William Shakespeare & Queen Elizabeth I

William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

William Shakespeare's parents were John Shakespeare and Mary Arden.
Shakespeare was born on the 23rd of April in Stratford-upon-Avon.
It’s not quite shore that he is born April the 23rd, his baptism was recorded by the church, and his birthday is assumed to be the 23 of April.
His father was an important and wealthy alderman in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon, and was later granted a coat of arms by the College of Heralds.
All that is known of Shakespeare's youth is that he probably attended the Stratford Grammar School, and did not proceed to Oxford or Cambridge.

He was married to Anne Hathaway, probably because she carried his baby. The baby was born in 1583. A year later they had married, and the baby was given the name Susanna.
Two years later Susanna was followed by twins; Judith and Hamnet.

Seven years later Shakespeare was recognized as an actor, poet, and playwright, when a rival playwright, Robert Greene, referred to him as "an upstart crow" in "A Groatsworth of Wit”.
" A few years later he joined up with one of the most successful acting troupes in London: "The Lord Chamberlain's Men."
When, in 1599, the troupe lost the lease of the theatre where they performed (appropriately called "The Theatre"), they were wealthy enough to build their own theatre across the Thames, south of London, which they called "The Globe."
The new theatre opened in July of 1599, built from the materials of "The Theatre", with the motto " A whole world of players ".
When James I came to the throne (1603) the troupe was designated by the new king as the "King's Men" (or "King's Company").

The Letters Patent of the company specifically gave Shakespeare and eight others the assignment "freely to use and exercise the art and faculty of playing Comedies, Tragedies, Histories, Interludes, Morals, Pastorals, stage plays ... as well for recreation of our loving subjects as for our entertainment and pleasure."
Shakespeare entertained the King and the people for another ten years until June the 19th of 1613, when a canon fired from the roof of the theatre for a gala performance of Henry VIII set fire to the straw roof and burned the theatre to the ground.
The audience ignored the smoke from the roof at first, being too absorbed in the play, until the flames caught the walls and the fabric of the curtains.
Amazingly, there were no victims, and the next spring the company had the theatre "new builded in a far fairer manner than before."
Although Shakespeare invested in the rebuilding, he retired from the stage to the Great House of New Place in Statford that he had bought in 1597, and some considerable land holdings, where he continued to write until his death in 1616 on the day of his 52nd birthday.

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

Elizabeth was born on 7th September in 1533, she was the daughter of King Henry VIII and his second wife Anne Boleyn.
Before Elizabeth even turned three, Henry was tired of her mother already, and because she did not bare him a son, he decapitated her.
Elizabeth was taken from the place of her father. Her interests went from history and science to art, to literature and philosophy. Her hobbies were music, drama and poetry.
When Henry VIII died, her brother Edward, beame the King of England, but a few years later he died.
Elizabeth's biggest troubles began when her other sister Mary, daughter of Henry and his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, ascended to the throne.
Mary, different from Henry VIII, Edward and Elizabeth, was a roman catholic, the religion of England before the creation of the Church of Henry of England and the term of Protestantism in England.

Mary tried to bring back Catholicism to England.
The English people were beginning to support Elizabeth rather than Mary, and so Mary, started to see her sister as an enemy.
Eventually, Mary became pregnant and Elizabeth was no longer seen as a threat to the throne.
However, Mary’s pregnancy was actually an illness, which she eventually succumbed to and died.

As a result, in November of 1558, Elizabeth became Elizabeth I, Queen of England. She never married.
Some theorize that because of the way her father treated his wives, Elizabeth was disgusted by the idea of marriage.
The more romantic feel it was because she couldn't marry the man that she really loved, Robert Dudley.
When Elizabeth became Queen, Dudley was married, and then his wife died under mysterious circumstances a few years later.

Although Robert Dudley was cleared of any wrong-doing in the matter, Elizabeth could not marry him because of the scandal that would no doubt arise.
Or perhaps it was a combination of both.
Regardless of the reason, Elizabeth never married, but managed to successfully play her suitors off of one another for about 25 years, gaining alliances and wealth from gifts on the possibility of marriage.
The one serious contender for her hand was the Duke of Alençon of France, but negotiations failed eventually.

The later years of Elizabeth's reign are sometimes referred to as a Golden Age. During this time, England and Elizabeth faced several major trials.
First, Elizabeth had to deal with the growing threat of Mary Queen of Scots, who had a strong and legitimate claim to the throne of England.
When Mary fled her country in the 1560s, she was taken into house arrest in England, where she had expected the protection of her cousin Elizabeth.
Elizabeth however knew Mary was a threat. Eventually, a plot serious enough arose in Mary's name, and Elizabeth signed her death warrant.
Mary was executed in 1587, on February 8th, at Fortheringhay.
Also, the greatest military threat some a year later, when the Armada from Spain sailed toward the tiny island nation.

England prevailed and was on its way towards becoming the supreme naval power that it was in the 1600 and 1700s.
This was also near the time that Robert Dudley died.
Elizabeth kept the last letter he sent her in her desk, with "His Last Letter" written on it.
Elizabeth toured through the country to win people’s loyalty and let people see her. Many parts of the country were too remote and too hostile to a Protestant queen for her to risk travelling there.

So instead, Elizabeth used portraits and pictures to let people see her.
Elizabeth wanted to create an image of herself which would impress her subjects. This meant paintings of the Queen had to be controlled.
It would be no good if paintings of Elizabeth showed her to be ugly, old and weak.
Elizabeth died on March 24, 1603 and was succeeded by James I (James VI of Scotland), the son of Mary, Queen of Scots.
Elizabeth's reign, although it faced some troubles at the beginning, brought about much growth and prosperity in England.
Under her hand, England became one of the most powerful countries in the world.