410.  Literature; the Theater.

The latter part of the period deserves the name of the “Golden Age of English Literature.”  More, Sydney, Hooker, Jewell, and Bacon were the leading prose writers; while Shakespeare, Spenser, Marlowe, and Jonson represented the poets.

In 1574 a public theater was erected in London, in which Shakespeare was a stockholder.  Not very long after, a second was opened.  At both these, the Globe and the Blackfriars, the great dramatist appeared in his own plays, and in such pieces as “King John,” “Richard the Third,” and the Henrys, he taught his countrymen more of the true spirit and meaning of the nation’s history than they had ever learned before.  His historical plays are chiefly based on Holinshed and Hall, two noted chroniclers of the period.

411.  Progress of Science; Superstitions.

The discoveries of Columbus, Cabot, Magellan, and other navigators, had proved the earth to be a globe.  Copernicus, a Prussian astronomer, now demonstrated the fact that it both turns on its axis and revolves around the sun, but the discovery was not accepted until many years later.

On the other hand, astrology, witchcraft, and the transmutation of copper and lead into gold were generally believed in.  In preaching before Queen Elizabeth, Bishop Jewell urged that stringent measures be taken with witches and sorcerers, saying that through their demoniacal acts “your Grace’s subjects pine away even unto death, their color fadeth, their flesh rotteth.”  Lord Bacon and other eminent men held the same belief, and many persons eventually suffered death for the practice of witchcraft.

412.  Architecture.

The Gothic, or Pointed, style of architecture reached its final stage (the Perpendicular) in the early part of this period.  The first examples of it have already been mentioned at the close of the preceding period (S324).  After the close of Henry VII’s reign no attempts were made to build any grand church edifices until St. Paul’s Cathedral was rebuilt by Wren, in the seventeenth century, in the Italian, or classical, style.

In the latter part of the Tudor period many stately country houses[1] and grand city mansions were built, ornamented with carved woodwork and bay windows.  Castles were no longer constructed, and, as the country was at peace, many of those which had been built were abandoned, though a few castellated mansions like Thornbury, Gloucestershire, were built in Henry VIII’s time.  The streets of London still continued to be very narrow, and the houses, with their projecting stories, were so near together at the top that neighbors living on opposite sides of the street might almost shake hands from the upper windows.

[1] Such as Hatfield House, Knowle Hall, Hardwick Hall, and part of Haddon Hall; and, in London, Crosby Hall and other noble mansions.

V. General Industry and Commerce

413.  Foreign Trade.