Shakespeare In His Time

**Philip Rowe** (0:09)
Welcome to The History Of European Theatre podcast, and thanks for joining me on this journey through millennia of theatrical history. Episode 116, Shakespeare In His Time.
One of the original taglines I thought up for this podcast was that it would be much more than just a list of dates and plays. I have to confess that this episode comes the closest I ever have come to breaking that promise and reeling off a list of dates. But I'm going to stick with it because I think putting Shakespeare into the context of his times, both the political, the artistic and the specifically theatrical times, is a valuable exercise that builds on the scene setting that I presented last episode. So today, I'm going to run through the life and times of William Shakespeare. I'll be avoiding the more speculative elements of what we think we know and try to stick to the better attested facts. But as you will soon hear, there are many dates and events about which we can be less than precise.
So this is my best attempt at putting what we do know into chronological order and keeping it that way as much as possible. I will of course be talking about all the points made here again in detail in the coming episodes. This is just an overview and it is intentionally at a pretty high level at the moment. There were so many changes in the realms of politics and religion, science and the arts during Shakespeare's lifetime, that what I have included here are inevitably just a few significant markers at a very high level. But I hope they will help to keep you historically orientated for this view of the life and the plays of William Shakespeare.
Although the first record of William Shakespeare is from 1564, I'm going to start a few years before that just for a bit of context. Theatrical records are horribly sparse before the mid-16th century, but there are particular facts that we can pick up, which are relevant here. So, for a start, we have the first performance of Gorbiduck at the Inns of Court in 1561, as a proto-history play or tragedy that had been preceded in 1552 or thereabouts by the comedy Ralph Royster Doyster. By the 1560s Elizabeth had been on the throne for a few years, having ascended in 1558, so things were becoming a little more politically stable in England. But she still had many doubters and fractious religious disputes to contend with, as she steered a course between her new national church and the reluctant Catholics. 1564 is, of course, the year William Shakespeare was born. But it's also notable as the year that Christopher Marlowe was born, coincidentally, also the year of Galileo's birth and, surely more significantly for the people at the time, Michelangelo died. Quite a year. William Shakespeare was baptised on the 26th of April, with his date of birth being therefore taken as the 23rd, although there's no documentary proof of this. 1664 was also a year of plague. The year before, about 20,000 people had died of plague in London. That's more than a quarter of the population of the city at the time. The winter that followed was a mild one, which survivors may have thought of as a blessing at the time, but it meant that the fleas that carried the disease didn't die of cold but hibernated. When they awoke in spring 1664, plague again rapidly spread through the city and then out into the country. By the summer, it had reached Stratford-upon-Avon, some 100 miles distant from the city. 200 residents of the town are recorded as perishing in the pestilence, but luckily the young William survived. Perhaps taken into the country with his mother to her relatives until the illness passed.
A year later, we have a record of John Shakespeare, William's father, and local businessman in Stratford being made alderman of the town. He was then in his mid-thirties and a man on the rise at this point. A successful local businessman who had made a very decent marriage to Mary Arden, daughter of a gentleman farmer who was a member of the minor English gentry. Mary had given birth to two daughters, but both had died before William was born. The following year, another son, Gilbert, was to be born to the family, and another son would follow. In all, John and Mary had eight children, but only four survived to adulthood.
Another notable theatrical birth came in 1566, when the Allen family in London welcomed a son, Edward, to add to their brood. A more national significant was the birth of a royal son to the Stuart monarchs of Scotland, James, who would become the sixth of Scotland, and in time the first of England, and a United Kingdom. Elizabeth was only in her mid-30s at this point, so concerns about her succession were there, but concerned with marriage possibilities, rather than who might succeed her if she were to die childless. That changed as she aged, and James, as a relation and a Protestant monarch, would become her nominated successor. 1567 saw the opening of a theatre at the sign of the Red Lion just outside the city of London. James Burbage, a joiner by trade, but a player by choice, had an entrepreneurial eye, and, we have to assume, must have visited to see what was going on there, as plans for a purpose-built theatre were brewing in his mind. It was a subject he no doubt was thinking on, as his son Richard was born that year, he who was to become one of, if not the greatest, player of his time. Politically, all eyes in England were on Scotland, as Mary fought to keep her position as Queen, following the murder of her husband Lord Darnley, and growing opposition to her reign. Mary was always a problem for Elizabeth, but seeing the deposing of a Queen, her cousin, was something that she also did not like to contemplate, because of the implications it held for her. 1568 saw John Shakespeare continuing his rise in Stratford society as he became a bailiff, the highest office for a locally elected official. But soon after, things started to fall apart for him as he was accused of usury. That year was also the year that the one-year-old James was handed the Scottish throne, following the deposing of his mother by the Scottish gentry and her flight to England into Elizabeth's care. On a much lighter note, it was also the probable year of the composition of the rustic comedy Gamma Gertons' Needle.