary I, who was Elizabeth’s half-sister, Protestants were persecuted. Princess Elizabeth, as she was then, was even imprisoned in the Tower of London after being accused of plotting to overthrow her sibling.

When Mary died and Elizabeth became Queen in 1558, she helped create a Church of England that was Protestant but kept some of the old Catholic traditions. In 1559 she became head of the Church and people were expected to obey the Church of England’s rules. By the 1580s, simply being a Catholic priest in England was considered treason. Catholics were now the persecuted ones, although Elizabeth denied this, arguing that they weren’t being punished because of their religion but because their beliefs and behaviour were dangerous for the country. Anyone over the age of 16 was expected to attend a service at their parish church, based around the Book of Common Prayer and, if they failed to do so, they could expect a one-shilling fine. Shakespeare’s dad, John, was fined once in 1592 for failing to attend church, but he claimed that the reason he didn’t go was that he was in debt and didn’t want to bump into the people who had lent him money!

Everyday life

Elizabeth’s England was a country of differences. Laws passed in 1601 declared that poor children were to become apprentices in order to learn a work skill, while the ‘idle poor’ (people who apparently refused to work) were imprisoned at a new type of establishment called a ‘House of correction’. Some questioned Elizabeth’s reasons – was she trying to help the poor or punish people who couldn’t find work by throwing them into workhouses and prisons?

The big differences between the poor and rich were visible in everyday life. While the poor ate bread, fish, cheese and drank ale, the wealthy were able to afford tasty feasts. Every kind of meat imaginable was available to the rich – beef, lamb, pork, rabbit, peacock, swan, goose and many more. But both the rich and poor tended to eat a lot of bread and very few vegetables, meaning diets were not healthy. Bad harvests in the 1590s left the poorest in society deeply malnourished (lacking food and vitamins), but the well-off still enjoyed fine foods and, in particular, desserts such as pastries, cakes and custard.

Didst thee knoweth?

It is thought that the potato was brought to England from North America by Sir Walter Raleigh in the 1580s, meaning Shakespeare and his fellow citizens were among the first English people to taste it! Other foods that arrived from the Americas included tomatoes (known as ‘love apples’) from Mexico and kidney beans from Peru.

The black Death

The bubonic plague, also known as the Black Death, cast a deadly shadow over Elizabethan England. William Shakespeare was lucky to survive a bout of the disease when it hit Stratford when he was a small boy, but one in five of the Stratford population was killed. The disease first appeared in England in the 14th century, wiping out a huge section of the population. The plague is spread by rat fleas and is highly contagious. Its symptoms include swollen glands, a high fever, pain and vomiting.

In 1603, a new epidemic swept through London, forcing the theatres to close for almost a year, so Shakespeare’s company – and others – hit the road to tour England’s towns and villages. The disease carried on reappearing in England, though in smaller epidemics, until the Great Plague of London in the 1660s, which killed around 100,000 people. Outbreaks of the plague worldwide still occur but they are far less common nowadays. The last one was in Madagascar in 2014, with 40 confirmed deaths and more than 100 people infected.

A panorama of London by the Dutch painter Claes Visscher. The busy, built-up London Bridge is visible over the River Thames. The Globe St Mary Overie church (later to become Southwark Cathedral) is just to the left of the bridge. In-between the church and the area of trees at the far left of the picture sits the Globe. Although Visscher created this in 1616, it shows London in around 1600 and was engraved onto four separate plates. In total, it is two metres long. Visscher lived and worked in Amsterdam and this panorama is his impression of how London looked, as it is possible that he never even visited the city.

Google Sites

Report abuse