Life in Elizabethan Times Flashcards

Only men — boys played the roles of women.

False. Both rich and poor attended; tickets came at a range of prices and the poor stood in the pit.

The population rose by about a million, so there were not enough jobs and food prices rose faster than wages.

There was less help for the poor, who could no longer claim alms or find work in religious houses.

The deserving poor, such as the aged, sick and orphans, could not work and deserved relief; the idle poor could work but chose not to, and were punished.

It required Justices of the Peace to help the able-bodied poor find paid work, providing them with raw materials such as wool.

To raid Spanish ships and settlements for gold and silver, with Elizabeth's secret backing.

He was the first Englishman to sail around the world, which encouraged others to explore and claim land for England.

He was granted a royal charter by Elizabeth in 1584 and organised and financed the expeditions that founded the Roanoke colony in 1585.

To provide a base from which English ships could attack Spanish treasure fleets in the Atlantic.

The colonists fell into conflict with the Algonquian people, from whom they constantly demanded food and supplies.

He traded illegally with Spain's New World colonies, threatening Spanish power there, and Elizabeth did nothing to stop him.

A sailor licensed by the crown to attack and rob foreign ships; Drake's raids on Spanish treasure ships in the Caribbean stole vast amounts of treasure and angered Spain.

Either the Theatre (1576) or the Rose (1587). They were built for the growing audiences at new non-religious plays.

A first offence meant a whipping and a hole burned through the ear. Persistent vagrants faced harsher punishment, and a third offence could bring the death penalty.

A compulsory national poor rate, a local tax to support the deserving poor, with Justices of the Peace keeping a register of the poor.

Landowners fenced off common land for profitable farming, often sheep for wool, so poorer families lost land they relied on and many had to leave to look for work.

The idea that Elizabeth's reign was a time of peace, prosperity and cultural achievement, when people believed they lived in a more enlightened and sophisticated age.

Wealthy landowners below the nobility who grew rich from land, trade and office, and often built grand new houses.

Any two of: the rise of the gentry, the printing press, greater wealth from trade and exploration, new colonies, new technology such as the astrolabe, and Renaissance art and theatre.

Only a small minority lived in luxury while the poor had just enough to survive; England was still brutal, with torture, harsh punishments, low life expectancy and epidemics.

The glorified image of Elizabeth used as propaganda in portraits, poetry and pageants, which enhanced the sense of a 'Golden Age'.

At the start plays were put on in the courtyards of inns; by the end they were performed in purpose-built theatres.

Rich people sat in the gallery (the 'Lords' rooms' were the most expensive seats); the poor gathered in the pit below the stage.

The Queen approved of it and enjoyed plays performed at court, and she and the nobility gave patronage to acting companies such as the 'Queen's Men'.

They thought plays were immoral and theatregoing ungodly — people would rather go to a play than to church on Sunday.

They feared crime, disorder and the spread of disease when large mixed crowds gathered.

It banned plays within the city limits, so theatres such as the Globe were built outside the City in Southwark.

False. They censored plays when necessary but also used the theatre as useful entertainment and propaganda for the masses.

Prosperous gentry built new houses with glass windows, chimneys, several storeys and fine furniture — the 'Great Rebuilding'.

Their wealth and status — the rich wore ruffs, silks, velvets and jewels, and sumptuary laws restricted what each rank could wear.

True. Her long reign and the defeat of Spain were viewed as signs of England's special time.

Rising unemployment and high food prices (inflation), made worse by bad harvests and famine in the later 1590s.

A poor person with no job or fixed home who roamed from place to place begging, seen by the authorities as a threat.

It publicised the growing numbers of the poor and vagabonds, making Elizabethans more aware of the problem.

Fear of public disorder from bands of poor people roaming the countryside, committing crimes and threatening authority.

From the reports of Justices of the Peace, which showed them both the poor's problems and the threat they posed.

A place where the idle poor, seen as lazy, were sent after a whipping to be forced to work.

Money or food given to the poor in their own homes, paid for by the poor rate, rather than in an institution.

It carried out a census of its poor, separating the idle, who were set to work or punished, from the deserving poor, who were given relief.

A national system in which each parish took responsibility for its poor, funded by a compulsory poor rate, helping the deserving poor and punishing the idle.

Good works were a sign of piety suggesting God would save them on Judgement Day — and they believed it better to do good while alive, unlike Catholics who left money in wills.

An English sailor and naval commander who made voyages from the 1560s carrying enslaved Africans to trade in Spain's New World colonies.

An English sailor and privateer who raided Spanish ships and ports and completed the circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–80.

A Spanish fleet attacked Hawkins's and Drake's ships in a Mexican port; most were destroyed, which made both men lasting enemies of Spain.

The Golden Hind; in 1581 Elizabeth knighted him on board the ship at Deptford.

It brought back huge profits in Spanish treasure and spices, and opened up new trade routes and contacts in the Pacific and East Indies.

A courtier and explorer, a favourite of Elizabeth, who organised the Virginia colonising expeditions and later explored South America in search of gold.

The 1585 colony was abandoned in 1586, and the settlers of the 1587 colony had vanished by 1590 — the 'lost colony'.

False. She backed him secretly and shared the profits, while publicly denying responsibility.

Potatoes and tobacco — seen as part of the special achievements of the age.

False. They thought private charity would not cope, which is why the state stepped in from 1572 and took responsibility for the poor.

False. He organised and financed the expeditions but never travelled to Virginia.

The most famous Elizabethan playwright, born in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1564. An actor and shareholder in the Lord Chamberlain's Men, he wrote histories, comedies and tragedies such as Richard III, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet.

An open-air playhouse built on Bankside in Southwark in 1599 by the Lord Chamberlain's Men, Shakespeare's company, using timber from The Theatre. It held roughly 3,000 people.

Unpaid parish officials, made compulsory by the poor laws of 1598 and 1601, who collected the poor rate and used it to relieve the helpless, find work for the able-bodied and apprentice poor children.

It gave licences to beggars judged genuine and had poor children taught a trade. Ipswich, Norwich and York tried schemes like this, which the government later followed nationally.

In 1572 he attacked Nombre de Dios, the Panama port where Spanish silver was shipped. The raid failed, but in 1573 he ambushed a Spanish silver mule train nearby and came home rich and famous, and hated in Spain.

Any one: the Eastland Company (1579, Baltic trade), the Turkey Company (1581, later the Levant Company, eastern Mediterranean) or the East India Company (1600, spices and silks from Asia).

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