A play with the title Love’s Labour’s Won is thought to be one of the lost plays of Shakespeare. We know that a play with this title existed during Shakespeare’s lifetime, but unfortunately there are no records of the play in performance and no script of the play that has survived. A manuscript dated […]Continue reading
Lord Burghley, Secretary of State under Elizabeth I, wrote a short manual for his son as he set off on his youthful travels to France. It was titled Memorial for Thomas Cecil (1561) and was full of detailed advice regarding his spiritual welfare, his clothing and his behaviour: If you offend in forgetting of […]Continue reading
A range of stage properties and special effects were used to add spectacle to performances in early modern playhouses. Gunpowder was often used for special effects, most memorably on the day the Globe burned down. Wadding had been used along with the gunpowder in the small canon which was fired. Although no cannon balls were […]Continue reading
On this day in 1580, the Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth after a three-year voyage of exploration and discovery. Francis Drake and his crew had successfully circumnavigated the globe and were hailed as heroes on their return to England. Drake’s ship left England in 1577 with another large ship, the Elizabeth, and three smaller […]Continue reading
In 1602, Shakespeare was described as a gentleman in recognition of the coat of arms he inherited after his father’s death in 1601. Two drafts of a grant of arms were drawn up for John Shakespeare in October 1596. The drafts describing the coat-of-arms were drawn up by William Dethick, Garter King of Arms. He […]Continue reading
Bear-baiting was a popular form of entertainment in London in the sixteenth century. The bear-baiting pits on the south bank of the Thames frequently attracted large crowds to watch the blood-sport. The Bear Garden was one of the amphitheatres that staged the blood-thirsty spectacle of a chained bear defending itself against the mastiff dogs trained […]Continue reading
The English author Robert Greene died on 3 September 1592, and a posthumous pamphlet was published at his dying request. It was titled Green’s Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a million of repentance. Describing the folly of youth, the falsehood of makeshift flatterers and mischiefs of deceiving courtesans. In this pamphlet, Greene supposedly refers to […]Continue reading
Costumes were an important and expensive investment made by playing companies in Shakespeare’s day. Accounts kept by Philip Henslowe at the Rose playhouse show that Henslowe once paid £20 10s 6d for a black velvet cloak with gold and silver embroidery on the sleeves. This amount was almost three times the cost of a script […]Continue reading
Much Ado About Nothing was printed in quarto form by Valentine Simmes in the same year it was entered on the Stationers’ Register. As stated on the title page, the play had ‘been sundry times publicly acted by the Right Honourable, the Lord Chamberlain his servants’. One character who stands out is the […]Continue reading
In September 1607, Hamlet and Richard II were performed aboard the Red Dragon. The Red Dragon, captained by William Keeling, was an East India Company ship travelling from England to India and the Spice Islands during the third voyage of the East India Company. Apparently, the Red Dragon and the Hector, another ship travelling […]Continue reading
