The reign of Elizabeth I from 1558-1603 was a time of extraordinary enterprise. New opportunities for creativity and wealth creation in this period saw the beginning of the rise of the so-called ‘middling sort’ or middle classes.
The changes that took place at this time dramatically shaped the future of England and Wales. The Church of England was securely established and over time much of the country embraced the Protestant faith. The known world was expanding through maritime exploration and trade, cities grew in size and population and the economy flourished and purpose built theatres opened to the public.
This article explores the story of the Elizabethans from the Queen, the nobility and gentry to many other talented individuals such as explorers, soldiers, merchants, artists and writers and ordinary people.
THE POOR 
.Life for the poor in Elizabethan England was very harsh. The poor did not share the wealth and luxurious lifestyle associated with famous Tudors such as Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and non-monarchs such as Sir Francis Drake. Unlike today, there was no Welfare State to help out those who had fallen on hard times. A generous local monastery might have helped out before the Reformation but this would not have been available in the second half of Tudor England.The government in Tudor England became very concerned about the poor. There was a lot more of the poor than there were rich and there was always the potential for a Tudor version of the Peasants Revolt. In the towns and cities, finding a job was difficult but the same thing was occurring in the countryside where changes in the way farms worked lead to unemployment for many. There was the very real danger of trouble amongst the poor.
This concern about the poor was at it greatest in Elizabeth's time. What did the government do? It made every parish responsible for the poor and unemployed within that parish. The Justice of the Peace (JP's) for each parish was allowed to collect a tax from those who owned land in the parish. This was called the Poor Rate. It was used to help the poor. This had two benefits. First, it made the poor feel that something was being done for them and made them feel less angry about the situation they were in. Secondly, some good work could be done by the poor within the parish to help that parish.
The first were called Helpless Poor. These would include the old, the sick, the disabled and children. The elderly and the disabled received a sum of money and possibly some food each week. If they were unable to collect both, it would be delivered to their house. Children of the poor were given an apprenticeship paid for by the parish. In this way, the parish could expect to benefit from the child when they had grown up and learned a new skill. Boys were apprenticed to a master until they were 24 years old. If a girl could be found an apprenticeship, she would work with her mistress until she was 21. People who were thought to be "Helpless Poor" were not considered to be a burden as the government believed that it was not their fault that they were in their position. Some parishes gave these people a licence to beg.
The second group was called the Able Bodied Poor. These were people who could work but also wanted to work. Each parish was meant to build a workhouse. The unemployed worked in these making cloth or anything that might benefit the parish. They got paid out of the Poor Rate. They would remain in the workhouse until they found a ‘normal’ job.
The third group were known as Rogues and Vagabonds. This was the group targeted by the government. These were people who could work but preferred to beg or steal. This group worried the government as it was the one most like to get into trouble. The government made begging illegal and anybody found begging was flogged until "his back was bloody". If he was found begging outside of his parish, he would be beaten until he got to the parish stones that marked his parish boundary with the next parish. Those who were caught continually begging could be sent to prison and hanged. During the reign of Edward VI, caught vagabonds could have their tongue branded and kept as a slave for two years.
The poor had to do the best they could in very difficult circumstances. However, Tudor England saw a great increase in crime as for many it was the only way they could survive. Those who resorted to theft faced the death penalty if they were caught. Punishment was very severe for seemingly trivial cases because it was believed that any sign of the government being soft towards those who had broken the law would encourage others to do likewise. However, this belief also made criminals desperate as they would do anything to avoid capture – including murder.
Most criminals were thieves. Theft for anything over 5p resulted in hanging. Taking birds eggs was also deemed to be theft and could result in the death sentence.
Within the large towns and cities, the poor lived in what we would now call ghettoes – places where only the poor would go. In London, the rich lived in one part of the city while the poor lived towards the east where modern-day Fleet Street is and towards the City. If a poor person was found in the west of the city, it would be assumed by those that made the law ( the rich) that he was up to no good. The poor kept themselves to themselves in London and even developed their own form of language. This was known as canting. The whole idea behind it was that no-one else would know what they were talking about – it was a form of protection against the law.The poor in the countryside suffered as a result of what was known as enclosure.
Landlords had traditionally let the poor graze their animals on what was common land. In the Tudor times, landlords realised that this land could be better used and they got the poor to leave their land and took away this traditional right. With nothing to do in the countryside, many poor drifted to towns and cities to look for work.
Also landlords were moving away from growing crops like corn and turning to sheep farming as a growing population required more clothes and good money could be made from farming sheep. As there were more people than jobs available in the countryside, this simply caused more problems for the towns and cities as people went from the countryside to the towns looking for work.
For the poor in either the countryside or in towns and cities, life remained hard, unpleasant and for many, short in terms of years alive.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE POOR
The chats would be the gallows
"Stow you" would mean "Shut up"
the pigeon-holes would be the stocks
to draw would be to pick-pocket
lifts would be stolen goods
A sentence such as "If you clump a cony you can cloy his peck" would mean "if you hit a victim you can steal his food."
"a high-pad has lifts for his mort" would mean a "highway man has stolen goods for his woman".
"I need a bit for the boozing ken" means that "I need money for the pub"
THE EXPLORERS
The Portuguese tried vainly to keep secret about their discovery of the Gold Coast (1471) in the Gulf of Guinea, but the news quickly caused a huge gold rush. Chronicler Pulgar wrote that the fame of the treasures of Guinea "spread around the ports of Andalusia in such way that everybody tried to go there" Worthless trinkets, Moorish textiles, and above all, shells from the Canary and Cape Verde islands were exchanged for gold, slaves, ivory and Guinea pepper.
Sir Humphrey Gilbert
Sir Humphrey Gilbert was granted a charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1578 to search out and colonize new lands for England. He landed in Newfoundland and claimed it for the Queen, but the voyage from that point was not lucky and encountered dangerous weather. A daring man, Sir Gilbert decided to ride in one of his smaller ships and was drowned on the return to England. He is said to have cried out in the storm, "We are as near to heaven by sea as by land." Sir Gilbert was Sir Walter Ralegh's half brother.
For much of his life, Sir Walter Ralegh was prevented from joining any risky sea venture by Queen Elizabeth, who feared for his safety, though he did take part in the 1578 expedition led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, his half-brother, who drowned during that expedition. When Gilbert's charter to the New World expired after his death at sea, Queen Elizabeth gave the license over to Ralegh. Ralegh sponsored and funded three notable expeditions to Virginia, in 1584, 1585, and 1587. The last venture, led by John White, left over a hundred English colonists settled on Roanoke Island. Three years later, when John White returned to search for his company, he could find no trace of those settlers.
In 1616, after Ralegh was released from the Tower of London, where he had been imprisoned for years by King James I, he did outfit a fleet to search for El Dorado. The mission was a failure, however, and Ralegh's own son, Walter, was killed by gunfire from a Spanish fort located on the Orinoco River. Two years later, Ralegh was executed by King James. Examining the axe that would cut off his head, he stated, "This is a sharp medicine, but it is a physician for all diseases.
Sir Walter Ralegh was surely one of the most accomplished and extraordinary members of Queen Elizabeth's court.
Above Ralegh house at Blackwall
Captain Philip Amadas and Captain Arthur Barlowe
Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe were the leaders of the first exploring party dispatched to Virginia by Sir Walter Ralegh in 1584. Their descriptions of the Outer Banks region were enthusiastic, even inventive. They made contact with the native Algonkians and with Wingina, chief of the Roanoke Island Indians (who would be murdered by the next band of English explorers to set up camp in the region). Amadas and Barlowe reported that the natives were "gentle, loving, and faithful." On their return to England, they brought along Manteo and Wanchese, two Algonkians who would figure dramatically in the story of the Lost Colony. Their lush account of the New World.
Sir Richard Grenville and Ralph Lane
Sir Richard Grenville became involved in many of the efforts to colonize Virginia. The cousin of Sir Walter Ralegh, Grenville was in charge of the second expedition, which reached the barrier islands of Virginia (now North Carolina) in June 1585. This company of scientists and soldiers remained in the region until June of the next year. They had frequent contact with the Algonkians, but relationships with the Native Americans deteriorated as winter set in and the English, who had no fields, continued to demand corn from the native leaders.
John White, Thomas Hariot, and Simon Fernandes were all part of this expedition. It was during this year that John White painted his watercolors of Virginia 
and Thomas Hariot gathered the extensive information on Virginia's minerals, plants, animals, and indigenous people that would make up his "Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia."
Sir Richard Grenville described a few of his encounters with the Algonkians; hereported that his men burned down an Indian village, Aquascogok, in retaliation for the suspected theft of a silver cup. Grenville soon departed from Virginia, however, returning to England to gather more supplies. He appointed Ralph Lane to be governor of the company in his absence. Ralph Lane and his men planted their fort on the north of Roanoke Island, where the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is now located.
Lane's relationships with the Algonkians begin cordially, but soon deteriorated. Under Lane's leadership, the English captured and held hostage the son of a powerful local chief, Menatonan, and later killed another Algonquin chief, Wingina, who had been providing them with corn from his own fields. Ralph Lanedescribed these events in his report to Ralegh.
Sir Richard Grenville was delayed (as so many were) in his efforts to resupply the colony. As a result, conditions on Roanoke grew desperate for Lane's company. In June 1586, Lane and his men chose to abandon the fort and sail home with Sir Francis Drake's fleet.
Just a few weeks later, Grenville arrived with three supply ships. Finding the fort at Roanoke abandoned, he left fifteen men on the island to hold it. A year later, John White would learn from the Croatoans that these men had been attacked and a number of them killed by a band of hostile Algonkians. A few of the Englishmen reportedly escaped in a small boat. They were never seen again.
The 1585 voyage of Sir Richard Grenville, up through the Caribbean to Virginia, is fascinating in part because it contrasted so dramatically with John White's passage through that same region. Outfitted with a large, well-armed fleet of ships, Grenville was unafraid of the Spanish and managed to build a beach fort, steal salt, and trade for livestock while sailing among the smaller Caribbean islands and then continuing up to Puerto Rico and Hispaniola (Haiti). John White failed in all these things.
In 1586, Queen Elizabeth I of England, sent support to the Protestant causes in the Netherlands and France, and Sir Francis Drake
launched attacks against Spanish merchants in the Caribbean and the
Pacific, along with a particularly aggressive attack on the port of Cadiz.
In 1588, hoping to put a stop to Elizabeth's intervention, Philip sent the Spanish Armada
to attack England. Favourable weather, more heavily armed and
manœuvrable English ships, and the fact that the English had been warned
by their spies in the Netherlands and were ready for the attack
resulted in defeat for the Armada. However the failure of the Drake–Norris Expedition to Portugal and the Azores in 1589 marked a turning point in the on-off 1585–1604 Anglo–Spanish War.
The Spanish fleets became more effective in transporting greatly
increased quantities of silver and gold from the Americas, while English
attacks suffered costly failures.
Like Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Drake was a towering figure in Elizabethan England. In 1577, he embarked on a voyage around the world, which he completed in 1580. He took part in the fierce English movement to establish plantations in Ireland and was present at a massacre of 600 Irish women and children in Ulster. As Vice Admiral, he helped command the English fleet that vanquished the Spanish Armada.
In the summer of 1586, the English company that had established its fort on Roanoke Island was running short of supplies and growing increasingly fearful of the Algonkians 
who surrounded them. They were greatly relieved by the sudden arrival of a great fleet of ships (many of them captured), led by Sir Francis Drake. Ralph Lane and his men chose to abandon their fort and sail home with Drake's fleet.
SOLDIERS
For much of the 20th century, historians could muster little praise for the late Tudor and early Stuart soldiery, often portraying them as amateurs who were part of a decaying and moribund military tradition isolated from the transformations shaping warfare on the European continent. In the 1980s and 1990s, these theories were tested and found wanting by those who argued that the English were fully engaged in the so-called early modern military revolution. Instead of decline and decay, England is now considered to have been engaged in the military revolution from early in the 16th century, with scholars arguing that the English art of war was in step with continental practice. This article weighs the contributions of a new generation of historians to the ongoing reappraisal of late Tudor and early Stuart soldiering over the last decade. Along with examining England and the military revolution, new work has focused much attention on the motivations and mentalities of English officers serving in France, the Low Countries and Ireland, with confessional zeal, honour and economic hardship seen as the primary factors motivating English volunteers to serve abroad. At the same time, scholars are also taking a fresh look at how military administration and improvements to training affected the lives of common soldiers.
Elizabethan Weapons - The RapierSkill in Fencing during the Elizabethan era was a requirement of all Upper class Nobility. The different types of swords ranged from the smallest Broadsword measuring from 30 inches to the Greatswords which measured up to 72 inches.
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The weight of swords used during this era are usually presumed to be a lot heavier than they actually were! The use of the sword and the acquisition of fencing arts changed as technology increased and firearms were introduced and used for military warfare. The elegant rapier was used in preference to the older, clumsier cutting swords. A sword was an important part of a nobles apparel and it was important that he had adequate fencing skills. The wearing of the sword with civilian dress was a custom that had begun in late fifteenth-century Spain.
There was a large market for Italian culture and this was due to upper-class English families . Parents would send their children across Europe to learn about other countries and they would bring back many ideas and customs (the duel being one). "The Renaissance spread Italian swordsman as well as Italian scholars" . It soon became fashionable for an Italian swordsman to set up schools in England and establish clientele consisting of aristocratic young men.
English sword teachers were being replaced by new Italian teachers and found themselves out
of a job. They ended up having to teach anybody
they could which
would include
jugglers
and
actors .
A Master of Arms was the instructor who knew everything about a weapon and taught a particular style. The above quote shows how seriously the Master of Arms took his profession. One of the most prominent Master of Arms was Rocco Bonetti. He leased part of the theatre at Blackfriars and set up a fencing school before his death in 1587 .  Jeronimo continued to lease the space and teach before being challenged and dying in his own duel. It was through schools like this that actors would learn how to fence when they did Shakespearian drama and fencing was called for.
Elizabethan Armor
The armor of the Elizabethan period was used mainly for decoration in parades and ceremonies - not for protection purposes in war. Armor became more and more expensive and elaborate. But Knights and armor still had a part to play in the Elizabethan Tournaments which featured in Elizabethan entertainment. The Tournaments were the favorite sport of Elizabethan Knights. The tournaments kept the knight in excellent condition for the role he might need to play during warfare.
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There were different types of Elizabethan Tournaments, joust or melees, which each had a different type of combat method involving fighting on foot or on horseback. These tournaments reflected many of the fighting practises and weapons used during the Medieval period.
Elizabethan Weapons from the Medieval Period
The threat of the Spanish also ensured that many of the tried and tested weapons used during the Medieval period did not disappear. The following weapons were available during the Elizabethan era:
- A variety of swords as well as the rapier including the Broadsword and the Cutting sword
- The Battle Axe - A variety single and double-handed axe were in use throughout the Medieval period
- The Mace - The mace was an armor-fighting weapon. The Mace developed from a steel ball on a wooden handle, to an elaborately spiked steel war club
- The Dagger including the Basilard, a two-edged, long bladed dagger
- The Lance - A long, strong, spear-like weapon. Designed for use on horseback
Weapons which could be used by Foot soldiers and Archers
- Arbalest - This is the correct term for a Crossbow
- Axe - Single and double-handed battle axes
- Basilard - A two-edged, long bladed dagger
- Bill - A polearm with a wide cutting blade occasionally with spikes and hooks
- Billhook - Capable of killing Knights and their horses
- Bow and Arrow
- Caltrop: Sharp spikes on 12 - 18 feet poles used, in formation, to maim a horse
- Crossbow - The crossbow range was 350 – 400 yards but could only be shot at a rate of 2 bolts per minute
- Dagger - A short pointed knife
- Halberd - A broad, short axe blade on a 6 foot pole with a spear point at the top with a back spike
- Longbow - The Longbow could pierce armour at ranges of more than 250 yards - a longbowman could release between 10 - 12 arrows per minute
- Mace - The mace was an armor-fighting weapon. The Mace developed from a steel ball on a wooden handle, to an elaborately spiked steel war club
- Pike - A long spear measuring between 18 feet and 20 feet
- Poleaxe - Polearm - Polehammer - Bec de Corbin - Bec de Faucon - A group of pole-mounted weapons. Were all variations of poles measuring 6 feet long with different 'heads' - spikes, hammers, axe
- Spear - Used for thrusting
Elizabethan Weapons - Firearms
By the end of the 1500's firearms were in common use. The musket was invented towards the end of the Medieval era in 1520. By 1595 all bows were ordered to be exchanged for muskets. The most popular firearm was called a Matchlock (this name derived as it was fired by the application of a burning match). It was inaccurate, slow to load and expensive. It was eventually replaced by the Flintlock. Canons were developed which replaced the heavy artillery of the Medieval years such as the ballista, trebuchet and the Mangonel. These early canons were made of bronze or iron and fired stone or iron. They were made in different sizes and were used on both land and on sea. On the wreck Mary Rose, which was heavily armed for close-action fighting, very few firearms were found; on the Alderney wreck, by contrast, firearms were the main weapon find. On the Mary Rose numerous longbows were found; on the Alderney wreck not a single bow or arrow has been excavated. Between the Mary Rose of 1545 and the Alderney shipwreck of 1592, a revolution in weapons, weaponcraft, organization, tactics and strategic thinking had occurred. The revered English longbow that had won great victories upon which history had pivoted, was no more, and the triumph of gunpowder weaponry was complete. England’s sentimental attachment to the longbow, and its success at subduing the French, blinded many to the advances that had been made on the continent. It might have been in the hands of yeomen when it destroyed the French at Crécy, Pointiers and Agincourt, but it was also the weapon of kings; Henry VIII had been a bowman, and had issued many proclamations supporting its use and discouraging any precipitous moves towards firearms; Henry’s son, Edward VI had also been brought up on the bow, and later, even Mary Queen of Scots was known to have practiced in a modest way. According to the protestant bishop Hugh Latimer (who, in 1555 was burned at the stake in Oxford), it was ‘God’s instrument’ and ‘a gift … that he hath given us to excel all other nations’. ‘Hand gonnes’ had their place, and were fine for hunting, fowling and amusement, but to protect the realm there had to be a large reserve of citizen archers.
It is difficult to say when exactly the longbow began its decline, but it must have been before 1544, for in that year Roger Ascham (sometime tutor to Princess Elizabeth and the young Edward VI) published his famous book on archery, Toxophilus, in which he argued for the retention of the bow.
THE MERCHANTS
The first was under Queen Elizabeth, who ruled from 1558 - 1603. The Elizabethan period was later called "The Golden Age", because it was a period of unsurpassed peace and prosperity for England. England had never had a similar period. Due to the rule of Queen Elizabeth, one of the major problems in Europe during this era (the Protestant Reformation, in which Protestantism became prevalent at the expense of Catholicism) was eased. For the most part, Queen Elizabeth was able to guide England past a particularly difficult period.
During this time, the merchant class began to play a greater role. Due to needs of imperialism (empire-building) and mercantilism (the gaining of gold and silver at the colonies' expense), merchants started to profit and thrive as a class. Furthermore, due to the rise of Protestantism, merchants were more widely accepted in England.
THE WRITERS
The term Elizabethan literature refers to the English literature produced during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558 - 1603).
The Elizabethan era saw a great flourishing of literature, especially in the field of drama. The Italian Renaissance had rediscovered the ancient Greek and Roman theatre, and this was instrumental in the development of the new drama, which was then beginning to evolve apart from the old mystery and miracle plays of the Middle Ages. The Italians were particularly inspired by Seneca (a major tragic playwright and philosopher, the tutor of Nero) and Plautus (its comic clichés, especially that of the boasting soldier had a powerful influence on the Renaissance and after). However, the Italian tragedies embraced a principle contrary to Seneca's ethics: showing blood and violence on the stage. In Seneca's plays such scenes were only acted by the characters. But the English playwrights were intrigued by Italian model: a conspicuous community of Italian actors had settled in London and Giovanni Florio had brought much of the Italian language and culture to England.
Following earlier Elizabethan plays such as Gorboduc by Sackville & Norton and The Spanish Tragedy by Kyd that was to provide much material for Hamlet, William Shakespeare stands out in this period as a poet and playwright as yet unsurpassed. Shakespeare was very gifted and incredibly versatile, and he surpassed "professionals" as Robert Greene who mocked this "shake-scene" of low origins. Though most dramas met with great success, it is in his later years (marked by the early reign of James I) that he wrote what have been considered his greatest plays: Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, and The Tempest, atragicomedy that inscribes within the main drama a brilliant pageant to the new king.
Shakespeare also popularized the English sonnet which made significant changes to Petrarch's model. The sonnet was introduced into English by Thomas Wyatt in the early 16th century. Poems intended to be set to music as songs, such as by Thomas Campion, became popular as printed literature was disseminated more widely in households. See English Madrigal School. Other important figures in Elizabethan theatre include Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Dekker, John Fletcher and Francis Beaumont. Had Marlowe (1564-1593) not been stabbed at twenty-nine in a tavern brawl, says Anthony Burgess, he might have rivalled, if not equalled Shakespeare himself for his poetic gifts. Marlowe's subject matter focuses more on the moral drama of the Renaissance man than any other thing. Marlowe was fascinated and terrified by the new frontiers opened by modern science. Drawing on German lore, he introduced Dr. Faustus to England, a scientist and magician who is obsessed by the thirst of knowledge and the desire to push man's technological power to its limits. His dark heroes may have something of Marlowe himself, whose untimely death remains a mystery. He was known for being an atheist, leading a lawless life, keeping many mistresses, consorting with ruffians: living the 'high life' of London's underworld.
Beaumont and Fletcher are less-known, but it is almost sure that they helped Shakespeare write some of his best dramas, and were quite popular at the time. It is also at this time that the city comedy genre develops. In the later 16th century English poetry was characterised by elaboration of language and extensive allusion to classical myths. The most important poets of this era include Edmund Spenser and Sir Philip Sidney. Elizabeth herself, a product of Renaissance humanism, produced occasional poems such as On Monsieur’s Departure. The most famous themes of the Elizabethan Drama are: Revenge, Sensationalism, Melodrama and Vengeance.
The following is an incomplete list of writers considered part of this period.
The rise of the new merchant class also became important to the nobility, who began to increasingly depend on them for the nobles' exorbitant livelihood. This would, in effect, create a stronger middle-class, which began to share some of the same privileges of nobility due to their wealth, including the education of women. This would have a major role in many of the plays that Shakespeare wrote, as women were just beginning to emerge from their former sorts of oppression.
The second era occurred after the death of Elizabeth I. Queen Elizabeth had no heirs (she was popularly termed the Virgin Queen), and as such, James I was able to take the throne as her sister's son. Although James I's rule had many problems, especially as he was a monarch who had to deal with the increasing power of Parliament, he provided patronage for many thinkers and writers, including William Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and Sir Francis Bacon. Many themes, such as the "divine right of kings" are found in James I's writing, and because of this, it is a fairly logical conclusion that Shakespeare, in his plays, would help reinforce such beliefs, due to James I's influential patronage.
His ideas of the "divine right of kings" and its inspiration of his successor, Charles I, would ultimately lead to the end of effective monarchical power in England due to the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution. Shakespeare did not live during either of these two events.
Technically, Shakespeare and the writers of his time are members of the Elizabethan era, but much of the progression in literature and drama during this era occurred during James I's rule, in large part due to his favor of writers and scholars.During the Elizabethan Age love-poetry was widespread and surely the key love poets were Philip Sydney, Edmund Spenser and last but not least William Shakespeare. First of all the sonnet form was incredibly popular at that time, it derived from the Italian poets Dante and Petrarch; English sonneteers modified the classic form of the petrarchan sonnet giving rise to the Elizabethan sonnet composed by three quatrains and one final rhyming couplet, this new sonnet’s form best adapted to the English poets that considered the final couplet as a way to sum up all the sonnet content. Generally speaking the central concerns of the sonneteers were friendship, love, beauty and the effect of the time’s flowing upon it. Furthermore we can see an Italian influence as well in the conception of the courteous love as in the form; in fact the petrarchan conception of the courteous love and of the woman was retaken by Sidney who, in his masterpiece, embodies the central concept of an obsessive love towards an unreachable lady.
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Shall I Compare Thee to
a Summer's Day?
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May;
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimmed;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance, or Nature's changing course, untrimmed:
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ownest,
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to Time thou growest.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
William Shakespeare
THE ARTISTSAll of the arts flourished under Elizabeth I's reign, largely due to the Queen's love of the arts. During the age of Elizabeth, painting was dominated by portraiture, particularly in the form of miniatures, while elaborate textiles and embroidery prevailed in the decorative arts, and sculpture found its place within the confines of tomb and architectural decoration. The Queen herself took a keen interest in her portraits, guiding artists such as Nicholas Hilliard and Marcus Gheeraerts in the creation of stylized images of immense elegance, wealth and power. Various artists such as Hilliard, Gheeraerts, Robert Peake the Elder, John de Critz, and George Gower received commissions from the Crown, and employed techniques from European Mannerism and the School of Fontainebleau. These artists made large-scale, full-length paintings that portrayed the noble class in richly decorative costumes with armor, embroidery, ruffs, hunting gear, weapons, and lace. This artificial and decorative style became characteristic of Elizabethan painting in general.
hilliard
Additionally, some of the most famous Elizabethan works of art are miniature paintings. Miniatures came from the tradition of illuminated manuscripts and from Renaissance portrait medals, a revived classical form. It is said that the foreign artist Hans Holbein, instructed Hilliard, one of the Queen's favorite artists, in the technique. Hilliard produced miniatures painted on vellum or ivory or card, and such miniatures often functioned like lockets or cameos. Intended for private viewing, portrait miniatures were often highly personal and intimate objects that often depicted lovers or mistresses. Many of the larger court portraits of Elizabeth were based upon Hilliard's miniatures and portraits.
In the decorative arts, demand for domestic silver significantly increased during the mid-sixteenth century because of rapid growth in population and subsequent expansion of the middle and upper classes. Silver plates were often decorated with embossed sculptural vegetal forms, fruit, grotesque figures, and strapwork. These intricate designs of foliage and patterning were also applied to suits of armor and domestic textiles embroidered with colored silks and threads of gold and silver.
Architecture of the Elizabethan period became expression of wealth and status. Symmetry and ornateness characterized the style of the English Renaissance, with tall houses and towers, for example, accented by elaborate gardens and stables. Elizabethan style followed the Tudor style, and was succeeded in the beginning of the 16th century by the purer Italian style introduced by Inigo Jones. It responded to the Cinque-Cento period in Italy, the Francois I style in France, and the Plateresque or Silversmiths style in Spain.
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