Elizabeth I: The English Renaissance (the Golden Age) (AQA A Level History: Component 1: Breadth study): Revision Note

Summary

• Elizabethan culture flourished due to royal and noble patronage, political stability, growing wealth among the gentry and the influence of the European Renaissance

• Theatre developed from travelling and temporary performance into a major commercial art form within a generation

  • Marlowe pioneered blank verse drama; Shakespeare became its greatest practitioner

• Music flourished at court and in the Church:

  • Byrd and Tallis were granted a royal monopoly on music printing in 1575

  • The madrigal became a fashionable form of courtly entertainment

• Elizabeth's portraits were political as much as artistic:

  • The Cult of Gloriana used used imagery such as eyes, ears, pearls and globes to project power and virginal authority

• Prodigy houses, built by nobles and gentry to impress Elizabeth during her progresses, were among the most ambitious buildings in English history

• Historians debate whether a genuine "Golden Age" existed:

  • Brigden argues the court became the centre of power, patronage and cultural activity, driving the artistic flourishing associated with the “Golden Age”

  • Others argue the cultural flourishing was largely confined to the elite and served political purposes

The Elizabethan "Golden Age": Why Did Culture Flourish?

Royal and noble patronage

• Elizabeth herself drove cultural investment at court

  • She was a skilled musician who played the virginals and the lute

  • She spoke six languages and was educated to a standard unusual even for the time

  • She spent over £1,500 per year on music and kept the Chapel Royal as a centre of musical excellence, employing a substantial number of instrumentalists

  • She had her own company of actors, The Queen's Men, established in 1583

• Nobles competed to demonstrate cultural sophistication

  • Courtiers were encouraged to favour art, music, literature and the theatre

  • Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester patronised his own theatre company, Leicester's Men, from 1559

  • By 1590, half of England's peers had town houses in London, concentrating wealth and cultural activity in the capital

  • Nobles who hosted Elizabeth during her annual summer progresses built or extended their houses to impress her

Political stability and growing prosperity

• The reign provided relative stability after the upheavals of the mid-Tudor period

  • Edward VI's reign had brought rapid religious change and social tension

  • Mary I's reign brought more persecution, war and economic difficulty

  • Elizabeth's longer, more stable reign gave the gentry the confidence to invest in culture

• The gentry grew in wealth and education throughout the reign

  • Approximately 136 to 150 grammar schools were founded during Elizabeth's reign

  • University attendance grew, and more members of the gentry and merchant classes could read, write and engage with literature

  • The dissolution of the monasteries had already distributed land and wealth to the gentry, giving them the resources to build houses and patronise culture

The European Renaissance and the printing press

• Renaissance ideas had been filtering into England from the Continent since the early 16th century

  • Italian, French and Flemish influences shaped English architecture, music and portraiture

  • Protestants who had spent Mary's reign in exile on the Continent returned with new ideas

  • Pattern books brought continental architectural ideas to English builders without requiring travel

• The printing press transformed the reach of literature and ideas

  • Plays, poetry, religious works and scholarly texts could now be printed and sold commercially

  • A growing literate audience meant there was a market for cultural production that had not previously existed

  • In 1575, Elizabeth granted Byrd and Tallis a monopoly on music printing

    • This helped make printed music commercially available on an unprecedented scale in England

Shakespeare, Marlowe & the Rise of Elizabethan Theatre

Theatre before the Elizabethan period

• Before Elizabeth's reign, England had no permanent theatres

  • Actors travelled around and performed in open fields, inn courtyards or other temporary spaces

  • Actors were treated with suspicion and seen as socially suspect

  • The main dramatic form was the religious mystery play, which acted out Bible stories and saints' lives

    • Protestant reformers banned mystery plays as Catholic in character; this cleared space for secular drama to develop

The development of permanent theatres

• London permitted the building of permanent theatres in 1567

  • The Red Lion in Whitechapel (1567) is often considered the first purpose-built theatre in England

  • James Burbage's 'The Theatre' (1576) was the first major commercial theatre in London

  • The Rose (1587) and The Globe (1599) followed

    • The Globe was built using timbers from 'The Theatre', moved across the Thames to Bankside

• Theatre attracted all sections of society

  • Working people paid one penny to stand in the yard in front of the stage

  • Wealthier audiences sat in the galleries

  • Theatre was one of the few forms of entertainment that genuinely crossed social boundaries

• The government licensed and censored the theatre

  • From 1572,theatre companies required the patronage of a noble or royal licence to operate legally

  • A government official read and approved all play scripts before they could be performed

    • This gave the Crown control over what messages the theatre communicated

Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)

• Marlowe was the dominant playwright before Shakespeare

  • He pioneered blank verse drama in English, the form that Shakespeare then built upon

  • His most important plays were Tamburlaine the Great (1587), Doctor Faustus (c. 1592) and the Jew of Malta

  • He died in mysterious circumstances in 1593, possibly connected to his work as a government agent

  • Without Marlowe, Shakespeare's development may have been very different

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

• Shakespeare was the greatest playwright of the reign and one of the most celebrated writers in the English language

  • He wrote for the Lord Chamberlain's Men, whose plays were performed at The Globe from 1599

  • He wrote 38 plays in total: histories, comedies and tragedies

• Shakespeare's history plays had a directly political function

  • Plays such as Richard II, Richard III and Henry V reinforced the Tudor view of history

  • They portrayed a strong monarchy as essential and disorder as catastrophic

  • They supported the Great Chain of Being

    • The idea that God had ordered society in a hierarchy that must be maintained

• Shakespeare and Elizabeth had a direct connection

  • The Lord Chamberlain's Men performed Twelfth Night at court one Christmas

  • A later tradition claimed Elizabeth requested The Merry Wives of Windsor because she wanted to see Falstaff in love

Illustration - Theatre (ex)

Theatre as propaganda and opposition

• The theatre's popularity made it a powerful tool of political communication

  • It could spread the monarchy's message to thousands of people who could not read

  • Government censorship aimed to ensure plays did not openly undermine the regime

• The theatre also faced serious opposition

  • Puritans saw theatre as sinful, immoral and a distraction from godly living

  • The Lord Mayor of London repeatedly petitioned the Privy Council to limit or ban theatre in the city

• However, the Privy Council sided with Elizabeth in supporting the theatre

• The Richard II episode of 1601 showed the political edge of theatre

  • The Lord Chamberlain's Men were persuaded to perform Richard II the day before the Essex Rebellion

  • The play featured the deposing of a king, which the rebels hoped would inspire Londoners to revolt

  • It failed: the crowd did not rise, and Essex was defeated

  • See the Factional rivalries and the Essex Rebellion revision notes for further information

Elizabethan Music: Byrd, Tallis & the Madrigal

Music at court and in the Church

• Music flourished particularly at court, where Elizabeth's personal enthusiasm drove investment

  • Elizabeth played the virginals (an early keyboard instrument) and the lute

  • The Chapel Royal employed a substantial number of instrumentalists and a choir of gentlemen and children

  • Church music in the cathedrals also thrived despite the changes brought by the Reformation

  • Courtiers were expected to be able to sing and play instruments as a mark of education and sophistication

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505–1585)

• Tallis was one of the greatest composers of the Tudor period

  • He composed sacred music for both Catholic and Protestant worship across four reigns

  • He navigated the religious changes of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth with remarkable skill

  • In 1575, Elizabeth granted Tallis and Byrd a joint 21-year monopoly on printing and publishing music in England

    • This was a mark of enormous royal favour and made their music commercially dominant

William Byrd (1543–1623)

• Byrd was one of the greatest composers of the Elizabethan period

  • He was a Catholic who somehow maintained royal favour despite the penal legislation against Catholics

  • He composed Anglican music for his official duties at the Chapel Royal

  • He also composed Catholic music for private Catholic worship, which was technically illegal

  • His career shows how exceptional talent could secure protection even in a hostile religious climate

  • He shared the 1575 printing monopoly with Tallis

The madrigal

• The madrigal was the most fashionable musical form of the reign

  • A madrigal is a secular part-song for several voices, usually on secular or romantic themes

  • The form came from Italy and became fashionable in England from the 1580s onwards

  • It combined musical sophistication with a kind of courtly flattery Elizabeth enjoyed

• Thomas Morley's The Triumph of Oriana (1601) was the defining madrigal collection of the reign

  • It was a collection of 25 madrigals by different composers, all in honour of Elizabeth

  • Every song ended with the same line: "Long live fair Oriana"

    • Oriana was a poetic name for Elizabeth, associating her with mythological beauty and virtue

    • The collection shows how music was woven directly into the Cult of Gloriana

  • Other important composers of the reign:

    • John Dowland: a leading lutenist famous for melancholic songs and instrumental works

    • Orlando Gibbons: a younger composer whose career extended into the Stuart period

    • Thomas Morley: madrigal composer and author of A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597)

Elizabethan Art: The Cult of Gloriana & Miniature Portraits

Illustration - using Armada portrait (new)

The Cult of Gloriana

• Elizabeth was portrayed through an elaborate and carefully controlled system of royal imagery

  • The aim was to project an image of timeless power, divine favour and virginal authority

  • Portraits were political propaganda as much as they were works of art

  • Elizabeth and her government tightly controlled how she was depicted:

    • She remained young (aging was never shown)

    • Formal and idealised images were required

  • Gloriana, Oriana, the Virgin Queen, Good Queen Bess: these were all nicknames that contributed to the royal image

• Common symbols used in Elizabethan royal portraits include:

  • Ermine fur: royalty and purity

  • Pearls: virginity

  • The Tudor Rose: England's dynasty

  • A globe: power over the world

  • Eyes and ears embroidered on her gown: ceaseless vigilance over her people

  • An ageless face: timeless authority, not subject to the decay of ordinary mortals

Key portraits

Nicholas Hilliard and miniature portraits

• Nicholas Hilliard (1547–1619) was the most important English painter of the reign

  • He was appointed as Elizabeth's personal miniature painter and goldsmith

  • Miniatures were small, jewel-like portraits, typically a few centimetres across, set in decorated cases

    • They were intimate objects given as personal gifts to favourites, allies and close friends

    • This made them politically significant as well as artistic: receiving a miniature of the queen was a mark of royal favour

  • Hilliard also painted Leicester, Drake, Raleigh and other prominent courtiers

• Portrait painting served the regime as much as it celebrated individual subjects

  • No portrait of aging Elizabeth was permitted

    • The image of timeless beauty was maintained to the end

  • The portraits circulated widely, carrying England's royal imagery to foreign courts and English households alike

Architecture: Prodigy Houses & the Country House

Illustration - comparison of houses (new)

What were prodigy houses?

• Prodigy houses were enormous country houses built by the nobility and gentry to impress Elizabeth

  • The term was coined by the architectural historian John Summerson

  • They were built specifically for Elizabeth's annual summer progresses, when she toured the country, staying with nobles

  • Hosting the queen and her court was enormously expensive; the house had to be worthy of the occasion

  • Building such a house signalled loyalty, wealth and ambition all at once

• Prodigy houses reflected Continental Renaissance influences

  • Italian, French and Flemish architectural ideas shaped their design

  • Renaissance architecture emphasised symmetry, classical proportions and large windows to let in light

    • This was a deliberate break from the defensive design of medieval castles; architecture shifted from fortification to display

Key examples of Prodigy houses

Why did architecture flourish?

• Several factors drove the Elizabethan building boom

  • Peace and political stability gave the gentry both the money and the confidence to build

  • Elizabeth's progresses created a direct incentive

    • A royal visit required a house that could accommodate the queen and her court

  • The dissolution of the monasteries had given the gentry access to building materials as well as land

  • Continental pattern books brought Renaissance architectural ideas to English builders

  • The grammar schools produced an educated gentry who valued learning and display

• The building boom extended beyond the great houses

  • Grammar schools, market halls and almshouses were also built in large numbers

  • Around 136 to 150 grammar schools were founded during the reign

  • Architecture expressed education, status and loyalty to the Crown at every level of the gentry

How Far Did England Experience a Cultural "Golden Age"?

• Use the specific evidence to build and support your argument

The case that England did experience a genuine "Golden Age"

• Theatre developed from nothing into a world-class art form within a single generation

  • England had no permanent theatres in 1558; by 1599, it had The Globe and a thriving commercial theatre culture

  • Shakespeare and Marlowe produced work of permanent international significance

• Music reached a level of sophistication that was admired across Europe

  • Byrd and Tallis are still regarded as among the greatest composers in the history of sacred music

  • The madrigal tradition produced collections of genuine artistic quality

• Architecture produced lasting masterpieces

  • Hardwick Hall, Longleat, Burghley House and Wollaton Hall are still admired and visited today

  • They represent a genuine leap in the ambition and scale of English building

• The spread of literacy and education created a larger audience for culture than at any previous point

  • The grammar schools, printing press and growing gentry class made cultural production commercially viable

  • Literature and music reached audiences far beyond the court for the first time

The case that the "Golden Age" was limited or overstated

• Cultural flourishing was largely confined to the court and the wealthy gentry

  • Ordinary people had very limited access to portraiture, prodigy houses or the madrigal tradition

  • Theatre was the main exception, but even that was centred on London

• Much of the cultural output served a political function rather than reflecting genuine freedom

  • Portraits were propaganda that never allowed Elizabeth to age

  • Shakespeare’s history plays reinforced the Tudor political order

  • The madrigal collection The Triumph of Oriana was flattery as much as art

  • Government censorship shaped what theatre companies could perform

• The "Golden Age" concealed serious social problems

  • Harvest failures, rising poverty, plague and food riots marked the 1590s

  • See the Society: Continuity, Change and Rebellion revision notes and the Economy: Prosperity and Depression revision notes for full detail

• The cultural flourishing was concentrated in the later reign, not the whole period

  • The great theatrical, musical and architectural achievements came mainly from the 1580s and 1590s

  • The first two decades of the reign were less obviously a cultural golden age

Key historian