The Elizabethan Context: An Overview

In 1558 Elizabeth I assumed the crown of England. This inaugurated a period of relative peace, commercial and imperial expansion and growing national confidence, lasting until her death in 1603. It was also a period overshadowed by continuing religious frictions that were often extreme, sometimes violent. A Midsummer Night's Dream (hereafter called Dream), written in the mid- tolate 1590s, is therefore Elizabethan though its values reflect those of the late Middle Ages intermixed with those of the Renaissance.

In the wider European literary and political contexts, the period is the High Renaissance. Historians today call it Early Modern because many features of it are recognizably modern while being early in the evolution that shaped our world, but medieval views (particularly as regard conduct, the pervasiveness of religion and attitudes to sin and virtue) endured and coexisted with the Humanism of influential writers like Baldassare Castiglione and Erasmus that had originated on the continent.

Elizabeth, of the Tudor family, much loved, respected and feared, was a strong ruler, indeed strong enough to suppress the addressing of many problems which by her successor's time had become irresolvable. At times a sharply incisive intellect drove her political decisions. At others, caprice and temper made her a dangerous and unreliable force, all the more feared because of her cruelty and absolutism. She could be irritatingly resistant to making important decisions, but always knew where her best interests lay. The peace of her reign was constantly overshadowed by fears of Catholic outrage – against the queen herself or against society in general – or foreign invasion. Externally, the Spanish posed a considerable but diminishing threat to her tenure of the crown. Internally, Catholic opposition had been increased after the Pope declared Elizabeth a bastard and heretic and tacitly encouraged individual assassination attempts against her or state military action. This opposition had outwardly been blunted by the defeat of the Armada (1588), but the great bane of her reign was the claim of Mary Queen of Scots to have a stronger right to the throne of England than her cousin.

Associated with Mary's claim was the constant, very real fear of assassination plots for she provided a focus for discontented Catholics and a ready replacement on the throne. Perhaps with reluctance on Elizabeth's part, but certainly with relief, Mary was eventually executed in 1587 after implication in the Babington plot.