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
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
Shakespeare’s mother Mary was buried in Stratford-upon-Avon on 9 September 1608 at the end of a long and eventful life. Mary Arden was from a farming family considered to be part of the local gentry in Warwickshire. She was born during the reign of Henry VIII in Wilmcote, a small village with one main street […]Continue reading
During the Reformation, Catholic Spain was a long-standing enemy of England and during the reign of Elizabeth I a series of attempted invasions prolonged the enmity between the two countries. The uneasy and short-lived alliance between England and Spain during the reign of Mary I was replaced by hostilities exacerbated by the Spanish Armada’s […]Continue reading
When James I came to the throne in 1603, Christmas entertainments increased. In the first ten years of his reign there were over one hundred performances at court. On 23 December 1603, Lady Arbella Stuart wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury ‘it is said there shall be 30 plays’ – Christmas at court with […]Continue reading
Francis Walsingham, who signed his last will and testament in December 1589, is primarily remembered as Elizabeth I’s ‘spymaster’. He established a wide-reaching system of surveillance to safeguard both the personal safety of the queen and the national security of England. His wide-reaching system of surveillance even extended into the playhouses of early modern England. […]Continue reading
The earliest recorded performance of Richard II was on 9 December 1595. The play was performed for Sir Robert Cecil at Sir Edward Hoby’s house in Canon Row. On 7 December 1595 Sir Edward Hoby had written to Robert Cecil inviting him to supper and to see a performance of the play: Sir, finding […]Continue reading
