http://englishhistory.net/tudor/monarchs.html

Elizabethan period

To read Shakespeare’s History Plays without knowing what was the context of their first reception like, Elizabeth I reign is to miss much of the meaning of the references that they carry with them. Shakespeare was interested in narrating events that took place at the time of his writing but his was not the work of a chronicler, Shakespeare aimed for more. In his plays, history is not the purpose but the means to reach a critical analysis of a period and a society which was the Elizabethan society.

In order to understand all the complexities surrounding the plot of the Shakespearean plays we have to refer to the advent of the Tudor Dinasty and to its relationship with all the other organizational elements especially the church and the state.

The war issue is a an important issue that preceded the Tudor period being the war of the roses probably the most important one. In the Tudor period there were three wars worth mentioning that started in the wake of Henry VI’s mental breakdown in 1453. All these wars were surrounded by political affairs over throne possession. These wars were the ones that later Shakespeare would describe in the plays about the life and reign of Richard II, Eduard IV, King John, Henry VI and Richard III.

The Tudor propaganda of the descriptive chronicles tried to convince the people that this was the proclaimed dynasty that was going to save the kingdom and set the new beginning in the English history.

But the internal affairs of the kingdom characterized by a great disorganization had transformed the reign in an ungoverned chaos. The reigns of Edward VI and Henry VII were successful because they had the help and advice of hardworking and experience councillors. The council at the time became a real governing institution and appeared as a necessity in the construction of a reform for the kingdom  

Under the government of Elizabeth I, stability is established in the country due to the development of the industrial capitalism and a remarkable growth of the population.

It is during this time when Shakespeare is set.

Characteristics of the theatre production:

English public was a witness of the development of the national scene to a much more realistic theatre as a mean of popular amusement. It is in the decade of the 1590 when theatrical production acquired a great development and became a popular pastime.  Theatres could afford up to three thousand spectators as it happened with The Globe in which Shakespeare performed his plays with the company called Lord Chamberlain’s men and Shakespeare became one of the share-owning partners in a theatre.

Considered a purple profession, acting was a precarious way of life even during the relatively enlightened reigns of Elizabeth and James.

It is known that women were not allowed to participate in the plays so the role of women had to be performed by the younger actors.

Most stage players were vulnerable to arrest on charges of vagrancy if they were not under the protection of a powerful sponsor. Shakespeare's company at the Globe was set apart by virtue of being formally patronized by first the Lord Chamberlain of Queen Elizabeth and then by King James I himself.

In Shakespearean plays, we easily see the influence of the medieval tradition of the Morality Plays. It is well known that Shakespeare had a critical attitude towards the moralities which are in the background of the English drama and had an explicit didactic control of the narrative through the allegorical use of characters, but Shakespeare conceived the characters in a universe that went beyond the plot to a macro universe of chaos and order. Shakespeare differently from the morality plays which were didactic and symbolic, interested in communicating ideas, used history more objectively and dramatized the different periods of history in a particular way. It does not mean that Shakespeare’s characters are realistic rather they move far beyond the achievements of the morality writers. The chroniclers of the time were paid by their kings to please them narrating their own deeds. Shakespeare, on the contrary, dealt with characters that were in the realm in the terrestrial and the divine and was concerned with the problems that had overpowered England, specially the civil war and the break with Rome. In this sense, themes such as rebellion and justice were present in several of the plays. The Elizabethans wanted to believe that the norm was the natural state of things and that Shakespeare followed this idea representing it in some of his place. He mixed drama and comedy and he made his plays more genuine rather than a copy of a chronicle.

Having chosen as his main character the figure of England and not just the figure of a particular king, he treated her as a heroin who had to go through war but managed to encounter the order and the peace with the announced government of a good Queen, Elizabeth.

Sources: