The Time Traveller's Guide to Elizabethan England

by Mortimer, Ian

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;

  He loves my heart for once it was his own;

  I cherish his because in me it bides.

  His heart his wound received from my sight;

  My heart was wounded with his wounded heart;

  For as from me on him his hurt did light,

  So still methought in me his hurt did smart:

  Both equal hurt, in this change sought our bliss,

  My true love hath my heart and I have his.

  Edmund Spenser is the son of a London merchant. Educated at Cambridge, where he too translates Petrarch’s sonnets, he meets and befriends Sidney in the household of the earl of Leicester. A friendship develops and Spenser dedicates his first book, The Shepheardes Calender (1579), to Sidney. Shortly afterwards he travels to Ireland, where he pens his great work, The Faerie Queene, a series of courtly tales composed in a deliberately archaic style celebrating Elizabeth and the Tudor dynasty. The first three books of this poem (he plans to write twenty-four) are published in 1590 and championed by Sir Walter Raleigh. Spenser travels to London to present them to the queen, hoping for a position at court; unfortunately Elizabeth does not oblige him. Disappointed, he returns to Ireland, where he writes the next three books of The Faerie Queene and composes a sonnet sequence for his much-loved new bride, Amoretti (1594), followed by a poem that celebrates their marriage, Epithalamion (1596). Having attracted the hostility of the Irish, he is burnt out of his home, Kilcolman Castle, by 2,000 rebels in 1598, who force him and his family to escape by a secret underground passage. He returns to England and dies the following year at the age of forty-seven. This is sonnet 75 from his Amoretti:

  One day I wrote her name upon the strand

  But came the waves and washed it away;

  Again I wrote it with a second hand

  But came the tide and made my pains his prey.

  Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay

  A mortal thing so to immortalize,

  For I myself shall like to this decay

  And eke my name be wiped out likewise.

  Not so, quoth I, let baser things devise

  To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

  My verse your virtues rare shall eternize

  And in the heavens write your glorious name

  Where when as death shall all the world subdue,

  Our love shall live, and later life renew.

  By comparison with Sidney and Spenser, Shakespeare is of relatively humble background. Born in 1564, he does not attend a university but marries Anne Hathaway in 1582, when he is eighteen and she twenty-six. They have three children together before he is twenty-one, during which time he remains living at his father’s house in Henley Street. But within six years he has moved to London and begun writing and staging history plays. Despite early success as a playwright, his first published work is a poem, Venus and Adonis, which appears in 1593, when all the theatres are closed due to plague. You can pick up a copy from the stationers at St Paul’s for 1s – as many people do, for it goes through reprint after reprint. The following year a second long poem, The Rape of Lucrece, is published. In 1595, when the theatres reopen, he appears on the payroll of the acting company known as the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and thereafter devotes himself entirely to the stage. But quietly he is writing brilliant sonnets, building up a body of 154 poems, which is finally published in 1609. You will undoubtedly be familiar with many of these, such as ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’ (sonnet 18) and ‘Let me not to the marriage of true minds / admit impediment …’ (sonnet 116). But perhaps you are less familiar with sonnet 78, one of the more obviously personal poems, in which he refers to his comparative lack of ‘learning’ (i.e. his lack of a university education):

  So oft have I invoked thee for my Muse,

  And found such fair assistance in my verse

  As every alien pen hath got my use

  And under thee their poesy disperse.

  Thine eyes, that taught the dumb on high to sing

  And heavy ignorance aloft to fly,

  Have added feathers to the learned’s wing

  And given grace a double majesty.

  Yet be most proud of that which I compile,

  Whose influence is thine, and born of thee:

  In others’ works thou dost but mend the style,

  And arts with thy sweet graces graced be;

  But thou art all my art, and dost advance

  As high as learning my rude ignorance.

  The seven lesser poets on John Taylor’s reading list have a collective wealth of ability, although not necessarily as much application as Sidney, Spenser and Shakespeare. Sir Edward Dyer is a courtier who can turn an exquisite phrase and would be far more famous if he only put his pen to paper more often. He is well known as the author of the famous poem ‘My mind to me a kingdom is’ and the even more touching ‘The lowest trees have tops’. Robert Greene is a libertine, drunkard and philanderer who writes extensively – poems and plays alike – but he is a jealous and conceited man who sees Shakespeare as a rival. Before things come to a head, Greene kills himself with red wine and pickled herring in 1592, at the age of thirty-four. Thomas Nashe, a clergyman’s son from Suffolk, also manages to incur Greene’s wrath, but survives him to write a number of plays, satires and poems as well as a notorious work of erotica, The Choice of Valentines; he too dies at the age of thirty-four. Samuel Daniel is of more sober stock: the son of a music master, he writes plays, masques and poetry, including a series of sonnets to ‘Delia’ (for which he is best known), the romance The Complaint of Rosamond and a history of medieval England in verse, before he expires, aged fifty-six. Francis Beaumont is best known for collaborating on plays with John Fletcher, but is also a friend of Ben Jonson and frequents The Mermaid tavern in Cheapside. Sir John Harington has already been mentioned as a great wit, the inventor of the water closet and one of the queen’s 102 godchildren. He is an epigrammatist of the first order, but too risqué for his own good. Having incurred displeasure by translating some of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso in a very racy style, he is requested by his godmother to leave court and not return until he has translated the entire work in a more appropriate manner. This he does – to great acclaim. Apart from Shakespeare, Joshua Sylvester is the only sixteenth-century poet on Taylor’s list who does not have a university education and the only one whose output is limited to translations (from the French), but he too is a highly accomplished wordsmith whose fame lasts for decades.

  We should remember, however, that Taylor’s poem only accounts for those poets who have died by 1620. In addition you have the poetry of Renaissance men like Thomas Campion, the physician and composer who dies in 1620, and Sir Walter Raleigh, the explorer, courtier and historian, who is executed in 1618. Then there are those poets who, like Shakespeare, also write plays, such as Ben Jonson and a young John Webster, but who are only at the start of their careers; dedicated versifiers like the prodigious Michael Drayton, best known for Poly-Olbion and his historical poems Agincourt and Mortimeriados; and George Chapman, whose translations of Homer win the hearts of many readers. Although John Donne publishes nothing in Elizabeth’s reign, his early amorous compositions date from this time. You also have the earliest female poets, including Emilia Lanier (whom we met in chapter 2) and Sir Philip Sidney’s remarkable sister, Mary, countess of Pembroke. Mary rewrites her brother’s Arcadia for publication and presides over a worship of writers at Wilton House. Finally you have dozens of minor poets, such as George Gascoigne, whose Hundredth Sundry Flowres (1573) includes the gem: ‘And if I did, what then?’

  And if I did, what then?

  Are you aggriev’d therefore?

  The sea hath fish for every man,

  And what would you have more?

  Thus did my mistress once

  Amaze my mind with doubt;

  And popp’d a question for the nonce

  To beat my brains about.

  Whereto I thus rep
lied:

  Each fisherman can wish

  That all the seas at every tide

  Were his alone to fish.

  And so did I (in vain)

  But since it may not be,

  Let such fish there as find the gain,

  And leave the loss for me.

  And with such luck and loss

  I will content myself,

  Till tides of turning time may toss

  Such fishers on the shelf.

  And when they stick on sands,

  That every man may see,

  Then will I laugh and clap my hands,

  As they do now at me.

  The Theatre

  In the modern world we have great admiration for Elizabethan theatre. At the time, however, it is in the throes of a radical revolution. At the start of the reign the majority of productions are miracle plays – reconstructions of scenes from the Bible, performed as both civic and religious rituals. These go out of favour when the privy council decrees that they are too close to Catholicism and should stop. Those at York cease in 1569. In Chester the citizens defy the privy council and continue performing their play about Noah’s Flood well into the 1570s. The Coventry mystery plays are finally suppressed in 1579, so this is the town to visit if you want to catch one later in the reign. The Guary miracle play in Cornwall continues for some years, but is so amateurish that it can hardly be seen as a threat. It is performed by a prompter going to each actor in turn and whispering his speech to him, line by line.55

  In their stead, people increasingly choose to see secular plays on historical and moral themes. These are performed up and down the country by theatre companies called after lords, for example ‘Lord Sussex’s Men’, ‘Lord Strange’s Men’, ‘the Lord Admiral’s Men’ and ‘Lord Leicester’s Men’. The reason for these names is that, while unattached actors are liable to be arrested for vagrancy, the Act of 1572 specifically excludes players properly authorised by lords from being considered vagabonds. Note that the actors are all men: women do not perform on the stage in Elizabeth’s reign. If there are any female parts, these are played by boys dressed as women. In London, performances take place in the afternoons in the yards of galleried inns, such as the Boar’s Head Inn in Whitechapel High Street, the Bell Inn and the Cross Keys Inn (both on Gracechurch Street), the Belle Savage Inn (Ludgate Hill) and the Bull Inn (Bishopsgate Street). When on tour, the theatre companies are quite small, sometimes comprising just six or seven actors, each taking on a number of roles. They perform for the fee-paying public in provincial inns or privately in the houses of gentlemen. However, as the new theatre proves more and more popular, actors, writers and audiences become increasingly centred on the London playhouses.

  The Elizabethan theatre as we know it develops slowly. In 1562 the play Gorboduc, the first English play to include blank verse, is performed in front of the queen at the Inner Temple in London. This is written by two gentlemen, Thomas Sackville (the future earl of Dorset) and Thomas Norton, and leaves a lasting impression. Its tale of a kingdom torn between two heirs has great significance for the audience of the day. Other plays follow, drawing on classical themes as well as on ancient British and medieval history, written by (among others) John Heywood, John Pickering and Lewis Wager. A sign of their success is the construction in 1567 of the first purpose-built theatre, The Red Lion, built by John Brayne in Whitechapel. Unfortunately this is located too far from the city and does not attract large audiences. Performances in the city inns, however, are flourishing – much to the annoyance of those who see them as uncouth and riotous establishments. In 1574 the city authorities are given powers to restrict playhouses, forcing the actors to find new premises in the suburbs. This becomes a golden opportunity for John Brayne and his brother-in-law, James Burbage, who in 1576 build a new theatre, simply called The Theatre, at Shoreditch, just half a mile north of Bishopsgate. The following year a second theatre, The Curtain, is built just 200 yards away. Despite some heavy opposition from Puritan preachers and moralists, both theatres are successful.56 New plays are written every year, courtesy of the new wave of playwrights, John Lyly, Thomas Preston and Thomas Hughes. The queen continues to encourage dramatic art, personally attending performances at Gray’s Inn, Greenwich Palace and Whitehall Palace. In 1583 she establishes her own theatre company, the Queen’s Men, and leading actors flock to it. Puritans are enraged, and the following year the city authorities try to outlaw plays altogether, both within and outside the city walls. But now that drama has received royal approval, they don’t stand a chance.57

  In 1587 Thomas Kyd produces The Spanish Tragedy, and soon afterwards Christopher Marlowe brings out the first part of Tamburlaine the Great. Kyd is the son of a London scrivener, born in 1558; Marlowe the son of a shoe-maker from Canterbury, born in 1564 (the same year as Shakespeare), whose intellectual brilliance earns him a university education at Cambridge. They employ new verse forms, allowing different spoken rhythms, and compose bold speeches with greater resonance and meaning. The new conceptual framework of a revenge tragedy in particular allows them to portray powerful emotions voiced by strong characters. Suddenly it is possible to show so much more passion on the stage. The old narrative objectivity of the history play is replaced with a much more involved subjective experience, which excites and astounds audiences in equal measure. More theatres open their doors to the public. The Rose is built by Philip Henslowe at Southwark, not far from the bear-baiting and bull-baiting arenas, in 1587. Eight years later Francis Langley erects The Swan on a site nearby; and in 1596 Richard Burbage builds The Blackfriars Theatre, an indoor venue, although it does not open its doors until 1599. Most important of all, Shakespeare, Richard and Cuthbert Burbage and their partners dismantle The Theatre and remove its beams to a new site at Southwark, where it is rebuilt in 1599 as The Globe. When Edward Alleyn builds The Fortune on the northern edge of the city in 1600, the array of Elizabethan theatres is complete. Including the inn yards and the various other places where plays are still staged, London now has a dozen playhouses.

  This exciting and rapidly expanding cultural melting pot – developing in parallel with the music and poetry of the 1590s – is the environment in which all the new plays are written. Over the last fifteen years of the reign Shakespeare completes no fewer than twenty-five plays, including Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the great historical cycle of Richard II, Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V, The Merchant of Venice, As you Like It and Hamlet. Marlowe composes the second part of Tamburlaine and adds The Jew of Malta, Doctor Faustus, Edward II and The Massacre at Paris to his oeuvre. George Peele writes all his plays (most notably Edward I), Robert Greene composes all his (including the comedy Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay), and John Marston completes his first five works. Thomas Nashe brings forth his masterpiece Summer’s Last Will and Testament. Thomas Dekker writes (or co-writes) his first twenty plays, some in conjunction with Michael Drayton, Henry Chettle, John Marston and Robert Wilson. And Ben Jonson starts his headlong charge into English literature.

  Alongside Marlowe and Shakespeare, Jonson is the third great dramatist of the age. Like Shakespeare, he does not go to university but, after schooling at Westminster, becomes a bricklayer and then a soldier. By the end of the reign he has married, had two children and lost one, tried to become an actor and failed, become a playwright, been arrested for a scurrilous play and released, killed another actor in a duel, been arrested again and put on trial for murder, and escaped hanging by pleading Benefit of the Clergy. The play for which he is arrested, The Isle of Dogs, co-authored with Thomas Nashe, is so slanderous and offensive that the privy council orders the closure not just of the play, but of every theatre in London. The following year, after most of the theatres open again, he has a blockbuster success with Every Man in his Humour. This he follows up with a sequel, Every Man out of his Humour, and three more plays: Cynthia’s Revels, The Poetaster and Sejanus his Fall. As with so many Elizabethan playwrights, he is prolific: by the age of twent
y-nine Jonson has completed at least six plays, comparable with Marlowe (at least six) and Shakespeare (at least seven).

  With so many playwrights at work there are plenty of plays to choose from. Each theatre shows twenty or thirty plays a year, changing the programme every day. In 1594–5 the Lord Admiral’s Men perform a total of thirty-eight plays, twenty-one of which are newly written. One in three adult Londoners sees a play every month.58 It all adds up to a maelstrom of creative energy, theatrical delivery and personal rivalry. But if you travel around England you will notice how all this is increasingly centred on London. Whereas in the 1550s and 1560s several companies tour the country, by 1590 the principal actors stay in the city. The burgeoning population of London provides them with large audiences, especially when they become established at their respective theatres: the Lord Admiral’s Men at The Rose and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men at The Globe. Only when the theatres are closed by the authorities because of the plague – in 1581–2, 1592–3 and 1603–4 – do the London companies start to tour again, from Bath to Nottingham. Ironically, although many players visit Stratford in Shakespeare’s youth, the town’s corporation prohibits travelling actors from performing there in 1602.59

  How do you decide which theatre to go to? As with a modern production, you will be attracted to watch the best and most celebrated performers. Many Londoners flock to see the clowns. Richard Tarlton, who plays with the Queen’s Men at The Curtain, is a crowd-puller; he can reduce the audience to tears simply by putting his head out between the curtains and pulling faces. Will Kempe, who performs first with the Lord Leicester’s Men, becomes the clown with the Lord Chamberlain’s Men and takes on roles such as Dogberry and Falstaff in Shakespeare’s plays. Some gentlemen and ladies who regard the theatre as brutish – and it has to be emphasised that many do see them as lawless places infested with rogues, thieves and prostitutes – will only go to see performances by the companies of boys drawn from the choristers of the Chapel Royal and St Paul’s Cathedral. These companies are socially more elevated, and their venues are roofed over (so there is no danger of the audience getting wet). Nor are the plays inferior: Ben Jonson writes for them regularly. However, it is to the actors of the two main companies that you will be drawn. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men have Richard Burbage, who takes the lead in many of Shakespeare’s plays. The Lord Admiral’s Men have Edward Alleyn: a very tall and powerful man who roars his part as he crosses the stage. With such actors in place, a playwright can compose the part to suit the actor’s strengths. If you really want to see an all-star cast, go to The Curtain in 1598 to see the production of Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour. William Shakespeare is playing Kno’well, supported by the other leading men of the Lord Chamberlain’s Company, among them Richard Burbage, Augustine Philips, John Heminges, Henry Condell and Will Kempe.