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Elizabethan Era Research Paper

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Elizabeth’s reign was seen as a golden age for England, the court becoming the focus of intellectual achievement (The age of Shakespeare. A British council exhibition 12) Being herself one of the most educated people of the sixteenth century, an outstanding diplomat and a polyglot, Elizabeth had encouraged the development of arts and culture. It was a period in which the art flourished. Under her reign the theater gain an important place in the life of Londoners, the first theaters, or playhouses being opened in London during the late 1500s. People went to see plays by William Shakespeare, Thomas Kyd, and Christopher Marlow. ( Riley 7) The Elizabethan people, freed from poverty and living in a period of peace and order “felt the upspring of …show more content…

This period, of the Stuart kingship in England, had been seen by the historians as “an uneventful prolongation of Elizabethan era, under the conditions of peace and safety. “ (Trevelyan, Illustred 133) James accession to the throne was welcomed by the people of England because it bought the union with the Scotland and the hope a peaceful period. (Maurois 9) Unfortunately, this dynastic union had little influence on the social and economic life and the regime of the new king bought slight and gradual changes in the England. (Trevelyan, Illustred 135) Even though the new king was “good-natured, conceited and wise in book-learning” and had seen himself as “a philosopher-king, a new Solomon, who would bring peace and harmony to his peoples” (Wortham 104) he had demonstrated he knew nothing about the people of England and theirs laws and often he was considered to be an ignorant. (Trevelyan 278) His reign was marked by the religious conflicts between Catholics, Protestants and Puritans, and also by the conflicts between the King and his Parliament. (Maurois 15). James I had believed that the king had a Natural and Divine Right to rule as he wanted and not once he disregarded the Parliament’s

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