Stage plays and such like None other than James himself would sponsor Shakespeare and his eight colleagues, now royal servants renamed the King’s Men.

Lord Chamberlain’s Men The company was reorganised in 1594, with both Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare among the players.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Men was a company of actors, or a “playing company” (as it then would likely have been described), for which Shakespeare wrote during most of his career. The company held exclusive rights to perform Shakespeare’s plays.

King’s Men, English theatre company known by that name after it came under royal patronage in 1603. Its previous name was the Lord Chamberlain’s Men. Considered the premier acting company in Jacobean England, the troupe included William Shakespeare as its leading dramatist and Richard Burbage as it principal actor.

Timeline of Shakespeare’s Life

• 1564: William Shakespeare born in Stratford-upon-Avon.
• 1582: Shakespeare marries Anne Hathaway.
• 1583: Shakespeare’s first child, Susanna, is born.
• 1585: Shakespeare’s twins, Judith and Hamnet, are born.
• 1592: Shakespeare is first alluded to as a playwright, in Greene’s Groates-worth of Wit.

Major events of the time- (Elizabeth’s Reign) November 17 1558- Elizabeth becomes Queen of England. January 15 1559- Coronation of Elizabeth. 1568 May 16- Queen Mary of Scots arrives in England after being forced to resign the throne of Scotland. 1588 July -August- Spanish Armada defeated by English fleet.

Card games, board games, and gambling were all immensely popular, as were music and dancing events where people of all classes could show their skills and make new friends.

Many people came to theater every day because it held many forms of entertainment For example: plays, bear-baiting, and cockfighting. In Shakespeare’s time there were all sorts of different types of entertainments such as plays, dancing, singing, bear-baiting, cockfighting, and various games and sports.

While meat was the main component of the upper-class diet, they occasionally took vegetables such as turnips, carrots, and radishes and fruits such as apples, plums, and woodland strawberries. They also ate desserts such as pastries, tarts, cakes, crystallized fruit, and syrup.

Breakfast was a small, simple meal, generally consisting of cold foods, as the cook fires were just being lit as the breakfasters were rising. Leftovers, eggs, butter, bread and small beer were commonly taken with breakfast.

In Shakespeare’s times, treason was punished by hanging and dismemberment. Punishments for less serious crimes were often very severe. For example, pickpockets got one finger cut off every time they were caught. Sometimes, people were sentenced to years in prison for stealing very little.

As water was considered unsafe to drink, the Elizabethans drank ale instead. Even children drank ale as it was not very strong. Strong ale was reserved for times they wanted to make merry! The rich drank ale too, but also wine, which was very expensive.

90Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corse, And all things change them to the contrary. All the things that we prepared for the wedding party will now be used for the funeral. Our happy music will now be sad.

Other foods included “shrewsberry” cakes, which shortbread cookies, jellies and junkets (better known as gelatin or jellies), “sassages,” gooseberry foyle, elderberry and blackberry pies. In the theater pit, walnuts, hazelnuts, plums, cherries, peaches, raisins, mussels, periwinkles and crabs were often eaten.

Tudor England Food And Drink. Everyone in Tudor England ate bread and cheese – the only difference between classes was the quality of bread and cheese. The most expensive bread was called ‘marchet’ and made of white wheat flour. Aristocratic households ate marchet, particularly during banquets.

Breakfast usually consisted of bread and beer, with beef for the better-off or porridge for the peasants, while dinner, the main meal of the day, was served between 11 o’clock and midday. Bread was a major part of the diet of all classes and was very different from the bread we eat now.

Three-quarters (75%) of the rich Tudor diet was made up of meat such as oxen, deer, calves, pigs, badger or wild boar. Birds were also eaten, such as chicken, pigeons, sparrows, heron, crane, pheasant, woodcock, partridge, blackbirds and peacocks. Some meat was preserved by rubbing salt into it.