Tudor London - Elizabethan London

Elizabethan London

The coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1558 ushered in the Elizabethan era. This is often considered the high point of the English Renaissance and Tudor culture.

The late 16th century, when William Shakespeare and his contemporaries lived and worked in London, was one of the most notable periods in the city's cultural history. There was considerable hostility to the development of the theatre however. Public entertainments produced crowds, and crowds were feared by the authorities because they might become mobs, and by many ordinary citizens who dreaded that large gatherings might contribute to the spread of plague. Theatre itself was discountenanced by the increasingly influential Puritan strand in the nation. However, Queen Elizabeth loved plays, which were performed for her privately at Court, and approved of public performances of " such plays only as were fitted to yield honest recreation and no example of evil." On April 11, 1582, the Lords of the Council wrote to the Lord Mayor to the effect that, as "her Majesty sometimes took delight in those pastimes, it had been thought not unfit, having regard to the season of the year and the clearance of the city from infection, to allow of certain companies of players in London, partly that they might thereby attain more dexterity and perfection the better to content her Majesty."

Nonetheless the theatres were mostly built outside of the City boundaries, beyond its jurisdiction. The first theatrical district was located north of the City wall, in Shoreditch. Here The Theatre and The Curtain were built, in 1576 and 1577 respectively. Later the south side of the river, which was already established as an area where less salubrious entertainments such as bear-baiting might be seen, became the main centre. Theatres on Bankside included The Globe, The Rose, The Swan, and The Hope. The Blackfriars Theatre, although within the walls, was also outside of the City's jurisdiction.

During the mostly calm later years of Elizabeth's reign, some of her courtiers and some of the wealthier citizens of London built themselves country residences in Middlesex, Essex and Surrey. This was an early stirring of the villa movement, the taste for residences which were neither of the city nor on an agricultural estate, but when the last of the Tudors died in 1603, London was still very compact.